Exhibiting from September 17 to November 7 at The Arts Center, Natalie Niblack’s 66 Birds/3 Degrees and Return to Life confronts visitors with the direct gaze of birds struggling to survive. As you view each painting, you are invited to step forward and listen to the bird’s song. As their cacophony fills the gallery, you can’t help but consider your connection to the natural world, and the agency you have to help heal it.
Both projects should be viewed not as a statement of what will be, but as an informed warning of what is at risk. The paintings are meant to inspire action and involvement with the recovery of all creatures affected by climate change. Although the exhibit is about the current and future risks to birds, it is representative of all nature at risk, and the “morning chorus” bird recordings contrast with the silent void of a world without nature’s music.
66 Birds/3 Degrees features Pacific Northwest birds that are at risk if global warming is not mitigated. Inspired by a National Audubon Society study assessing the impact on North American bird species if the climate warms 3 degrees. With the help of Dr. John Bower, a diverse set of at risk birds were chosen, with species representing forest, grassland, montane, freshwater, and marine habitats. Chosen were well-known and common species, as the intention of the project is to make an impact on the viewer through what is familiar, known, and possibly deeply felt.
Return to Life depicts birds pushed to near extinction due to human activity, yet subsequently begin to recover population growth. Their recovery often highlights the immense effort scientists, environmental organizations, governments, and even hunters have put into helping birds regain populations, not to mention the resiliency of the birds themselves.
Opening Day Reception
Using poetry, essay, music, and painting, four Pacific Northwest artists, Natalie Niblack, Kathleen Dean Moore and Sarah Bassingthwaighte, present work that bears powerful witness to the consequences of climate change. These artists are uniquely positioned to connect the facts of climate change with the feelings that inspire people to take action. Their goal is to transform scientific understanding into words, music, and art that make these facts deeply real, visceral and relatable. The evening will combine visual art and birdsong, choral music and poems inspired by birds, both living and extinct, and moving essays accompanied by music bearing witness for all species threatened by climate change. You will be transported to Svalbard, listen to the London Symphony, hear tales of loss and redemption, and be inspired to take action.
Reception: Thursday, September 17, 5:30 to 7:30 pm. Meet the Artist and hear from her collaborators Kathleen Dean Moore, Sarah Bassingthwaighte
Unlocking Art Sessions: Tuesday, September 29, Tuesday, October 27, Saturday, November 7 at 1 pm
About the Artists
Natalie Niblack lives on the Skagit River north of Seattle. From this viewpoint, she has been able to observe the pressure of conflicting demands on a fragile landscape since moving to Skagit Valley in 2000. Her work reflects a pervading sense in accelerated change in our culture- change in the climate, environment, politics, and social justice. She asks the viewer to recognize the consequences of our relationship with the environment, and the choices we have collectively made that are inevitably, and perhaps irrevocably, altering the world around us. She is committed to exhibiting work in rural public spaces where challenging work about the environment is rarely seen, and has frequently shown her work in museums and art centers in the Pacific Northwest.
Niblack taught visual art at Shoreline Community College from1996 to 2016. She received an MFA from Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland in 1993. In 2024, she was awarded the SOLA prize from Artist’s Trust in Seattle, and has won several festival awards. Her work is in the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Museum of Northwest Art, and Washington State Arts in Public Places. She is represented by i.e. gallery in Edison, WA
Kathleen Dean Moore is the award-winning author or co-editor of more than a dozen books about our moral relation to the wild, reeling world. Formerly Distinguished Professor of Environmental Philosophy at Oregon State University, Moore’s anguish about accelerating extinctions and climate chaos led her to leave the university to write and speak out about the urgency of action.
The co-founder and Senior Fellow of the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word, Moore collaborates closely with musicians, ecologists, filmmakers, and artists to stand against the corporate and now political plunder of the planet.
Her newest books are Take Heart: Encouragement for Earth’s Weary Lovers and Earth’s Wild Music: Celebrating and Defending the Songs of the Natural World. For an example of her work in film, see The Extinction Variations.
Sarah Bassingthwaighte is a Canadian-American composer and flutist from Seattle. She’s the winner of the European Music, the International Satie Competition, the International Saint-Saëns Competitions, the International Couperin Competition, and a two-time finalist for the American Prize in
Composition, and six-time winner of the NFA Newly Published Music Award. The London Symphony Orchestra recorded an album of her orchestral works, which was just released on the Aria Classics label in April of 2025. She has been in residency at the Visby International Centre for Composers in Sweden, the Uncool Residency in Poschiavo, Switzerland, and in 2025 Svalbard for the Arctic Residency.
– Advocate staff
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