“A Natural Combination”

On Wednesday, October 18, I presented a webinar for the Mount Diablo Interpretive Association. The first part of A Natural Combination: A Consideration of Hunting, Conservation, & The Choices We Make focused on conservation history in the United States and how the American system of conservation is funded; the second part of the talk looked at the reasons I hunt, personally. I hope the talk makes the case that, while not all hunters are environmentalists and not all environmentalists are hunters, there’s a natural overlap that needs to be better understood and appreciated by both hunters and anti-hunters. I’m honored that the MDIA invited me to present a talk about a subject that is nuanced and, for many, engenders strong emotions. I did my best.

If you’re interested in viewing the webinar, you can find a recording of it here. I also encourage you to check out some of the other talks archived on the MDIA events page.

"Field Guide" Project In Bay Nature Magazine

The Spring 2023 issue of Bay Nature landed in mailboxes in March and I’m pleased to have my Field Guide series featured in the magazine’s “Nature In The Arts” section.

Published in the print edition as "Bird Watching Reimagined," the write-up is by terrific Bay Area arts writer Matthew Harrison Tedford, who provides a thoughtful overview of Field Guide. I especially like his concluding paragraph:

“[Reiger’s] field guides also prod us to think about how and why we classify and perhaps to look at birds a little differently afterward. Reiger sees turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) every day, but through his classification system he began to see them differently, noticing colors that he describes as deep indigo ink, coffee, and dark chocolate, rather than simply seeing a black bird.”

You can also read the piece online (where it appears with the delightful title, “An Artist Goes Bird-Swatching").

"A Laguna Field Guide"

A Laguna Field Guide is on view at the Laguna de Santa Rosa’s Heron Hall Art Gallery, January 5 – April 28, 2023.

The exhibition features a selection of 20 Field Guide posters with color columns of common or frequently observed Laguna de Santa Rosa bird species. You can read the press release here.

I’m pleased to be exhibiting work at the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation, a Sonoma County conservation organization here that works to “restore and enhance the Laguna de Santa Rosa, and to inspire public appreciation and understanding of this magnificent natural area.” Indeed, the Laguna is now recognized as a Wetland of International Importance, in part because it is an important stopover for thousands of migrating birds.

"Field Guide" Project In Audubon Magazine

The Winter 2022 issue of Audubon Magazine just landed in mailboxes and I’m delighted to have my Field Guide series featured in the magazine’s “Field Notes” section.

Published in the print edition as "Paint By Plumages," my work is beautifully paired with recent scientific research by Richard Prum (Yale University) and Gabriela Venable (Duke University) on hummingbird plumage color. That hummingbirds perceive their own color differently (and more richly) than we humans do is no surprise, but Prum and Venable learned that “the family’s super-saturated plumages out-hued all other birds species…increasing the total known plumage colors by more than half.” Yowsa.

You can also read a variation of the piece online, titled "This Artist’s Paint-Swatch Portraits Reveal the Beauty of Bird Plumage." (Both articles are by Marion Renault.)

"Pepperwood + Art Surround"

Pepperwood + Art Surround is on view at Pepperwood Preserve, December 1, 2022 – early March 2023.

Still in the early, experimental stages of a new body of work I’m calling The In Between, I’m exhibiting an Artist's Proof print, a watercolor and ink drawing, and some preparatory watercolors and studies.

The In Between focuses on crepuscular animal species, those most active at dawn and dusk. I love twilight, the transfigurative borderland between light and dark, when the energy is, for some animals, electric with possibility. Creatively speaking, I'm one of them; my mind sparks in those transitions.

I’m pleased to have so much good company. Also on view in the Pepperwood gallery are handmade paper installations by Jane Ingram Allen and a mixed-media installation by Michelle Hirsch. During the exhibition’s opening reception, there was a poetry reading, Writing Eco-Grief into Resiliency, featuring Kelly Gray and seven Sonoma County writers Gray worked with over the last few months, as well as the premiere of an instrumental composition by Kenny Simeone and the unveiling of a Sonoma County landscape mural created by Magalli Larque and the Latino Service Providers Youth Promotores. Some of the work presented is partially funded by a grant through Creative Sonoma’s ArtSurround project, a new collaborative effort among the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to enhance Sonoma County’s creative vitality by supporting artists and infusing the arts into our public realm.

