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Teresa Stern
My art is rooted in places, from my residence in the Pacific Northwest to places I visit. Through time in nature, I’ve felt deeply the benefits of nature. Humans are part of nature, not outside of it; our fates are linked. Through landscape art using plastic and acrylic-free oil painting media, I hope to inspire others to look afresh at their relationship to nature and shift to more sustainable and resilient systems in their communities and resource use.
Connect to Nature Zine
Available for download on Teresa’s website
Contains 5 simple and easy creativity + nature activities you can enjoy year round
Appropriate for all ages.
After a busy weekend filled with holiday gatherings, a winter art fair, and a little cyber shopping of my own, I’m directing part of the day to pause, reflect, and recharge with a mini nature break. Before I head outside, I offer here some sketches and images from my ongoing Connect to Nature project that celebrates our need for nature – for both individual and collective well-being, and for the resilience infrastructure of our city trees, urban parks, and regional forests. Need your own recharge and reconnection - get outside, take three deep breaths – and see how many fall colors you can find! What’s your favorite fall color? Mine is that orangey-green-gold on the vine maples as the leaves just start to turn…
2023
- Teresa Stern
A Tale of Two Sisters… One Lost, One Saved
Oil monotype on paper
Each is 8"x 10"
In the first image, Astra, a draping Western Red Cedar, will be felled.
In the second image, her sister, Luma, another Western Red Cedar nearby, was saved thanks to countless volunteer hours and tribal intervention.
Two tree sisters, one lost, one saved. Both are culturally modified, significant trees that *should* have been protected by the Seattle Tree Ordinance but were not. Instead, it took hundreds of volunteer hours and tribal intervention to save Luma. Astra will not be so fortunate and is slated for removal.
In the City of Seattle, as in many other cities, our trees are a vital part of our shared urban infrastructure and a vital component of our community resilience. Our large trees are best set to weather our new hotter, drier climate reality that is already happening. They also help keep us all cooler, retain steep slopes, and capture carbon. These arboreal workhorses should be preserved where possible, especially when needed housing and other developments can be created while keeping our most significant tree sisters in place. Sometimes it takes extra creativity or flexibility, but we can add housing while keeping the City welcoming and livable for all.
In the second image, her sister, Luma, another Western Red Cedar nearby, was saved thanks to countless volunteer hours and tribal intervention.
Two tree sisters, one lost, one saved. Both are culturally modified, significant trees that *should* have been protected by the Seattle Tree Ordinance but were not. Instead, it took hundreds of volunteer hours and tribal intervention to save Luma. Astra will not be so fortunate and is slated for removal.
In the City of Seattle, as in many other cities, our trees are a vital part of our shared urban infrastructure and a vital component of our community resilience. Our large trees are best set to weather our new hotter, drier climate reality that is already happening. They also help keep us all cooler, retain steep slopes, and capture carbon. These arboreal workhorses should be preserved where possible, especially when needed housing and other developments can be created while keeping our most significant tree sisters in place. Sometimes it takes extra creativity or flexibility, but we can add housing while keeping the City welcoming and livable for all.
2023
- Teresa Stern
Inertia
Oil on canvas
36”x24”
I’ve been thinking a lot about art, painting especially, and sustainability. How can I express concern and hope, beauty and possibilities, action without unhelpful overwhelm? This led me to the root, as I see it, of the issue - the human difficulties with change. We have so many eco-friendly options, technologies, and ideas… but to really move the needle they require at this point some pretty big changes. Inertia, then, is one of our biggest challenges. Think of the simple, ubiquitous balloon as a symbol then - it’s plastic that after a day or so at the party becomes useless trash for years and years and can harm wildlife. But they are still sold, people still buy them, there are other options.
Yep, if you ask “aren’t there bigger things to worry about than a balloon?”, I’d say sure.
But it’s the MINDSET I’m expressing here. It’s time to stretch our mental construct of society and shift it. Balloons, plastics, transportation, oil subsidies, housing, income inequity… on and on.
Step 1 toward a resilient and sustainable future is stopping to question aspects of our lives and ask if there are better ways that serve more of us and in a better way. From education in critical thinking, systems impacts, and resilient communities, it starts with a mindset that pushes back on inertia and lets us move forward.
Yep, if you ask “aren’t there bigger things to worry about than a balloon?”, I’d say sure.
But it’s the MINDSET I’m expressing here. It’s time to stretch our mental construct of society and shift it. Balloons, plastics, transportation, oil subsidies, housing, income inequity… on and on.
Step 1 toward a resilient and sustainable future is stopping to question aspects of our lives and ask if there are better ways that serve more of us and in a better way. From education in critical thinking, systems impacts, and resilient communities, it starts with a mindset that pushes back on inertia and lets us move forward.
2023
- Teresa Stern