Indiana Waterways:
The Art of Conservation
Indiana Waterways: The Art of Conservation is a 200+ page book that features a collection of essays from environmentalists, journalists and storytellers, paired with over 100 pieces of art in a mix of mediums and styles promote the conservation of Indiana waterways.
Over 500 copies of the book were sold and art was featured in exhibitions throughout the state of Indiana.
Today, the essays and art can be enjoyed for free.
It began with five painters in the midst of the pandemic, asking what they could do.
The resulting work snared environmentalists, scholars, publishers, and curators, all looking at how we can save and recognize one of Indiana’s most significant natural resources: our rivers and streams. This project was about those who want to save and protect our waterways.
Sponsored by ArtNature Consortium, the project promotes conservation efforts to restore 65,000 miles of Indiana waterways. In August 2020, around an outside BBQ grill, the artists committed to paint Indiana waterways then create a touring exhibition.
The eclectic mix of artists and writers made this project unique. Artists used various mediums, styles, and literary arts to communicate the need to clean up our waterways. Many of Indiana’s rivers and streams are unfit for human contact and are rated some of the worst in the nation.
Scientists, journalists, and writers told stories of how Indiana waterways are essential to sustaining healthy ecosystems and communities. They presented firsthand accounts of how rivers and tributaries in the state have impacted them personally and, in some cases, detailed how even our most polluted systems can be saved through immediate action.
Telling the whole story – of Indiana’s natural beauty and its hidden realities – often requires multiple layers and multiple mediums. ArtNature has partnered with galleries and art museums across the state to share what our artists, essayists and scientists have learned.
ArtNature cross pollinates to create a diversity that exposes new audiences to art while, at the same time, revealing the urgency of responsible conservation.
Work has been in the Hoosier Salon Gallery, New Harmony Gallery and Minnetrista Museum and Gardens, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Indiana State Museum of Art and the Rupp Family Gallery at the Landmark Center in Indianapolis.
Doug May – Noblesville, IN
"Indiana Waterways is a triumphant mix of art, science and a call to action. The artists show the beauty of Indiana rivers through their paintings, and the essays describe their natural and recorded history. The biggest takeaway: we all can do more to ensure the health of our waterways."
Meet the artists and essayists who contributed to this project.
Essayist
Jason Goldsmith
Jason Goldsmith is Professor of English and program director of the Vivian S. Delbrook Visiting Writers Series at Butler University, where he teaches courses on literature, art, and the environment.
Exploring the twinned unraveling of social and ecological networks in an age of environmental crisis, his essays and paintings have appeared in River Teeth, Grasmere, Humana Obscura, as well as on the cover of publications from the University of Iowa Press.
He enjoys hiking, sitting by a river sketching, and spending time outdoors with his wife andchildren.
Essayist
Carson Gerber
Carson Gerber is a journalist who has worked in Indiana and Ohio for more than a decade reporting on local topics and the environmental impact industries have on Indiana communities.
In 2019, he and a reporting team won the Associated Press’ top newswriting award in Indiana for an investigative series on Howard County’s opioid epidemic.
Gerber, a canoeing enthusiast, paddled the entire length of the Wabash River over a 10-year period.
Essayist
Jerry Sweeten
Dr. Jerry Sweeten taught biology at Manchester University (formerly Manchester College), where he is Professor Emeritus of Biology and Environmental Studies.
He owns and operates the Ecosystems Connections Institute in Denver, Indiana.
His work centers on the ecological systems and restoration of waterway systems with a primary focus on the Eel River Basin restoration.
Artist
Tom Woodson
Tom Woodson (b. 1961) is a self-taught oil painter from Muncie, IN. He paints in the tradition of classical Indiana landscape, similar to the Richmond Group and Brown County traditions.
Tom has been painting for more than 20 years, often alongside his brother, Dan.
His work—which hangs in museums, businesses, and collectors’homes—demonstrates the fact that Tom possesses the rare quality of pure talent.
Artist
Dan Woodson
Dan Woodson (b. 1945) is an oil painter from Muncie, IN. He has been painting with his brother, Tom, for more than 20 years.
In 1998, Dan created a similar exhibition and book with four other artists, illustrating Indiana’s 92 counties. Those paintings now hang in homes, businesses and libraries.
Dan founded the Indiana Plein Air Painters Association (IPAPA), which currently includes about 300 members. He is known nationally among artist circles and national publications, including some abroad.
Dan paints in the tradition of classical Indiana landscape, similar to the Richmond Group and Brown County traditions.
Artist
Curt Stanfield
Curt Stanfield, (b. 1962) from Rosedale, Indiana, paints in oils and has a distinctly unique style that uses thick applications of color and unexpected perspectives. His work is alaprima and tonalistic.
Stanfield retired in 2017, and hadn’t painted in 30 years. While vacationing in Vieques, Puerto Rico in February of 2018, he painted a small 12x12 canvas to donate to a Humane Society Auction at the Siddhia Hutchinson Gallery. It was painted seaside on a borrowed canvas. The resounding reception of that small painting “lit a fuse that has grown into a burning passion inside me to paint full-time and has become the driving force in my retired life,” Stanfield says.
Stanfield is a member of the Indiana Plein Air Painters Association (IPAPA) and has won many of the top Hoosier art awards. In the short time he has been painting full-time, he has received many prestigious invitational memberships and awards, something that takessome artists decades to accomplish. He is routinely accepted into all the major Indiana exhibitions and sells nationally.
Artist
John Kelty
John Kelty (b. 1964) is from Fort Wayne, IN, and works exclusively in watercolor. He is a member of the Watercolor Society of Indiana, the American Watercolor Society, the Indiana Plein Air Painters Association (IPAPA) and is the past president and current board member of the Fort Wayne Artists Guild (FWAG), which includes nearly 200 artist members.
He was born and raised in New Haven, IN, as one of 13 children. He attended the University of St. Francis in Fort Wayne and graduated with a degree in Commercial Art. He worked in the printing industry in many capacities for 20 years.
Kelty’s work is widely exhibited across Indiana and housed not only in collections of homes and businesses, but also part of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art’s permanent collection. He is an Indiana Hoosier Salon exhibitor and the winner of numerous awards, including a 2021 American Impressionist Society award.
Artist
Avon Waters
Avon Waters (b. 1954) is a pastel and acrylic artist from Converse, IN. He is the past president of Indiana Plein Air Painters Association (IPAPA), an art organizer, and a project lead. He has shown his work throughout Indiana and other states. His work is in many collections, including some abroad.
Waters recently completed a traveling exhibition with the IPAPA membership and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources—“Historic Indiana en Plein Air”—where he also served as the project lead.
His work borders on representational, but more emotionally energetic and can verge on abstraction.