Kim Baker, conservation photographer and the Illinois River Survey

Both photographs in this post of the Illinois River courtesy of Kim Baker 

Kim Baker not only captures the beauty of what she sees in Oklahoma with her unique eye for composition and detail she also uses her work as a vehicle to promote conservation in her state.She is a native Oklahoman and has been photographing the state for more than 25 years. Her landscapes have been exhibited across the state and have been published in Oklahoma Today Magazine, Outdoor Oklahoma and AAA's Home and Away; her clients include among others, the Oklahoma Department of Tourism, the Oklahoma Department of commerce as well as advertising agencies. Her work is also in numerous private collections.

In 2001, Kim started a photographic project documenting the rivers of Oklahoma designed to increase public awareness and appreciation for the state's water resources. It has been exhibited across the state and profiled in many Oklahoma publications. She works in cooperation with organizations and groups that safeguard the state's natural resources including the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, the Oklahoma Biological Survey, the Oklahoma Scenic Rivers Commission, the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, Save the Illinois River (STIR), the Sierra Club, the Oklahoma Chapter of the Nature Conservancy and the Illinois River Watershed Partnership Group among others.She lives exactly what we are trying to show in the Creative-Native Project as she has made a commitment to use her photographs to advance conservation, to inspire and empower as well as inform and affect change. If we don't pay attention to and work to conserve the places Kim shows us they will be lost forever. See where a lot of this information came from and read more in depth about Kim and her work, view her photographs and learn more about her projects by going to Kim's website.www.oklahomaphotography.comWe will be meeting Kim and learning more about her art on the Illinois River near Tahlequah, Oklahoma. It is an Oklahoma designated Scenic River but it's water quality is endangered. She has put enormous effort into preserving this beautiful river and has created a three day event from May 20-22 on various spots along the river to bring attention to the problems the river faces and bring together photographers, environmentalists and others interested in protecting the river. We will also be there documenting some of the events and interviewing some of the other environmentally oriented individuals attending. To learn more and to attend go to....www.oklacps.comBelow is a letter from Kim highlighting all of the activities and events she had worked so hard to put together. If you can, come and support this important event. 

Hello all,I want to thank all of you very much for being a part of the Illinois River Survey. I hope everyone has had a chance to get out and enjoy the warmer weather we have been experiencing. 

This update contains more details about the events planned for the Illinois River Survey 

May 20-22, 2011. I would like to say a special thank you to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (ODWC) for donating to the photographer’s orientation packet the new Oklahoma Wildlife Management Area Atlas. 

Illinois River Survey Events May 20-22, 2011May 20, 2011 

Friday night fireside chat and orientation meet-up 

Time: 8:00PM - Directions are available here.

Meet @ Elephant Rock Nature Park. 

Please join us for a come and go orientation meeting and fireside chat Friday night after sunset. 

May 21, 2011 

Lunch 

Time 12:00 AM - 2:00 PM Directions are available here. 

STIR and the Illinois River Village group is hosting lunch Saturday for Illinois River Survey collaborators

Float trip

Time 3:00 PM - Float Trip put-in directions available here. 

We will leave from the Illinois River Village and caravan to the float trip put-in. 

Float Trip from Flint Creek/Illinois River Confluence to Chewey Bridge. 

May 22, 2011

Hike on J.T Nickel Nature Preserve

Time 6:00 AM - Directions to the J.T. Nickel headquarters available here. 

Join the Illinois River survey for a special hike on the Nickel Preserve led by Oklahoma Nature Conservancy Director Mike Fuhr as we explore unique ecological locations on the preserve.   

Illinois River Survey Collaborating Photographers

Kim Baker

Kevin Blackwood

Sheliah Bright 

Tyler Bright

Lesa Cordle 

Ron Day Brian Favell

Mike Fuhr 

R.E. (Bob) Lindsey

Mark Nault

Jay Pruett 

Illinois River Survey | Conservation photography book

Collaborators

*Sheliah Bright: Oklahoma author and photographer, 

* Priscilla Crawford: Oklahoma Biological Survey and the 

   Oklahoma Natural Heritage Inventory

* John Gifford: Oklahoma author. Author of Oklahoma Sportfishing and 

   Small Stream Bass Fishing: A Complete Anglers Guide to Bass Fishing

   off the Beaten Path: Tackle, Tactics, Timing, and Tricks

* Mike Fuhr with the Oklahoma Chapter of the Nature Conservancy

* Dr. Brad Agnew, Professor of History at Northeastern University in Tahlequah, OK *Oklahoma Today art director, Steven Walker of Walker Creative Inc, is donating some of his valuable

  time for creative oversight of the book project. Thank You, Steven! 

