ob Butler loves to paint the beauty of nature. But he is also a scientist who obtained bachelor and master’s degrees in science, then a doctorate in zoology from the University of British Columbia in 1991.
He painted throughout graduate school, taking on commissions and selling his art to help pay for his tuition.
Once he graduated, he had a decision to make — to carry on as a biologist, or to dedicate himself to art.
He chose to go down the pathway of the sciences.
“I wanted to start a family. I reasoned that the sciences would provide a more stable income,” said Butler. “Art can be difficult as a career.”
He continued to paint, though, selling pieces over the years.
“While it may be a surprise to some, I do know of many biologists who are also artistic. They just tend to keep it quiet and focus on the science,” said Butler, who retired after a 27-year career as a biologist and scientist with the Canadian Wildlife Service.
“Art brings joy. At one event, a lady came up and told me that she had bought some pieces in 1978 — and that they were still up on her wall.”
Butler is part of a group of eight artists with backgrounds in biology and other sciences who knew of one another through university and working as park naturalists, and has been collaborating for decades.
When he got word that the group was planning to get together for a show to celebrate its 40th anniversary, he immediately jumped on board.
That show, called Drawing Connections: 40 Years of Art and Hope for the Salish Sea, recently opened at the Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea on the waterfront in Sidney.
The exhibit features the selected works of the eight artists in a visual journey through the ecological success stories in the region over the last four decades.
“I see it as an opportunity to get behind a message of hope and change, to show the audience, particularly young kids, budding artists and scientists, of the measured successes that we have accomplished in the last 40 years,” said Butler from his home in New Westminster.
The eight contributing artists cheekily call themselves the Group of Eight, a reference to the slightly more famous Group of Seven Canadian landscape painters of the 1920s and early 1930s, including Lawren Harris, Arthur Lismer and A.Y. Jackson.
Aside from Butler, the Group of Eight includes Mark Hobson, Bill Adams, Alison Watt, Briony Penn, Peggy Frank, Anne Stewart and Peggy Sowden.
“Even after 40 years we are still friends and we still have a passion in art and the environment,” said Watt, who grew up in Victoria and now lives on Protection Island, in Nanaimo’s harbour.
While the members are all scientists by training, they all “really feel that art has a powerful role to play in the conversation,” Watt said.
“Art reminds people of the beauty of what we want to preserve. Art communicates non-verbally and the images paint a direct line to conservation.”
The group has come together a number of times over the years, she said, most notably in support of a campaign to protect the Carmanah Valley from logging in 1988 and contributing to Art for an Oil-Free Coast in 2015.
The collaboration goes back to the mid-1980s, when Hobson approached the McPherson Theatre about staging an art show about nature in the theatre’s lobby.
“I was told that they did not accept shows displaying only two artists and that a group of eight was their minimum requirement,” said Hobson. “I was pretty sure I could find another seven artists, so filled in the paperwork and set the date to open on May long weekend.”
After a few calls, the group of naturalist/artists came together for their first meeting at Ten Mile Point in Victoria. “We had a struggle trying to find a name at that meeting but eventually chose the Group of Eight,” Hobson said.
The exhibit at the Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea, a not-for-profit aquarium and learning centre, came about after the group enquired about renting the space for a weekend show.
Instead, they were given the opportunity to display their works for a year.
Watt, who paints and teaches art remotely, said she doesn’t see a division between art and science.
“That’s a division created by society,” she said. “You can call us a sub-set of biologists who were drawn towards the science partly by an attraction to the beauty of nature.”
She said many early biologists kept field journals, painting pictures of the various plants, birds, insects and animals they encountered on their travels. Long before cameras were invented, well-funded explorers would travel with their own illustrators, who were artists in their own right.
The aquarium and learning centre is showcasing four creatures in the exhibit, each representing a different time period in the last 40 years.
The bald eagle was chosen to illustrate the significance of a ban on the use of Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, commonly known as DDT, in 1985.
The chemical, made available in 1945, was promoted as an agricultural and household pesticide. While it did control mosquitoes and limit the spread of insect-borne diseases such as malaria and typhus, the chemical also leached into the environment.
It went up the food chain, ending up in eagles who ingested fish that had come in contact with the pesticide — driving eagles and peregrine falcons close to extinction.
Scientists researching a high mortality rate among the raptors found the chemical had made the shells of their eggs so thin that the parents crushed the eggs during brooding. Eggs that survived simply failed to hatch.
According to the American Eagle Foundation, researchers could only find 417 nesting pairs in the United States in 1963, an all-time low for the species.
“The species was incredibly close to extinction,” said Leah Thorpe, director of exhibits and engagement at the Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea. “The banning of DDT in Canada made a huge difference.”
Another creature featured in the exhibit is the humpback whale, which had been hunted to the brink of extinction by the 1960s.
“While we knew that some survived, for many years, they were virtually never seen,” said Thorpe. “Once the human pressure eased on them and other conservation efforts, the population has partially recovered.”
Conservation efforts have shifted in recent years to raising awareness among boaters.
“With sightings of hundreds of humpbacks every year now, the message is now for boaters to keep a lookout for the whales — so as to not hit them accidentally,” Thorpe said. “Humpback whales are a really powerful example of hope for the future.”
While the stories of the bald eagle and humpback whale speak of past successes, the future of the sea star and salmon — the last two sea creatures featured — has yet to be determined.
Since 2013, researchers have seen sea stars along the Pacific coast dying from what is known as sea star wasting syndrome, an ailment that affects more than a dozen species. Some scientists have estimated that more than five billion sea stars may have died from the mysterious disease.
Scientists believe that habitat loss, climate change and warming waters are likely contributors to the disease, which has no known cure.
As for salmon, the exhibit includes a photograph of a salmon with sea lice, along with one of a healthy fish in its natural setting.
“We wanted to show the reality of the situation but also the message that not all is lost,” said Thorpe. “There are signs of recovery — some bright spots — for sea stars and reports that 2023 saw the best coho [salmon] return in decades.”
Displays include a map showing where the artists painted their works. In the centre of the room is a raised display with some of the original nature journals of the artists, with sketches and observations of the flora and fauna they saw in their travels.
Visits by school and other educational groups along with activities for children are planned.
The children’s zone includes a number of hands-on displays, including floor jigsaw puzzles featuring some of the works of the artists. The eight artists have also hand-painted eight colourful window shades in the gallery.
Some of the aquarium’s 15 full-time staff and 100 volunteers also contributed elements to the exhibit — look out for the crocheted bulrush in the coastal wetland section, or the felted-wool wall that children can stick pictures of birds, fish and plants on.
Thorpe said art helps bring nature to the forefront, carrying with it “a sense of awe and beauty.”
It also brings us face to face with what we risk losing, she said.
The Drawing Connections exhibit, however, offers hope for the future.
“While we have learned is that nature is usually resilient — we have also discovered that it needs our help,” said Watt. “Some species, like humpback whales, rebounded only after a concerted effort and a moratorium on their hunting.”
She said that an exhibit spanning 40 years can also be seen as a reminder for people to be patient with conservation efforts.
“Our timeline isn’t the same as nature’s.”
The aquarium and learning centre is open 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily (except Wednesday), with last entry 30 minutes before closing. The Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea is at 9811 Seaport Pl., Sidney.
For more information, go to salishseacentre.org.
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