My contribution to Smith Nature Symposium Awards, Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods

As an artist, my paintings are like my children. I put my heart and soul into every piece I work on. When that painting goes to someone who deserves it most, my heart soars. Every year, with the announcement at Smith Nature Symposium Awards Ceremony, I hand over one original painting to the distinguished environmental leadership award winner of the year. From 2015 to 2021 I have donated seven original paintings to the environmental activists, scientists, writers, and organization leaders who have paved the paths toward environmental protection.

Why through Brushwood Center? The mission statement says it all. Quote from Brushwood Center website.

“Located among pristine woodlands in the Ryerson historic home in Riverwoods, Illinois, Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods promotes the importance of nature for nurturing personal and community wellbeing, cultivating creativity, and inspiring learning. In doing so, we honor the legacy of those who came before us on this land and champion a region where people will care about and for nature.

As an arts and cultural center in a 565-acre nature oasis, Brushwood Center is the only organization in the greater Chicago region whose mission leverages the power of the arts and nature for human and ecological wellbeing. Brushwood Center offers world-class programming with more than 250 artists each year to deepen the public’s connection with the environment and support the health of both people and the planet.”

Since I started teaching botanical art at Brushwood Center, I have found we share the same values toward art, human and environment, and eventually I served as a board member of the organization. But it didn’t take too long for me to realize that I was not cut out for acting as a board member. While talking with then chair of the board, Nick Bothfeld, we came up with an idea of awarding my original painting to the Smith environmental award winner each year as a way to use my talent in the most efficient way for the organization. Viola! That was a perfect fit to share my talent, serve Brushwood Center, and advocate environmental protection!

Every spring, I ask the executive director of Brushwood Center who the next Smith awardee will be, so that I will choose the right painting for her, him or them. Here are the environmental pioneers!

2021: Winona LaDuke

“Winona LaDuke is an internationally renowned activist working on issues of sustainable development renewable energy and food systems. She lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, and is a two time vice presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the Green Party. As Executive Director of the Honor the Earth, she works nationally and internationally on the issues of climate change, renewable energy, and environmental justice with Indigenous communities. She is the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, one of the largest reservation based non profit organizations in the country, and a leader in the issues of culturally based sustainable development strategies, renewable energy and food systems. In this work, she also continues national and international work to protect Indigenous plants and heritage foods from patenting and genetic engineering.” Quote from https://www.smithnaturesymposium.org/october-2nd-awards-ceremony.html

Award: Blue Flag Iris, Iris Veronica shrevei, watercolor by Heeyoung Kim.

Watch the full discussion at the award ceremony, presided by Donna LaPietra and Bill Kurtis. https://www.brushwoodcenter.org/store/c258/2021_Smith_Nature_Symposium_·_Winona_LaDuke.html

2020: Bill McKibben and Sue Halpern

“Sue Halpern and Bill McKibben have helped shape one of the largest grassroots environmental movements of the 21st century and they are inspiring people around the world to take a stand for the environment and climate justice. This is a critical moment requiring thoughtful action to move our society toward more just and sustainable solutions and Brushwood Center is thrilled to honor Bill and Sue’s work in this pursuit,” said Gail Sturm, Chair of the Brushwood Center Board of Directors.

Bill McKibben is an author, environmentalist, and founder of 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement, which has organized twenty thousand rallies around the world in every country save North Korea. He is the recipient of the Right Livelihood Prize, Gandhi Prize, Thomas Merton Prize, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences with honorary degrees from 18 colleges and universities. McKibben’s 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages; he’s gone on to write a dozen more books. Foreign Policy named him to their inaugural list of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers, and the Boston Globe said he was “probably America’s most important environmentalist.”

Sue Halpern is a contributing writer at The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone covering science, technology, and social issues. She is the author of seven books, including Four Wings and a Prayer: Caught in the Mystery of the Monarch Butterfly, which was made into an Emmy-nominated film. She is a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College, where she serves as Director of the program in narrative journalism. Halpern was a columnist for Mother Jones, Ms., and Smithsonian Magazine. She has been the recipient of Guggenheim and Echoing Green Fellowships, and earned BA from Yale University and a doctorate in political theory from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar

Award: Sharp-Lobed Hepatica, Hepatica acutiloba, watercolor by Heeyoung Kim.

Read the full blog at https://www.brushwoodcenter.org/bcrwblog/brushwood-center-at-ryerson-woods-honored-environmental-leaders-bill-mckibben-and-sue-halpern-at-smith-nature-symposium-awards-ceremony

Watch the full award ceremony, https://www.brushwoodcenter.org/store/c203/2020__·_Bill_McKibben_and_Sue_Halpern.html

2019: Amory Lovins and Judy Hill Lovins

I was most excited to meet this lovely couple, probably because Judy Hill Lovins is a professional photographer who was exhibiting her beautiful landscape photography at Brushwood Center at the time of Smith Symposium. And Amory Lovins is globally renowned physicist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amory_Lovins) who was named by Time magazine one of the world's 100 most influential people in 2009. When can I meet someone like a modern day Einstien and get a hug from him! :)

AMORY LOVINS, Chief Scientist & Co-Founder, Rocky Mountain Institute. Physicist Amory B. Lovins is cofounder, Chairman, and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute, which creates a clean, prosperous, and secure lowcarbon energy future. He has served as energy advisor to major firms and governments in 70+ countries, authoring more than 30 books and 600 papers. Educated at Harvard and Oxford, he has received the Right Livelihood Award, MacArthur Fellowship, Ashoka Fellowship, and the Heinz Award among many others.