Groups, organizations and individuals collaborating with or providing sponsorship for the Illinois River Survey:  Save the Illinois River (STIR) 

Oklahoma Scenic Rivers Commission (OSRC)

Oklahoma Conservation Commission Blue Thumb Program

Oklahoma Biological Survey and the Oklahoma Natural Heritage Inventory

Oklahoma Chapter of the Nature Conservancy

Walker Creative, Inc

Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (ODWC) 

Ed Brocksmith 

Dick Turnbull

Kathy Tibbits

Illinois River Village 

Thank you, Illinois River Survey collaborators!Kim Baker

oklacps@yahoo.com

www.oklacps.com

www.oklahomaphotography.com

Dane Pollei, Director/Chief Curator, Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art

Dane Pollei is the Director and Chief Curator of the Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
www.mgmoa.org

About MGMOA

Founded in 1919, the Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art is one of the oldest museums in the state of Oklahoma. Father Gregory Gerrer, for whom the museum is named, was a Benedictine monk of considerable artistic talent. During Father Gerrer's travels to Europe, Africa and South America, he collected objects of artistic and ethnological value.

The museum's permanent collections include Egyptian, Greek and Roman objects; art from the Renaissance through the early 20th century; and large holdings of Native American African/Oceanic and Eastern cultural artifacts. In addition, the museum offers exciting special exhibitions throughout the year.


The Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art is sponsoring and collaborating with us on our Oklahoma show from The Creative-Native Project, "The Artist's Process, Going Native in Oklahoma". We have Dane Pollei to thank for this with his understanding and support of artistic and educational projects. He is one of those rare sincere individuals in the arts who truly cares about artists, art and education rather than the politics of art. He is still saavy about grants, foundations, fundraising but with great heart and caring. Originally from Wisconsin where he went to Beloit College and studied anthropology directing a museum with the focus of the Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art is a perfect fit for his skills and vision. He was formerly Executive Director of the Brevard Museum of Art in Melbourne, FL., Director for Administration at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Executive Director Kenosha County Historical Society and Museum, Director/Curator of the Freeport Art Museum and Cultural Center in Freeport , IL as well as being on the School Board in Kenosha, WI reflecting his great interest in education. He and Donna Merkt, his director of education, have focused on bringing more educational programs and schools to the museum through innovative programming and  hugely increased attendance. 
We are so excited to have this opportunity to do this documentary because of the support of the Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art. With the enormous amount of content I am finding as  I research for this show, it will become a series of two to four shows rather than a single show. Besides the airing of the shows in the fall of 2011, I have been talking with Dane about doing an exhibition at the museum in fall 2012 with an installation by myself and my husband and co-producer based on what we find in our travels. I suspect my contribution will have a lot to do with forests and the Tallgrass Prairie, my passions.
The exhibition will also include the work of the creative individuals we interview in the programs along with educational projects and programs that we will work on with Donna Merkt that will enhance and elaborate on the mission of promoting art, creativity, mentoring, cultural preservation and ecological sustainability of the Creative-Native Project. 

Trees, trees and more trees......

www.museumoftheredriver.org

The Museum of the Red River will be lodging us in Idabel, Oklahoma. More about them in the next blog. 

 The Herron family of Herron Lumber have been focusing on and promoting sustainable forestry. They use selective cutting rather than clearcutting and spraying defoliants. We will interview Quintus Herron whose successful lumber business (which shows you can make money doing it right) allowed him to found the Museum of the Red River in Idabel and the Forest Heritage Center in Broken Bow.
www.forestry.ok.gov/fhc

There are many champion trees in and around Idabel, OK. Below is more information about the non-profit that promotes the preservation and designation of these trees all over the United States.
http://www.americanforests.org/resources/bigtrees/

As the nation's oldest nonprofit conservation organization, American Forests has been an influential voice for conservation and the environment since its founding in 1875. We work with individuals, communities and policy makers to protect and restore forests around the world, and raise awareness of how important these ecosystems are to all forms of life on the planet. This mission allows us to work on many different fronts to grow a healthier world, with each of our many programs addressing an area of forest conservation, from planting trees, to educating future generations about their benefits. In 1875, America was growing; still changing from a spread out, largely agrarian society, and developing thriving, industrial cities. As a result, forests took a backseat to development and the consequences of a growing population. A group of citizens concerned about the waste and abuse of the nation's forests founded American Forests to protect and preserve this precious natural resource. Since then, we have been involved in some of the most historic forest-related developments in our nation's history, including the establishment of national forests and parks, and the constantly-changing development of methods to manage forest fires. For more on our story, please visit the history page. Several of my Ancient Trees...... www.franhardy.com  to see lots more...