Many thanks to the Pepperwood team for inviting me to be an artist in residence this year. It’s a very special place, and one I’m pleased to be connected to.

Illustration Work In Bay Nature

I have some illustration work included in the Fall 2022 issue of Bay Nature magazine, hitting bookstore shelves and mailboxes now.

For this fast-turnaround assignment, I created 11 hybrid illustrations (traditional water-based media meets digital) to accompany Austin Price’s Nature’s Pulse, a piece highlighting the alliance of East Bay park and utility districts working to gather and evaluate data on key indicator species of habitat health. It’s always fun to create illustrations for a favorite magazine; working with a terrific art director and having my illustrations reside alongside Jane Kim’s – just cherries on top.

If you don’t have a Bay Nature subscription and you live in the Bay Area, you can pick up a copy of the first-rate magazine at independent (or chain) bookstores, as well as some health food stores and regional supermarkets.

"Ukraine, Forget Me Not"

Field Guide : Eurasian Blue Tit appears in mm and words "Ukraine, Forget Me Not," a limited edition zine created to raise funds for Ukraine Aid Operations. Printed in Denmark, the zine is available at bookstores in London, Milan, and Rome.

Artist and curator Lorenza Galeone asked if I knew of a bird sporting Ukraine's national colors. I initially thought only of tropical bird species, but I wanted to find a geographically-appropriate representative. Enter the Eurasian blue tit. This plucky passerine occurs commonly throughout continental Europe, with a range that extends into Ukraine and western Russia.

"The Pigeon Show"

My rock dove (a.k.a., pigeon) Field Guide color column poster will be in The Pigeon Show, on view at Fayes Video Bench Gallery (San Francisco) August 1 – September 10, 2022. Many thanks to the wonderful Michael McConnell for inviting me to join the art flock.

"Field Guide" In BirdWatching Magazine

The February 2022 issue of BirdWatching just landed on shelves and I’m delighted to see my Field Guide series featured in the magazine’s “On The Wire” section.

Added bonus: the blurb about my project runs just underneath a segment about a new birding podcast, Life List, which is co-hosted by family friend and birding world superstar, George Armistead, along with Bay Area-based Alvaro Jaramillo and West Virginian Mollee Brown. If you’re a bird nerd like me, I think you’ll enjoy the conversations – give it a listen!

“An Artist's Approach To Avian Taxonomy"

The Golden Gate Audubon Society blog ran a short essay of mine this week. “Field Guide: An Artist’s Approach To Avian Taxonomy” provides a little more backstory about my Field Guide project.

In the days’ interstitial spaces, I started turning over an unrealized idea I’d jotted down in a sketchbook years ago – “create bird species paint chips.” There was a germ of something exciting there, but what?

It also includes more detail about the process of creating each Field Guide poster. If you’re interested in learning more, click on through.

Also, if you’re a bird nerd based in the San Francisco Bay Area, I also encourage you to learn more about Golden Gate Audubon and to consider supporting their work.

“Rooted In Relationship”

On Wednesday, September 8, I presented a webinar for the Mount Diablo Interpretive Association. Rooted In Relationship surveyed two decades of my art, illustration, and design projects with a focus on the through lines – my fascination with the relationship between human and nonhuman animals and my conviction that each of us urgently needs to cultivate a sense of place (if we’re to be responsible stewards). I’m honored that the MDIA invited me to present.

If you’re interested in viewing the webinar, you can find a recording of it here. I also encourage you to check out some of the other talks archived on the MDIA events page.

"Field Guide" Poster Prints Available!

I’m thrilled to announce that Field Guide posters are available for purchase in my print shop!

Each handsome poster print features rich, appealing colors on archival, acid-free matte paper. At launch, there are posters featuring seventeen different species; I plan to add another species each week. If you have a special request, please let me know!

