Talk on Art and Nature

Neal Maine. Photo courtesy of NCLC.

As the founder and first executive director of the North Coast Land Conservancy, and before that an Oregon Shores board member, Neal Maine knows all about the gritty details of land use planning, water quality, restoration, and other aspects of conservation policy.  And as a retired biology teacher, he is deeply versed in science.  But he wants to talk about something else—art, and how it can ignite a passion for nature that in turn leads to action to protect it.

Maine will explore how artists connect us with the natural world and inspire us to protect it in a program called “Wildlife:  The Artist’s Eye and You,” on Wednesday, May 17, at 6 p.m. in the Seaside Public Library (1131 Broadway St.).  This is the final Listening to the Land lecture of the season; these talks are sponsored by the North Coast Land Conservancy and the Necanicum Watershed Council.  The event is free and open to all.

Since his retirement, Maine has turned his attention toward aesthetics: capturing wildlife on his camera and developing a greater appreciation for other art forms that celebrate nature. With video, still photographs, poetry and music, he will share his own journey to better understand the natural world through not just the logical left brain but the more intuitive, creative right brain. “If we don’t create a right-brain context for the wild,” he says, “we’ll just keep doing what we’ve been doing: studying the beaver, studying the salmon, but with none of the emotion that causes actions that are consistent with how the solar system works.” Those would be actions that help, rather than hinder, conservation of habitat upon which all life, including human life, depends.