Environmental Issues in Art

Kimberly Anderson Ritchie is an Associate Professor of Art and Coordinator of the Drawing, Painting, and Printmaking programs at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, NH. Ritchie received her Masters of Fine Art from Colorado State University. Ritchie’s artistic practice focuses on an array of environmental issues. She is an interdisciplinary artist who works with a variety of processes including printmaking, paper arts, photography, painting, drawing, installation, and the use of natural materials. She has taught, exhibited, and attended artist residencies throughout the United States and internationally in China, Sweden, Iceland, and Greece.​

Ritchie is constantly researching, collecting, and exploring the natural world. Her current work evolves around an in-depth study of environmental issues, from air pollution affecting lichen, global climate change affecting sea level rise, to our dependence on plastic and the effects it has on the world’s oceans.  The artwork is a response to the research; some works simply use the issue as a starting point while other work clearly displays the concern.  Ritchie is trying to bring the beauty, mystery, and conservation of the land back into our daily focus through the image-making process.  The artwork is a way of internalizing the natural world and expressing concern.

Space is limited to 30.
Pre-registration is required.

Common Roots of
Art and Science 

Raisa Kochmaruk is a natural illustrator and science communicator who joined the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation in 2021. Growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Raisa loved drawing and painting birds and other wildlife, and frequently took commissions for children and family portraits throughout high school.

She graduated from Cornell University in with a degree in Environment and Sustainability. At Cornell, Raisa was involved regularly in projects with the Ornithology Lab, including illustrated panels highlighting specimens in the Museum of Vertebrates, paintings for NestWatch and FeederWatch blog articles, illustrations for a pamphlet guide to the Birds of Arizona, and various illustrations for her peers’ research posters. Raisa was commissioned to create the Hubbard Brook Mural for the US Forest Service Headquarters building over the summer of 2021, and spent June-September that year studying, painting, and writing about the Hubbard Brook forest. After finishing the Hubbard Brook mural, Raisa spent nine months painting a mural for Lehigh Valley Audubon Society depicting chimney swift migration.

Space is limited to 30.
Pre-registration is required.

Plant Paint Cross-Pollinate

Learn more about the work of visual artist Jenn Houle, who explores human’s relationship to the natural world, inspired by energy cycles in nature and environmental concerns. The talk will focus on her current project: ‘Plant Paint Cross-Pollinate’ a public art migrating mural focused on the importance of native plants to pollinators and ecosystem health through collaborative community art and planting events. Jenn will share environmentally friendly land practices including action steps to convert your own backyard (or backstep) to habitat and resources to educate yourself further.

See more of Jenn’s work at jennhoule.com

Space is limited to 30.
Pre-registration is required.