Art Is for the Birds
An Arizona educator shares how creativity can connect people, birds, and conservation.
Art has the potential to connect people with each other and with big ideas whose scope can sometimes be difficult to comprehend. To bring home the issue of climate change and how it鈥檚 affecting birds, 探花精选 staff and volunteers are using mosaics, murals, and other creative projects to help spread the word.听
At the 探花精选 Convention 2015, visitors decorated colorful squares of paper with images of their #ClimateThing鈥攚hatever brings the climate issue home for them and inspires them to make a difference. Some people drew a bluebird, Burrowing Owls, or an American Redstart. Other squares featured a hedgehog, wildflowers, or the Sonoran Desert. By the last day of the convention, the squares formed a mosaic with yellow letters that spelled out 鈥淗OPE.鈥
Cathy Wise, education director for 探花精选 Arizona, organized the project to engage convention attendees about . She wanted to connect people鈥檚 creativity with a message of hope about climate because she鈥檚 found that art is 鈥渁 medium that speaks to us on a different level than other things,鈥 such as facts and figures. 鈥淎rt is fun, and so it gives people permission to let their guards down a little bit,鈥 she said.
She鈥檚 seen this through her work in Phoenix with , a program that relocates from development sites to protected land at the 探花精选 Rio Salado Center and city parkland.
After artist Teresa Dendy and her teenage daughter volunteered with Downtown Owls, Dendy was inspired to paint a mural of the owls under the Central Avenue bridge in Phoenix. The mural depicts the owls鈥 diet and habitat in such a way that passers-by can learn about the birds visually. 鈥淎rt is very personal,鈥 Wise said. She says she鈥檚 seen how powerful art can be for people who aren鈥檛 engaged in a lot of natural history studies or science.
And art is an especially great way to connect with kids, like the summer camp participants at the Rio Salado Center. There, fifth and sixth graders draw posters each week and give a presentation to their peers to learn about topics like desert wildlife and Arizona streams. (This year鈥檚 campers contributed several drawings to get the 鈥淗OPE鈥 mosaic started.)
Other endeavors like the also take advantage of art鈥檚 ability to connect with people on a basic and creative level. With ingredients as simple as paper and markers, art projects can inspire people to share why they care about addressing climate change鈥攁nd why there are reasons for hope.
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