WinterBadger Collection: Blog

May Newsletter: Wildflowers & Birds Featured at Marin Open Studios

(WinterBadger Collection) — Sat, 03 Jun 2023 18:49:02 GMT

Stories in Bloom
Nita Winter will be sharing stories of her life and work
Sunday, June 11th 2 - 3 pm
Programs are free with Filoli admission; reservation required due to limited space.

Tickets available here

Marin Open Studios:

First Two Weekends in May

Join us and 11 other artists at the beautiful Marin Art and Garden Center in Ross

Special clearance prices on art work of all sizes. Purchase signed books, notecards and floral jewelry.

We are participating in Marin Open Studios. We'd love to see you this weekend, or next weekend, at the Marin Art and Garden Center's gallery in Ross. The gardens are beautiful as usual, with an abundance of colorful blossoms. The lovely pink and white dogwoods are in full bloom, along with many other plants. You can visit their native plant garden. We'll be showing work with 11 other artists in the MAGC gallery, that is on the right after you enter you enter the Center.

Please stop by to for a visit. In addition to signed books, notecards, and floral jewelry, we will be offering SPECIAL clearance prices for both paper and metal prints of all sizes.

Our featured flower is the Coastal California poppy. It is a recent addition to our growing (no pun intended) native plant garden. The milkweed, Pacific aster and purple needle grass are spreading like crazy and filling in our long empty spaces in our yards, both front and back.

Marin Open Studios
Two Weekends: May 6 -7 & 13 - 14

11 AM - 6 PM

30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd, Ross CA

A New, Stunning Addition to Our
Native Plant Garden

Our first Coastal California poppy (Eschscholzia californica var. maritima) blossom during Wednesday's rain. We received over an inch of rain in 48 hours, pretty good storm for this late in our rain season. The plants just love it after a few dry weeks.

This perennial, coastal form of the California poppy is low growing and spreading with beautiful, finely cut, blue-gray foliage. As you can see the coastal version of the California poppy is predominantly yellow, with four orange spots, similar to the orange color of the inland California poppy people are familiar with.

We purchased this plant at Annie's Annuals and Perennials Nursery in Richmond, CA. Annie's has a huge native plant section. They are only one of many nurseries offering native plants in California.

Visit Blooming! California to find a nursery near you.

The dazzling, troubling history of California superbloom tourism.

The Guardian, Katharine Gammon, May 4, 2023

This year’s California wildflower superbloom is a historic phenomenon, brought on by an unprecedented wet winter. Miles of golden-orange poppies, purple desert sand-verbena and pink filaree are visible from space. This time of year it seems that everywhere from remote corners of the desert to drab highway medians are bursting with color...... READ MORE

Each garden is an expression of its relationship with nature. Transforming a city or suburban yard from a conventional lawn into a place for native plants is a joyful manifestation of your desire to work closely with nature.

Whether converting an entire lot or planting a few pots, you can take pride in making a meaningful and long-lasting contribution to the urban environment, set a beautiful example for others, and connect to both California’s botanical heritage and its climate-resilient future.
~ Kitty Connolly
Excerpt from Kitty's short story: Wildflowers at Home in our wildflower book.

Other Upcoming Events

Annie's Annuals and Perennials

BUTTERFLY SUMMIT!
Saturday, May 20th, 10am to 3pm

740 Market Ave., Richmond CA

Event: Rain or shine BUT we won't be there if it's raining.

Do you love seeing our beautiful wildflower images?

Image if you can't see them.

Please help us make our beautiful wildflower coffee table book accessible to the visually impaired through our unique, audio-described version of the book.

Experience our audio-description sample here:

Our Sacred Datura Image and How We Made It.
Donations are greatly appreciated through MarinLink.

For online donations: please enter "Beauty and the Beast" as the Active Project name at the top of the form.

For checks: payable to MarinLink. Make sure to add "Beauty and the Beast" to the memo field. Mail to:

MarinLink

5800 Northgate Mall, Suite 250
San Rafael, CA 94903

Online_Store More than pretty pictures

Our authors include Jose Gonzales of Latino Outdoors, Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, and Mary Ellen Hannibal, author of Citizen Science. Peter Raven, former Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, graciously wrote our Foreword and the book's essay, "The Origin of California's Wonderful Plants."

Please tell a friend, and help us spread the word.

Thank you for support! Thank you for caring!
Nita Winter and Rob Badger
Learn more, purchase books or contact us at
www.wildflowerbooks.com

Hooray! The Rains are Back

(WinterBadger Collection) — Fri, 13 Jan 2023 20:38:48 GMT

Hooray! The Rains are Back,

Making It a Good Time to Start Planting Natives

(From November 15th Newsletter)

Rob and I were so excited to watch the rain, and occasional downpours, return to wet California's extremely dry landscapes. Not the bomb cyclone of last year but we received almost 2 inches over several days.