Per my charitable sales model, whenever a Field Guide poster is purchased, a contribution equal to 10% of the print’s cost is made to a nonprofit working to tackle environmental or social challenges.

What is the Field Guide poster project all about? As a natural history nerd, I often think about how we humans classify and catalog life. The social implications of our evolved human impulse to categorize are generally grim, but the same proclivity allows us to better appreciate evolution and the relationship between species, subspecies, and ecological races (or ecotypes).

For the Field Guide project, I consider birds from one angle – literally, birds viewed in profile. I then breakdown each bird by color (plumage, legs, beaks/bills, and eyes) and create the column shown in the center of each poster. The colors in each column are stacked according to the percentage of a given color observed, with the largest share at the column’s top and the smallest share at the column’s base. The bird’s English common name and its scientific binomial are noted on the poster’s base, along with information on the bird’s sex, and, if relevant, plumage variation.

The resulting posters are visually compelling tributes to each featured species. Exhibited together, the posters can also be organized into a loose color taxonomy, providing an alternative, aestheticized approach to classifying or grouping these species.

I hope that the “Field Guide” posters will be appreciated by bird nerds, designers, and lovers of Josef Albers (🟪🟦🟩), but the project is also a playful way for me to both celebrate and critique the necessarily imperfect science of taxonomy.

Illustration Work For Hover Pictures

Watercolor and digital illustrations associated with the Lookout Slough Mitigation Bank in Solano County, CA. An aerial view of Lookout Slough; Chinook salmon fry (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha); a light morph Swainson’s hawk (Buteo swainsoni).

Despite the pandemic relaxing its grip a bit (in the States, at least), I’m still a full-time dad. I’ve taken very few paying gigs in the last 14 months. I look forward to the fall, when I expect to return to my work in earnest. Still, the studio isn’t totally fallow now.

I recently created 17 hybrid illustrations (traditional water-based media meets digital) for Hover Pictures, a production company based in Oakland and NYC. The illustrations are used in a film highlighting the work of Ecosystem Investment Partners, a private equity firm that acquires, restores, and manages properties that generate wetland, stream, and endangered species mitigation credits. Mitigation credits are similar to carbon credits; they’re used to offset ecological losses associated with development projects by providing for the preservation and restoration of a different area. These credit programs have their critics, but they’re also a critical tool for regional land trusts as well as global conservation nonprofits like the Nature Conservancy or Audubon Society.

Watercolor and digital illustrations associated with the Lake Superior Mitigation Bank in St. Louis County, MN. A great grey owl (Strix nebulosa); a light morph rough-legged hawk (Buteo lagopus); a grey wolf (Canis lupus); white pine trees and cone (Pinus strobus).

Watercolor and digital illustrations associated with the Riverpark Mitigation Bank in Riverside County, CA. An aerial view of Riverpark Mitigation Bank; spreading navarretia (Navarretia fossalis); Tidy tips (Layia platyglossa).

ecoartspace: The Human Animal Connection

I’m pleased to be participating in an ecoartspace Zoom Dialogue on Thursday, March 11. I am one of four presenting artists considering the human animal connection. Jan Harrison will discuss her ongoing series including paintings and sculpture titled Animals in the Anthropocene, Rachel Frank will present her Rewilding performances in site-specific landscapes and in videos, Lenore Malen will present her Post Humanist projects including Eve in Sheepland, and I will talk about my Familiar series and the human-non-human gaze.

An hour of presentations will be followed by a Q&A led by Ron Broglio, a senior sustainability scholar at the Global Institute for Sustainability at Arizona State University, where he is also the Director of Desert Humanities and Co-Director of the Institute for Humanities Research.

Learn more and register here.

Essay In City Creatures

Way back in pre-pandemic time, I gave a talk at the Palo Alto Art Center in conjunction with the exhibition “Encounters: Honoring the Animal in Ourselves” (September-December 2019).

I’ve turned the talk into a short essay about nurturing a sense of place, and it's published this week on City Creatures, the blog of the Chicago-based Center for Humans and Nature.

