SCI-ART

Check out the stories behind the paintings, and perhaps learn a bit about stream science while you’re at it!

Beavers & Biodiversity

I painted this piece for Sageland Collaborative‘s biodiversity challenge. As I wrote in my Instagram caption:

When I think of biodiversity, I think about scale. How big landscape-level communities are made up of small individuals and how small individuals are influenced by the broader community of organisms as well as other large scale factors like geology and climate, forming a relational web that is fascinating whether you’re looking at a huge mountain or a tiny insect.

It was a different experience to spend a few weeks thinking about how I wanted to show biodiversity through art then make a painting that pulls on hundreds of memories from poking around in streams and beav ponds instead of painting what I see in front of me. (I’m sure nobody is surprised I went for a beaver theme.) To be honest, painting the land that’s in front of me is definitely still my favorite way to create but I’m proud of how this turned out and it’s always good to push myself to create in different ways.

Check out Sageland’s ‘Art Supporting Biodiversity in the West’ blog post to read more of my thoughts on this piece and other artists’ entries!

Middle Rio Grande Water Availability

I did this piece to help communicate my Master’s Thesis research on water availability in the Middle Rio Grande. The style was inspired by Jill Pelto’s gorgeous graph paintings (go check her out if you haven’t seen her work before!). It was a really cool experience because I was writing a three-minute thesis script the same week I was working on the painting and the painting actually helped me think about my research from a different perspective and finish the script!

Painting Pixels

Satellite imagery can be used to learn about all sorts of environmental science issues here on Earth. This piece was inspired by research I worked on through the NASA DEVELOP program–a capacity building program that provides an opportunity to grow your skills in remote sensing while working in partnership with an organization who is also interested in learning how remote sensing could help them achieve their goals. For the research project, we used satellite imagery to identify turbidity plumes entering a river. The satellite imagery we worked with has a 3-meter resolution, meaning each pixel represents a 3-meter square on the ground. I made this piece to illustrate the resolution aspect of our work, along with an example of what a high turbidity stream joining the river looks like.

Rosgen Stream Channel Classification Poster

This poster lays out the 7 main categories used in Rosgen classification. The words and hand symbols are my own creation from when learned how to do the most basic classification for a stream monitoring protocol. I needed a nemonic to help me double check that the classification we’d arrived at based on measurements matched the descriptions so I made my own. (sidebar: it was a monitoring protocol that had been used for the last 30 years and they were hesitant to change due to the long term data–this fact becomes relevant later)

I’d describe Rosgen classification as a personality test for stream channel shapes. In reality, streams are very diverse and have many different dimensions of characteristics (like personalities) but it’s kinda fun to do a personality tests anyways.

Rosgen had a big moment in the ’80s-’00s. In many ways it was a step forward at the time to attempting to restore stream channel by attempting to mimic natural stream shapes. That said, it tried to design stable channels which rather ignores the dynamic and ever changing nature of fluvial systems. Plus our baseline idea of the “ideal stream” being a single channel is based mainly on streams that have been degraded due to lack of beaver, land use, channel straightening, and more.

These days, the river restoration community has a much stronger focus on restoring natural processes to rivers and letting the river determine the channel shape. (except where human infrastructure requires otherwise) Most scientists also now favor other methods of describing streams such as geomorphic unit surveying (mapping features like pools, bars, runs etc.) which better recognizes the inherent complexity of rivers.

Stream Recovery Timelapse

In this painting I use a series of circles to look at how a degraded, semi-arid stream can change after reducing cattle grazing pressure and allowing beavers to move in. This was inspired by my time doing stream habitat assessments in Northeast Nevada where I saw streams in many conditions.

Beaver need willow and riparian woody vegetation as both food and building material. When grazing is poorly managed, these plants can become decimated to the point beavers aren’t able to live there. Lack of vegetation and beaver to stabilize stream banks and absorb hydraulic energy usually leads to increased erosion, channel incision, and floodplain disconnection. The top circle shows what streams are like in areas where over-grazing and beaver removal have led to extremely degraded riparian habitat. The following two circles show expanding vegetation and watery habitat as the stream recovers once grazing pressure has been reduced.

As much as livestock grazing has the ability to absolutely wreak havoc on watersheds, I don’t believe it’s a this or that situation. Responsible, ecologically-informed livestock grazing can absolutely coexist with healthy streams. I recommend this video if you’re interested in learning more about the transformation of a stream in Nevada (one I visited, nonetheless!) where they changed the grazing schedule which allowed riparian vegetation to reestablish and beaver to move in.

Painting Your Favorite Rivers

These three rivers are the first of a series where you tell me why you love a river and I paint it for you. Working in remote sensing had me thinking in a birds eye view and I realized it would be cool to explore fluvial patterns, diversity, and processes by comparing a bunch of different rivers. I considered picking a selection of my own favorites but I love every stream I’ve ever met, how could I choose!?! The more I thought about it, making you do the hard work is a way better idea because then it’s also an opportunity for me to get other people reflecting on why and how they appreciate rivers.

I currently have submissions for another few rounds of rivers so be sure to check back for updates! And feel free to submit a river/stream/creek through email or Instagram! I’ll slowly work through painting them as long as I get submissions.

ps. For a more in depth nerd out on these rivers, check out my “River Proj” Instagram story highlight!

Aquatic Insect Appreciation

To be honest I didn’t grow up a bug person. I didn’t particularly mind them but they weren’t particularly fascinating to me. It wasn’t until I started working with people who knew bugs, learning how aquatic insects tie into food webs and nutrient cycling, and viewing insects though hand lenses that I realized what I was missing out on. How insanely cool it is that these guys can go from little alien-looking water dwellers to dazzling airborne predators! (Fun fact: dragonflies have one of the highest catch rates of all predators!)