Lasagna Gardening

NO a lasagna garden does not grow lasagna. Read below to see how an innovative sustainable no dig method can create a garden out of an abandoned lot in Brookline, Mass. My sister, Joan Hardy volunteers with this group. The food from their gardens goes to the Food Bank to feed the needy.
Also see five pictures of the garden being built below.
www.bountifulbrookline.org
And by the way if you are in Boston my sister Joan is an incredible massage therapist.
www.joanhardy.blogspot.com

Saturday's update: We are working with approximately 700 sq. feet, and we really transformed the space in the span of about 6 hours. We started by digging up some perennials for transplant and clearing all of the dead vegetation and brush out, including some very stubborn blackberry brambles. This stuff could normally be trampled down to form the first layer of the sheet mulch, or lasagna garden, but we removed it to minimize the chance that the choking morning glories and the crafty brambles will invade our new beds.

Our final garden plan did not emerge until we saw the open space, and it became established with the help of a garden hose, some stakes, and plenty of imagination. We decided to form rough quadrants using a cross of wide, wheelbarrow accessible paths, an appealing curved front and left edge (a fence runs along the back edge, a shed borders the right edge), and several 3-4ft wide beds, with narrower paths between, making up each quadrant. The final result will be 9 or 10 beds around 12-15 ft in length, and 1 or 2 shorter beds…aka lots of growing space! The attached pictures should give those who have not yet visited a better sense of the layout.

As the afternoon loped along, the lasagna preparations finally began! With limitations of materials and labor, we focused on 4 of the beds. A healthy layer of horse manure, partly composted with saw dust and grass, formed the first layer. A thatch of ornamental grass clippings and then a layer of leafy litter/compost (from the BCF) followed. We also watered between each layer. Then came the sheet layer, of around 10 sheets of newspaper and1 layer of cardboard, which we watered well to create a good seal (papier-mache-like). The top layer is some kind of mulch—unfortunately we only had enough wood chips (you can also use straw or leaves) for 1 bed, but we will be back as soon as we can find some more. In the mean time we will let Mother Nature, and all of her wonderful little organisms, get to work cooking up these lasagna beds into some (hopefully!) beautiful soil.

So that’s the news from Bountiful Brookline. A couple of things to think about: any ideas for the new garden site's name? Email JD (jdhutchmax@gmail.com) with any creative suggestions (We can continue to call it 11 Goodwin Place for the time being). Also keep your eyes and ears peeled for more materials—we still need to prepare the other half of the garden! Our wish list includes non-glossy newspaper and cardboard (without tape) and mulching materials, like wood chips, straw, leaves, grass clippings, or compost. Please email JD with any potential sources. Thanks!

-- 
J.D. Hutchison-Maxwell

Garden Intern
Bountiful Brookline
www.bountifulbrookline.org

The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, Pawhuska, OK

I have been fascinated with the Tallgrass Prairie ever since I experienced it at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum in Madison Wisconsin.

http://uwarboretum.org/about/communities_collections/

http://uwarboretum.org/about/communities_collections/#curtis

Curtis Prairie

The world's oldest restored prairie, Curtis Prairie occupies 60 acres just south of the Arboretum Visitor Center. Many classic experiments on planting techniques and the use of fire in prairie management took place here during the 1930s and 40s. In early fall, this deep-soil tallgrass prairie has colorful displays of big bluestem grass and Indian grass, towering from 7 to 8 feet tall.

They have other types of prairies being restored there as you will see on their site. I wish I had pictures of the tallgrass. It was well over my head with tall tall grasses and interspersed with some flowering species. All I could see was grass and sky. Hard to imagine what it was like when there were huge tracts of tallgrass prairie. 

In Oklahoma we will be visiting the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in the spring when it is filled with wildflowers and the grass is about knee-high. We will be interviewing the director of the Nature Conservancy Preserve, Bob Hamilton and learning about how they are restoring the habitat through the use of controlled burns which used to happen there frequently when it was untouched by man. They also have returned bison to the preserve, one of their natural habitats. This to me is one of the environments that modern man can not even imagine without seeing what once covered huge swaths. 

http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/oklahoma/placesweprotect/tallgrass-prairie-preserve.xml

OklahomaTallgrass Prairie

Open to the Public

The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is the largest protected remnant of tallgrass prairie left on earth. Originally spanning portions of 14 states from Texas to Minnesota, urban sprawl and conversion to cropland have left less than 10% of this magnificent American landscape. Since 1989, the Conservancy has proven successful at restoring this fully-functioning portion of the tallgrass prairie ecosystem with the use of about 2500 free-roaming bison and a "patch-burn" model approach to prescribed burning.

Biodiversity Threats in the area include habitat fragmentation and loss, current grazing and fire practices, invasive plant species such as sericea lespedeza and eastern red cedar, and stream degradation due to land management practices and soil erosion.

