Art is meant to be appreciated. Appreciation leads to conservation. These are the guiding principles behind Karen Talbot's art. Conservation through appreciation.

When William Henry Jackson showed his photographs of the northwest corner of Wyoming to Congress, Congress chose to create Yellowstone National Park. Art can be a powerful thing, especially when it communicates the beauty of wildlife and wilderness.

Travel and Art

Karen has traveled the world with a sketch pad in hand. She has drawn morning dew on a blade of grass in Wyoming and the silvery flash of a California Steelhead on the Piru. She has faithfully recorded Mexican landscapes, captured the sheen of light on a Costa Rican bird's feather and detailed the remarkable colors of a Fijian flasher wrasse. Her art is the physical manifestation of her appreciation of Nature.

Education and Art

While the art Karen creates is an ends in and of itself, it is also, she hopes, a means to another ends. "To appreciate wildlife art and landscapes is to appreciate the wildlife and landscapes themselves, and they need our help," Karen says. "If my art inspires someone to consider the importance of conservation, then I have succeeded."

Fishes and Art

While Karen is always open-minded about her art, she has dedicated 2009 to an extensive study of freshwater and saltwater fishes of California. See her fishes series this summer at the Sawdust
Art Festival in Laguna Beach.