Ecological by Design: Painting Sonoma’s Open Spaces, Through the Lens of Land Stewardship
Ecological by Design brings artistic expression and environmental stewardship into conversation, as we speak with artists in our community about how their relationship with nature and their creative practice inform one another. In this installment, prescribed fire practitioner Calvin Howell finds connectivity and meaning by sharing his art—a once privately-kept practice—with his community.
I have loved visual art for as long as I can remember, and I was really supported in that growing up. I think I was lucky because I knew that I loved it, and I still love it more than anything else I know how to do. A lot of my first working experiences were in the arts. I flirted with doing it professionally for a long time, with the idea of going to art school or trying to get a job as an illustrator. But I never wanted to pigeonhole myself and ultimately I’m glad I made that decision. That’s what brought me to land stewardship.
Drawing and painting have always been a private thing for me—I haven’t been the best at sharing my work. Land stewardship, on the other hand, was something that I could do with other people, for other people. In the last year or two I’ve come back around to taking my artwork more seriously again and it's been gratifying to find that what felt like decades of messing around has turned into something that people in my community connect with and get meaning from. That’s made it so much more meaningful for me.
When you are working on the land, you get to see and touch a part of the world we forget about often in the rest of day-to-day life.
Painting lets me feel like I can bring home a little bit of that magic.
I primarily work in gouache, painting landscapes. My painting is very informed by my work in land stewardship. I think that's visible in the landscapes I choose, which are usually depictions of Sonoma or Marin Counties where I have worked the most. Being able to tie land stewardship and visual art has been incredibly inspiring. When you are working on the land, you get to see and touch a part of the world we forget about often in the rest of day-to-day life. You get to see phenomena that are deeply magical and usually hidden. Painting lets me feel like I can bring home a little bit of that magic, I can put it on my shelf and remember it.
When it comes to developing my skills, I've gotten a lot out of scientific illustration. Even though it can be intimidating due to the emphasis on accuracy, one of the key concepts of scientific or botanical illustration is observation. You don’t realize what your eye skips over until you have to focus on every detail. It can be really enlightening and does wonders for species identification.
When I learn a new plant, I always try to draw it.
That being said, a lot of the beauty and inspiration that I personally draw from the natural world doesn’t instantly translate to paper just based on accuracy. When you see an incredible landscape, there's more to it than that. Conditions, emotion, context; there is storytelling involved. I believe that this part of one’s relationship to the natural world is best shown through interpretation. I shoot for accuracy when I paint, but I also try to incorporate feeling.
As an artist, especially a new one, I think that understanding can be very liberating. You don't have to get that color just right or that line perfectly straight. Just engaging through interpretation is a very honest and intimate way to connect to the natural world.
Calvin (Cal) Howell is an artist and land steward in Sonoma County. Born and raised in Santa Rosa, Cal spent the better part of a decade in the northeastern US, where he received his MA in environmental policy. Cal returned to Sonoma County in 2022 to work in land stewardship and beneficial fire, including as a member of Fire Forward’s Prescribed Fire Module. Cal is currently back to the policy sector to help bring beneficial fire to more regions across California. See more of his artwork at www.calvinhowellart.com
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