You can read it here.

Illustration Work In Bay Nature

Given how very little time I have for either the studio or paying gigs these days, I’m especially pleased to have some illustration work included in the Summer 2020 issue of Bay Nature magazine, which lands in mailboxes this week.

Three hybrid illustrations (traditional water-based media meets digital) of a little willow flycatcher (Empidonax traillii brewsteri), western grebe (Aechmophorus occidentalis), and a Middle Fork of the Stanislaus River landscape accompany Jane Braxton Little’s “A Cautionary Conservation Tale,” a probing account of how a “historic and monumental” conservation deal dating to 2003 is today regarded as “a vision unfulfilled.”

If you don’t have a Bay Nature subscription and you live in the Bay Area, you can pick up a copy of the first-rate magazine at independent (or chain) bookstores, as well as some health food stores and regional supermarkets.

Announcing Two New Limited Edition Prints

I’m delighted to announce that two new limited editions are now available on my website’s print shop. The prints were produced by the wonderful and conscientious John Janca (art•bot photography). I prioritized making these prints affordable, so grab them while they last!

Per my charitable sales model, 10% of each print price is donated to a nonprofit working to tackle pressing environmental or social challenges. Each print ships with a certificate of authenticity and care advice.

“Anima/Animus: Cyanocitta stelleri”
Archival pigment print on 100% acid free cotton-rag paper
20 x 20 inches
Edition of 25
$100

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“Anima/Animus: Corvus corax”
Archival pigment print on 100% acid free cotton-rag paper
16 x 16 inches
Edition of 25
$80

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Press for "Encounters"

Encounters: Honoring the Animal in Ourselves (Palo Alto Art Center) was on view September 14-December 29, 2019. It was a wonderful exhibition; I’m proud to have been a part of it, and I can’t thank the PAAC team enough.

Two reviews were published, and I’ve included the links below.

• Matthew Harrison Tedford, “Artistic Encounters With Animals Say Something About Being Human,” KQED Arts, October 22, 2019

• Karla Kane, “Exploring Animal 'Encounters' at the Palo Alto Art Center,” Palo Alto Weekly, October 4

Asylum Arts’ Bay Area Jewish Artist Retreat

I’ve just returned from the Asylum Arts’ Bay Area Jewish Artist Retreat. The mission of Brooklyn-based Asylum Arts is to support “contemporary Jewish culture on an international scale, bringing greater exposure to artists and cultural initiatives and providing opportunities for new projects and collaborations.”

I was delighted to decamp to the Mill Valley woods for a long weekend. As part of the retreat, I co-led a “sense of place” walk just upslope from one of only two streams in the Bay Area identified as essential to the recovery of coho salmon in California.

The time outdoors was a treat, but the most vital and exciting part of the retreat was the assembled cohort, 27 other artists – poets, filmmakers, playwrights, social practice peeps, musicians, choreographers, visual artists, and more – that I got to know over the course of four intense days. Surely, we only scratched the surface, but it often felt intimate; I cried (more than once). On the retreat’s last night, dirty blonde wig donned, I shook my ass on the dance floor. Throwing my head side to side while singing along with Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own,” I realized I was partying with people I trust and respect – people who were total strangers just days before.

I’m incredibly impressed with the vision and execution of the Asylum team. I went in with an open mind, but quite skeptical; now I feel only gratitude. What a remarkable and remarkably unexpected experience. I need time to process it, but I look forward to seeing what exciting collaborations and conversations come out of what we started under the redwoods.

Recent Illustration Work

I subscribe to Bay Nature magazine because it’s a rich source of information for nature and ecology nerds living in the Bay Area. But it’s more than that; the articles are consistently well written and thoughtfully edited, and the magazine’s art direction, photography, and illustrations are top-notch.

It’s a pleasure and an honor to have my work on the cover of the Fall issue and (inside) illustrating Marissa Ortega Welch’s excellent feature about acorn woodpeckers, everybody’s favorite clown-faced communists. (Seriously. You’ll have to read the piece to learn more.)