So this inspiring person is my youngest sister. She’s doing some things I admire so much: she’s a full-on conservation artist who makes murals, designs exhibits, teaches classes, and bands birds. That’s just the beginning!

This semester, she’s teaching  Ethics of the Environment: Through the Artist’s Eye, and Aesthetic Expressions: Imaging nature. She tells me both focus on (mostly Western) ecological art; one also includes history of conservation in the US and ethical theory; the other draws on the history of art (performance, including music, visual, and literary) and art theory. Cool, huh?

She’s not much for social media, so I can’t point you to much more of her online presence, besides her website (https://www.blackburgeart.com/art/). But as she’s amazingly busy—as if work and art weren’t enough—it might not be up to date!

She, like me, recommends shade-grown/bird-friendly coffee. I last saw her banding Canada Geese a few weeks back; her nieces and nephews got to band ducks with her even more recently, and we keep trying to meet up to talk about this interesting symposium coming up at the University of Vermont: Feverish World: 2018-2068: Arts AND Sciences of Collective Survival.  Find out more at https://ecoculturelab.net/feverish-world-symposium/