Painting Gallery: ESLC Plein Air Easton Invitational Forever the Forest

Every July, dozens of the most talented plein air painters in the country descend upon the Eastern Shore of Maryland to paint our wetlands, woodlands, farms, and shorelines as they compete in the Plein Air Easton festival, the largest juried plein air competition in the country. It is no coincidence that this competition occurs on the Eastern Shore. Decades of hard work, natural resources conservation, community stewardship, and a culture built around a shared passion for nature and wildlife are the reasons why the Eastern Shore landscape remains unique, open, rural—and paint-able—year after year. ESLC’s 36 years and 67,000+ acres of conservation play an integral part in that story.

And so, every year, ESLC teams up with our partners at Plein Air Easton (PAE) to host an alumni invitational during the Plein Air Easton festival, inviting a select cohort of previous PAE award winners to paint Eastern Shore landscapes permanently protected by ESLC. This year’s competition, Forever the Forest, featured autumn landscapes painted by 14 previous PAE award winners—Paul Bachem, David Csont, Ken DeWaard, Ron Donoughe, Martin Geiger, Joshua Hoffman, Tim Kelly, Nikolai Mikushkin, Diane DuBois Mullaly, Sara Linda Poly, Lori Putnam, Julia Rogers, Patrick Saunders, Murray Taylor, and Lyudmila Tomova Clark. The paintings featured autumn scenes of forests protected permanently by ESLC, including wildlife habitat, sustainably stewarded tree farms, and even ESLC’s own Jim and Mary B. Lynch Preserve—a 200+ acre preserve open to the public in Caroline County.

Since 1990, ESLC has helped to conserve more than 67,000 acres of land on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Our second largest land use (more than 22,000 acres) is forest. But the same amount of forest acreage it took 36 years to protect is now lost to other uses every year in Maryland. Conservation of existing forests is essential for wildlife, outdoor recreation, climate resilience, water quality, and forestry—a 3.3. billion dollar sector in the state of Maryland (100 times bigger than the seafood industry).

ESLC has utilized artwork from PAE as a powerful communications tool to strengthen state-wide advocacy efforts, featuring paintings in our communications, and even exhibiting them in the halls of Annapolis to advocate for state-level Program Open Space conservation funding. This year’s art will help ESLC to advocate for the conservation of the very Eastern Shore forests we depend upon to drink safe water and breathe clean air every single day.

ESLC would like to extend a warm congratulations to Tim Kelly, Julia Rogers, and Ken DeWaard for this year’s awards. All paintings from this year’s invitational can be seen below.

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Our deepest gratitude…

ESLC is grateful for the generous support of Bruce Wiltsie and Bill Davenport, for partnership with the Avalon Foundation and Plein Air Easton, for the landowners and property managers who hosted this year’s artists, for the Tidewater Inn’s lovely venue space, and for the time and talent of this year’s painters, some of whom have offered commission to ESLC from the sale of this year’s artwork. We are also thankful to Jill Jasuta and Dylan Taillie for leading such excellent photography workshops within our exhibit during the Plein Air Easton festival.

I love the razor sharp horizon lines and vividness of the greens. Water is everywhere. Farmland and natural land all seem to compliment each other. You can feel the history on the Eastern Shore.

Windy Hill Keyhole View

David Csont

Art serves as a important tool for communication and directed in a manner intended to help with conservation, it can show people the importance of our natural world. It can also unintentionally show people the importance of the natural world through a reflection of the sheer beauty of nature.

Visions

Joshua Hoffman

Choptank Trail, Lynch Preserve

Julia Rogers

Lovely, Dappled & Deep

Patrick Saunders

Art has the power to make people care. Conservation often relies on science to explain environmental challenges, but art can create an emotional connection that helps people see the beauty, value and fragility of the natural world.

Forest Glow

Lyudmila Tomova Clark

I love the light on the Eastern Shore, whether it’s casting shadows across a super flat farm, or bouncing off of river waters.Hopefully the way an artist interprets a view inspires people to make sure that view remains for generations to come.

Birrell Farm Afternoon

Murray Taylor

Glorious Fall Day

Ken DeWaard

I can hear nature around me while I’m painting. Birds singing, tree leaves rustling. It’s also more peaceful, and I feel a deeper level of calmness. The outdoors is my studio.

Forest Light — Lynch Preserve

Diane DuBois Mullaly

Really the Eastern Shore is a great place to express in paint or paint plein air! There is such a wealth of interest and beauty and history. I think art is a wonderful way to make the public aware of land in conservation and it’s importance.

It’s Into the Forest I Must Go

Sara Linda Poly

At the Edge of Autumn

Nikolay Mikushkin

From an artists’s point of view, the the alluvial topography of the Eastern Shore can be striking. The vintage flavor of old farm and fishery can be compelling. From a Marylander’s point of view, being from Baltimore, crossing over the Bay Bridge to the Eastern Shore seems like a different world.

Looking for Levitan

Tim Kelly

Evening Glow

Paul Bachem

There is no beauty like the Eastern Shore anywhere!

Windy Hill Reflections

Lori Putnam

This scene reminded me of the wooded forest where I played as a child, which was a part of my grandfather’s farm. When you are painting a conserved property, it can feel like you are on sacred land.