JUDY HILL LOVINS, Renowned Landscape, Photographer. Judy Hill Lovins is an international landscape photographer whose mission is to “inspire and renew us, and thus encourage us to visit Earth’s special places and understand our role as stewards of nature’s treasures.” Judy is a photographic fine artist, consultant, and corporate art designer, and has counseled private and corporate art collectors for nearly five decades.

Award: Peonies, watercolor by Heeyoung Kim.

It was an in-person event, and there are photos you can watch, but no video for the discussion. That was a norm before the Covid pandemic. :)

https://www.brushwoodcenter.org/store/c205/2019_·_Amory_Lovins_and_Judy_Hill_Lovins.html

2018: Robert Redford and Sibylle Szaggers Redford

Robert Redford, actor, director, writer, environmentalists….. At the moment we heard the Smith Awardee in 2018 would be Robert Redford, one of the ‘youngsters’ asked who he is. Well, she googled and said, “Oh, he is the Brad Pitt of the 70’s!” I guess I don’t need to say any further than that to introduce the person who was awarded with my painting. :)

Sibylle Szaggars Redford, multimedia environmental artist. Her artwork has been exhibited throughout Europe, Monaco, Peru, Singapore, Japan, Suriname and the United States. She creates art in unique ways and collaborates to create performances with different art forms; music, dance, film, light, spoken word. Read more about it, https://sibylleszaggarsredford.com. The Smith Award Ceremony was preceded by the stunning performance, The Way of The Rain – Voice of Hope, for Brushwood Center, a collaboration of Artistic Director Sibylle Szaggars Redford and Music Director and Composer Tim Janis.

Award: Blue Agapanthus, watercolor by Heeyoung Kim.

Watch the performance and the event, https://www.brushwoodcenter.org/store/c207/2018_·_Robert_Redford_and_Sibylle_Szaggars_Redford.html

2017: Deborah Lahey

President and chief executive officer of Chicago Academy of Sciences and Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Deborah Lahey was recognized for her work as a leader in the promotion and protection of nature. Peggy Notebaert Museum is a beloved nature museum in Chicago land that is famous for its butterfly collection. But, there is a lot more than just butterflies in the very familiar place to most children in Chicago Metropolitan Areas. It is named as a museum that provides the most hands-on education opportunities to the children, households and schools in the region, under her leadership.

You can watch how important the museum’s contributions are to the nature and science education for the children in this video, the museum’s virtual Butterfly Ball, 2021, https://naturemuseum.org/get-involved/butterfly-ball/

Also, you can read an article about Deborah Lahey here, https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-xpm-2013-10-07-ct-biz-1007-executive-profile-lahey-20131001-story.html

Award: Digitalis and Hummingbirds, Colored pencil and ink by Heeyoung Kim.

2016: Judith Stockdale

“Judith Stockdale of Chicago, Illinois served as Executive Director of the Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation from 1994 until her retirement at the end of 2012. Prior to GDDF, she served as the first executive director of the Great Lakes Protection Fund, an endowment created by the governor of the seven of the Great Lake states to better manage their shared natural resources. She was a senior staff associate of the Chicago Community Trust and executive director of Openlands. She is a director of the Nuveen Funds, on the boards of Friends of Ryerson Woods and Land Trust Alliance, and has served on a number nonprofit boards and government advisory commissions. A native of the United Kingdom, she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in geography from Durham University (U.K.) and a Master of Forest Science degree from Yale University.” Quote from https://www.usendowment.org/who-we-are/board-of-directors/judith-stockdale/

Read more about Smith Nature Symposium, https://www.brushwoodcenter.org/store/c209/2016_·_Drew_Lanham_and_Judith_Stockdale.html

Award: Parrot Tulip, watercolor by Heeyoung Kim. Judith’s husband informed me of her favorite flower and we surprised her at the award ceremony.

2015: Victoria and George Ranney

Victoria and George Ranney are the descendants of Ryerson family, the namesake Ryerson Woods/Edward L. Ryerson Conservation Areas. They are well known for their civic engagements and conservation efforts in Chicago Metropolitan Areas and beyond. Quote below cites, Vicky and George’s idea for building a park over the railroad yard east of Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago came to fruition as Millennium Park.

“Victoria Post Ranney (Vicky) graduated from Radcliffe College at Harvard University with honors in 1960, and began her career as a teacher in California and East Africa. She is a celebrated environmentalist with particular passion for the relationship between nature and the built environment.

Vicky is a well-known scholar on Frederick Law Olmsted, the greatest landscape architect in our nation’s history. She was an associate editor of the Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted for many years and wrote Olmsted in Chicago in 1972. She edited several other works including The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, Volume V: The California Frontier, 1863-1865 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990); An Open Land: Photographs of the Midwest Landscape, 1852-1982 (1983); and Con-Con: Papers for the Illinois Constitution Convention, (University of Illinois Press, 1970).

Vicky co-founded Friends of the Parks in 1975, and then became its president. In 1977, Vicky, and her husband George A. Ranney, Jr., then President of the Metropolitan Planning Council, collaborated with Openlands Project and the Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects on an attempt to build a new park over the railroad yard east of Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. Many years later that idea finally came to fruition as Millennium Park!” Quote from, and read more about them, http://libertyprairie.org/about-lpf/our-team/victoria-post-ranney/

Award: Trout Llily, Erythronium albidum, watercolor by Heeyoung Kim