Protect What You Love: Art as Advocacy

Discover our area's unique flora and fauna through various art styles and mixed media by local artists

About the Artists

Wes Eagle-Gibbs: is a wood artist from Marin who does residential and fine gallery work. He combines his myriad of experiences in nature as a naturalist with his professional career as a carpenter, to create one of kind pieces for clients. His work often involves blending rare wood species with intricate stone inlay. From a decade of following animal trails all over the US, he places scientifically accurate animal trails in wood and lets his imagination and his love for wood do the rest. To learn more about his work, please reach out to him at wildpathww@gmail.com, wildpathww@gmail.com     

Sarah Killingsworth: is an award-winning wildlife conservation photographer and filmmaker who has always loved wildlife and exploring wild places. She lives in Inverness part-time, and even when she is elsewhere, her heart is always in the Point Reyes National Seashore.  Her photographs are the result of countless hours in the wilderness, watching and capturing animal behavior.  Passionate about stories of coexistence, especially with native predators, Sarah is inherently curious about the intersection of humans and wildlife habitats, how wildlife adapts to ever-encroaching human development as well as ways we can work to protect species before they become endangered.   A certified California Naturalist, Sarah is a member of the Board of the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin and the NANPA Ethics Committee and is also the Program Coordinator for the Keeping it Wild Youth Education and Outreach Program with Project Coyote.  Her images have been published, in print and online, by a variety of publications, including National Wildlife Magazine, The Hill, bioGraphic, Bay Nature, and Audubon. sarahkillingsworth.com

Barbara Libby-Steinmann: lives with her husband in San Geronimo, California. She was born and raised in Switzerland. Barbara, holds a BFA in Visual Merchandising and Illustration and a Visual Arts teaching credential. She has been working in visual arts education for two decades and has received county and statewide recognition for her teaching excellence and curriculum design. Her artwork has been published in editorial and community events and her paintings and drawings have been cherished by private collectors in the United States, Canada and Switzerland. Barbara accepts commissions, for a free consultation, please reach out to her at blibbysteinmann@gmail.com, barbaralibby.com/index.html

Mark Lipman: has a long history of producing and directing social issue documentary films, and over the last ten years has refocused his attention on the natural world. First drawn to this work by the sound of hundreds of snow geese rising together, he has become deeply involved with nature sound recording, and serves on the board of the Nature Sounds Society, an organization dedicated to the preservation, appreciation, and creative use of natural sounds. He is currently leading a soundscape mapping project in collaboration with the Point Reyes National Seashore Association and the National Park Service at Point Reyes National Seashore. openstudioproductions.com

Mike O’Shea: is working presently with etching, photogravure, and transfer paintings. His recent West Marin solo shows were at Artiquity, the Dance Palace, TBG Gallery, and group exhibits at Gallery Route One and Seager/Gray Gallery in Mill Valley. 

“As a resident of West Marin, I cannot help being intrigued by the surrounding forest and the patterns made by the trees. Trees have such individuality, while searching for light. My work is an examination of the trees as seen in many ways, against the depth of their surroundings. Most of the imagery is from Tomales Bay State Park, which surrounds our home.”

He obtained his MFA in 1993 in printmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute, and since has engaged in painting, printmaking, and photography. Early on, he worked in very large format photography using alternative non-silver printing technics, including photogravure and in making artist’s books.  For seventeen years in France, while he and his wife, Judy, restored an old water mill, they conducted an artist’s retreat for bay area art teachers. While there he painted and made sculptures of printed ceramic and recycled wood in collaboration with another artist. pointreyesart.com/artist/mike-oshea

Shelley Rugg: is originally from Southern California, Shelley has lived in West Marin for 10 years. Reconnecting humanity with nature is the core motivation in her work. With the devastating impact of climate change looming, she believes we must awaken to the emergency and prepare to take extreme measures in order to have any hope of saving the future for those who will carry on long after we are gone. shelleyrugg.com/new-works

Kathryn St. Clair: works out of her studio in downtown Petaluma, where she focuses mainly on landscape-inspired paintings of “imagined places” in oil on canvas and watercolor. The interconnectedness of elements with the environment, as well as the state of flux in our world, are themes Kathryn works with in her pieces. Her process is an exploration of the elemental forces in nature- the water, atmosphere, light and land. 

Kathryn’s artwork has been purchased and installed in the Stanford University Medical Center, and was commissioned by the U.S. Forest Service for a painting in their permanent collection in 2016. In 2020 and 2021 Kathryn was commissioned for public art campaigns for voter participation and water conservation. Her landscape work is currently represented by the Christopher Hill Gallery in Saint Helena. Kathryn has recently been selected as one of four artists to have large-format printed work installed in the new UCSF Bayfront Medical Building at Mission Bay (opening in 2024). kathrynstclair.com/home.html

Xander Weaver-Scull: is a West Marin native, and a teaching artist in the Bay Area. He’s a printmaker who has been using stencils for fine art since 2011, when he studied how to use visual art for social and environmental justice messaging at Hampshire College. He is working on a children’s book about threatened and endangered species that have recovered as way engage with children about protecting and healing the planet without using fear and apocalyptic framing. As a teaching artist, Xander has worked with Artist Teaching Art in Marin and Artseed in SF. He worked as a nature educator with Vilda, a non-profit that takes kids outside and teaches them about local plants, animals, ecosystems and much more, for four years until the world paused for 2020. 2020 was also the year that his first child was born, and later his second in 2023. galleryrouteone.org/2021/08/xander-weaver-scull

Inkind Supporters

Proceeds will benefit our mission to protect and sustain the unique lands, waters, and biodiversity of West Marin through advocacy, education, and engagement programs, and local artists.