Later that day Rob created this magical time lapse video of the clearing storm seen from our deck. He was looking southeast toward Oakland in the distance. Watch for the brief rain shower that crosses the screen near the end.

Now that we have had some rain, it is a good time to start planting natives in our garden.

The California Native Plant Society created a great online Garden Planner resource to help you learn what plants are best to plant for your area. They also just launched a new resource specific to the San Francisco Bay Area: Bay Area Garden Planner.

Meadow-inspired landscape design from Miridae Landscape Architecture and Construction

Bay Area Garden Planner

Bay Area native gardeners are lucky. Calscape just launched the brand-new Bay Area Garden Planner, designed specifically for the needs of gardeners in this region! Here, you can find customized plant lists that offer natural beauty, reduce water use, and support wildlife.

Each design palette comes with a gorgeous native garden design created by Miridae Landscape Architecture and Construction. Combining data and expert input from ecologists, designers, and horticulturalists, the Calscape Bay Area Garden Planner also takes into account genetic considerations, flammability, and appropriate climate.

This project was made possible by a grant from the Saratoga Horticultural Research Endowment, with special thanks to The Butterfly Net for lepidoptera-plant interaction data.

Ever wonder what the best native host and nectar plants for butterflies and moths are for your area? Check out The Butterfly Net website for a guide for anywhere in California.

Insects That Have Benefited From Our Native Plant Garden

Can you find the very young monarch caterpillar in the narrow leaf milkweed?
Everyday we would go out to check on the only two caterpillars we discovered on our native milkweed plants this year.

It was like a treasure hunt to find them, see where they had moved from the previous day, and note how much larger they had grown in that time.

13 days later the caterpillar was much bigger and easier to find.

We were especially surprised by this huge dragon fly that came for a rest on our narrow leaf milkweed.

One of the most compelling reasons to plant local native species is that they provide essential food and shelter for birds, butterflies, and other pollinators.

~ Kitty Connolly

Excerpt from Kitty's short story: Wildflowers at Home in our wildflower book.

Do you love seeing our beautiful wildflower images?
Image if you can't see.

Please help us make our beautiful coffee table book accessible to the visually impaired through our unique audio-described version.
Experience our audio-description sample:

Our Sacred Datura Image and How We Made It.

Donations are greatly appreciated through MarinLink.

Online_Store
More than pretty pictures

Please tell a friend, and help us spread the word.

Thank you for support! Thank you for caring!

Nita Winter and Rob Badger

Learn more, purchase books or contact us at

www.wildflowerbooks.com

‘Beauty and the Beast’

(WinterBadger Collection) — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 22:12:09 GMT

New wildflower exhibit raises awareness of climate change.

By Shamaya Sutton / ssutton@appealdemocrat.com

October 10, 2022

Patrons study the colorful photographs of California’s wildflowers during Sutter County Museum’s opening reception of “Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change” on Friday in Yuba City. This touring exhibit will be on display until Nov. 20 and offers visitors a chance to explore California’s botanical diversity and the impacts of climate change.

Wildflower lovers are sure to enjoy the Sutter County Museum’s newest exhibit “Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change,” which will be on display now until Nov. 20.

The collection originated at the San Francisco Public Library and is traveled by Exhibit Envoy.

Stunning photographs showcase the vast biodiversity of native flowers throughout the state from the high alpine rock gardens of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the deserts of Death Valley National Park and the blooms off California’s Pacific coast. “Beauty and the Beast” has been named for the flowers’ exquisite charm paired with the ongoing threats they face from global warming and the human impact on climate change.

On Friday, the museum hosted an opening reception with the exhibit’s photographers, Rob Badger and Nita Winter. These artists traveled from their home in Marin County to meet with patrons, sign books, sell prints, and answer as many questions as possible.

Badger and Winter started photographing wildflowers back in 1992 after Badger caught wind of a “super bloom” in the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve of Southern California.

“I’d never seen anything like it before,” said Badger excitedly. “So, I immediately called Nita and said, ‘you have to see this,’ and drove back up to San Francisco to get her so we could capture it together.”

Both Badger and Winter have had extensive careers in photography with a focus on conservation and photographic storytelling. Their combined efforts have formed the WinterBadger Collection and they have since received commissions from Kaiser Permanente, San Francisco and Alameda County Art Commissions, Uth Arts Council, and the Irvine Foundation.

Once their obsession with wildflower photography took root, the two quickly grew a giant collection and knew they wanted to do something special with it.

“Given our background in conservation and raising awareness, the natural next step was to combine that knowledge with the photos to create something meaningful and beautiful,” explained Winter. “It was an easy transition and one we hoped would help promote change.”