What the Conservancy is doing now will offer conservation-minded ranchers an alternative to traditional grazing practices. Conservancy staff have already conducted several "patch-burn" workshops with area cattle ranchers to illustrate the potential rewards of embracing this wildlife-friendly method of land management, while continuing to meet the bottom line for their cattle production operations. In addition to alternative grazing practices, The Nature Conservancy is offering to hold conservation easements for land owners who would like to ensure the preservation of their property.

Our "Patch Burn" approach utilizes prescribed burning on roughly 1/3rd of productive rangeland each year, leaving the remaining portions undisturbed by fire. Early research by Oklahoma State University indicates that the complex and mosaic plant communities produced by this "patchy" approach offers huge rewards for biodiversity. Approximately three dozen prescribed burns are conducted each year totaling 15,000 - 20,000 acres. Since 1991, over 350 prescribed burns have been conducted totaling 210,000 acres. In addition we have assisted neighboring ranches burn 170,000 acres and helped them suppress 50 wildfires.

The Tallgrass Prairie Ecological Research Station was completed in 2004. This state-of-the-art facility will offer field researchers the opportunity to conduct extended studies and initiate laboratory analysis for rangeland research. The research station will also be utilized as a workshop destination for university students, researchers and conservation professionals from across the United States.

More than three dozen research projects are active on the preserve, and 78 publications in scientific journals have been produced. An exciting "patch-burn" was initiated with Oklahoma State University in 2001 on 7,300 acres. This study is testing the wildlife, plant community and cattle gains in patch-burn versus completely burned cattle pastures. The objective is to achieve similar conservation benefits as those documented in the fire-bison unit while retaining profit margin for cattle ranchers.

  

Choctaw Ponies, the Choctaw Nation

Today was a very full day of scheduling and talking to people we will be interviewing and places we will visit. We will be visiting the Choctaw Nation and see how they are working hard to preserve and revive their traditions and crafts.

 www.choctawnation.com

From the history of the Choctaw Nation:For hundreds of years before Europeans came to the United States, the Choctaw Nation was a tribe of farmers who lived in what is now the southeastern U.S. until the federal government forcibly removed most tribal members in 1830 to Southeastern Oklahoma in what became known as the “Trail of Tears.” Tribal members have overcome diversity to grow to nearly 200,000 strong, the country’s third largest tribe. The tribe’s growing business enterprises have allowed it to work to improve the lives of tribal members who have a rich tradition of serving in the military (see Code Talkers) serving their community and the State of Oklahoma.

 They are working very hard to preserve the Choctaw ponies which were forced out of the mountains of southeastern Oklahoma by clearcut logging.  Bryant Rickman has moved many of these ponies to his ranch south of  Antlers.  In addition, he leases land for the ponies from Jim Stephens.  Together, and with the help of Francine Locke Bray who is researching the history of the ponies, they are working very hard to create an environment where the ponies can thrive. Jim and Bryant are learning how to restore the forests and the grasslands on Jim’s ranch so that the ponies can once more live there as they did in the wild. Their enthusiasm for this project and the challenges and learning curve they face is very inspirational. At present the approximately 577 ponies have to be fed etc during the harsh winters rather than fending for themselves as they were able to do before clear-cutting of the forests. My next post will take us to Durant where I will speak more about the issues facing the Choctaw and who we will be interviewing and where we will be going in our quest to learn more about how they are restoring sustainability in their culture. This could be a whole documentary in and of itself. Maybe at some point we will have the opportunity to do that.

  

Scheduling the locations and interviews for our Oklahoma documentary

After doing extensive research and talking to a lot of individuals about Oklahoma we spent the weekend scheduling all the locations and individuals we will be visiting. Getting all of this scheduled is more of a challenge than anyone who has not done this could possibly imagine. We are trying to make a loop throughout the state and also work with the schedules of the people we are interviewing. Right now it looks like we will be leaving New Mexico May 4th and shooting all over Oklahoma until around May 24. We can always count on some shooting taking longer or shorter than expected and always need to be alert for the many curve balls that this kind of work sends our way. We need to be ready for anything and flexible enough to work with whatever we may encounter. It certainly is enlivening surmounting the challenges. We are often exhausted but exhilarated at the end of the day. I just love getting to visit all these exciting locations. Interviewing  is such a kick and educational for me too.

For more on the history of documentary filmmaking go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_film

Documentary film is a broad category of motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality. A "documentary film" was originally a movie shot on film stock—the only medium available—but now includes video and digital productions that can be either direct-to-video or made for a television program. "Documentary" has been described as a "filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception" that is continually evolving and is without clear boundaries.[1]