Wildlife and Nature Artistry in Louisiana

Submitted to the Piney Woods Journal in 2019

Many of us spend time outdoors hunting, fishing, hiking, biking or involved with other types of recreational activities. These experiences can often leave stirring memories that sustain us as we carry out our work and everyday lives. Some nature lovers are photographers who preserve their peak outdoor experiences. Photographers, such as the well-known C.C. Lockwood, have choice and composition skills that visually appeal to many others.

There’s a wide range of famous wildlife and nature artists who include Impressionists such as Monet and Cezanne as well as some of the pastoral or landscape painters in England and in the Hudson school.  John James Audubon certainly ranks high among American wildlife artists, and George Rodrique and Margaret Stones are two more acclaimed painters with Louisiana roots.  Talented taxidermists, wood turners, and duck/animal carvers can certainly be added to a listing of wildlife and nature artists.  I’m lucky to have had a large, oval wood bowl (shown above) that was crafted a decade ago by Natchitoches wood turner George Olivier and made from a huge, old black walnut tree on our Winn Parish property.  George Olivier died in 2017, but his daughter Chalon Abhol continues with woodworking in Natchitoches. 

While few probably claim to be wildlife artists themselves or even very knowledgeable art critics, many of us fall into the category of those who simply "know what we like" or what appeals to us on a very personal and intuitive basis. Placing myself firmly in that category, I'll mention a couple of additional Louisiana wildlife and nature artists who have really impressed me with their unique perspectives. Both of these two artists were born and raised in faraway Idaho and worked as rangers or volunteers in Pacific Northwest wilderness areas before moving in later years to work in Louisiana.

Rick Kom has been pursuing wildlife art on a full-time basis since 2001.  He employs a unique etching approach that is similar in some ways to scrimshaw artists who work with ivory.  He employs a sewing needle to etch carefully through a black India ink surface to a layer of white kaolin clay underneath. Opaque watercolors are then gently brushed into the exposed clay lines. This approach yields wildlife subjects that have vivid and life-like appearances.  Rick has an exceptional range of wildlife subjects, beyond my photos of his dragonfly, heron, and black bear subjects.   

Joan Schroeder moved to Louisiana about 20 years and has long been accomplished in many different forms of art, including watercolors, oils, bronze sculpting, ceramics, welding, fabrics and quilting.  Joan taught high school art for many years and was an art gallery owner at one time.  Her intense interest in recent years has been portraying swamp scenes and tree subjects on quilts. She starts all of her art work by sketching from her observations or from photos that she or others have made.  Joan spends eight-hour days for a month or more on projects and admits to having somewhat of a careful or “perfectionist” approach to the artistic process.  Her work has been accepted and appeared at numerous national and regional exhibitions.  I’ve included a photo of Joan posing over one of her sketches of several cypress trees that will eventually be incorporated into a large quilt.  Also shown are photos of two completed quilts of hers, both with swamp tree subjects and from recent quilt exhibitions.   

Nature art by Joan and by Rick appeals to my own personal taste, but may not interest others nearly as much as other Louisiana artists.  I encourage each of you to go online yourself to discover many of our state wildlife artists, to find a few of these artists whose work has very strong appeal to you, and to support their artistry in at least some limited way.