The photos featured in the exhibit are meant to attract people to the beauty of the flowers while simultaneously learning about their life cycle and how it relates to climate change. Wildflowers typically grow and reproduce during the spring snowmelt and depend on a delicate balance of rainfall, pollination, and seed spread to maintain their populations.

“If the snow melts too soon, and the flowers bloom before the hummingbirds arrive, the flowers don’t get pollinated and the birds don’t have the fuel they need to finish migration,” said Badger.

This example falls into the concept of phenology, the study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena. Many things in nature rely on timing and if the cycle is thrown off, it can set off a significant chain reaction with potentially devastating effects.

Daniel Inouye, an emeritus professor of biology from the University of Maryland, has noticed a correlation between the Earth’s warming and floral migration patterns. Certain species have been moving upward to higher elevations with climates that better suit their biological needs. Meanwhile, plants that normally occupy the highest geographic regions have been dying off as they have nowhere else to migrate.

Other factors that contribute to wildflower loss are the proliferation of invasive species, a decline in prescribed burns developed by native peoples, and an increase in “selfie culture.” Super blooms often attract visitors who come for the breathtaking photo opportunities. Many flowers get trampled in the process, which stunts their reproductive process and compacts the surrounding dirt making it harder to envelop new seeds.

Badger and Winter, on the other hand, take great pains to find vantage points and photography methods that do not harm the flowers they are documenting. This means that a single photograph can take upwards of an hour to compose, leaving room for lighting, wind, and other elemental discrepancies.

A “behind the scenes” portion of the exhibit details the extensive techniques that the photographers have employed to capture some of the flowers’ magnificent “glamor shots.”

Molly Bloom, Sutter County Museum’s curator and director, recommended visitors start here and look for the varying methods used throughout the exhibit.

“It’s really interesting to see how much work goes into creating these shots and it helps you appreciate the pieces even more,” said Bloom.

Those that missed their opportunity to meet Badger and Winter in person will have a chance to participate in a virtual talk with them from 3-4 p.m. on Nov. 12. This live-streamed event will take place inside the museum, as well as on its Facebook page.

On Oct. 20, the museum will be hosting its Speaker Series with representatives from Middle Mountain Interpretive Hikes. This session, called “Wildflowers of the Buttes,” will run from 5:30-7 p.m. and include a virtual wildflower hike through the Sutter Buttes mountain range. This free program allows visitors a chance to learn about the area and the variety of flowers that can be found there during the spring.

To learn more about Badger and Winter’s work, visit their website at winterbadger.com. The Sutter County Museum is located at 1333 Butte House Rd. in Yuba City. Regular open hours are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and weekends from noon to 4 p.m. Admission is free.

For more information, call the museum at 530-822-7141, or visit its website at www.suttercountymuseum.org.

Nita's Life as a Wildland Firefighter

(WinterBadger Collection) — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 17:40:42 GMT

45 years ago, on May 15, 1977, I, Nita Winter, became the first female wildlands firefighter at the California Division of Forestry's (CDF) Leggett Fire Station in Northern California. Today CDF is known as CAL FIRE.

The Leggett station is on Highway 101 in a beautiful setting in the redwoods, with a short walk down to the South Fork of the National Wild and Scenic Eel River. On many of my days off I enjoyed camping on the banks of this peaceful river, a great place to relax.

Back then fire season generally began on May 1 (depending on existing conditions) and ended the after the first good rains in the fall. Today, due to climate change, fire season in California and much of the West is now year round.

I recently found an article, "Life As A Firefighter," I wrote about my experience as one of the first female, California wildlands firefighters. It was published on September 1978 in The Mendocino Grapevine newspaper, located in Willits, California, about 130 miles north of San Francisco.

Life As A Firefighter

It's 4 AM, and I ask myself again, “Why am I here?” I'm as exhausted, covered with dust, soot and three-day-old sweat as are those around me, my co-firefighters for the California Department of Forestry.

What is most important to us now is teamwork, endurance and a lot of muscle power-a bit of insanity couldn’t hurt either.

Five months after getting a degree in biology from a New England college, I came to California to join my family. Four mouths later I was still without a job and tired of hearing that I needed "work experience."

I love to work outdoors and I am not afraid of hard work. When I saw the employment notice for seasonal firefighters I recalled the stories a number of women had told about their experiences fighting fires. Several weeks later I arrived at Ukiah airport for the "stress test", taken each year by every seasonal firefighter to test their physical condition.

Over the past few years the test has been modified to allow more women to pass. Many women were failing certain unnecessary skills such as chin ups.

With a great deal of effort I completed five minutes of the step test (stepping up and down on an 18-inch box at a rate of one step per second); carried 65 pounds of hoses on my back for 300 yards and other feats of climbing, running and carrying.

Though it is not easy, if you are in good condition, strong and determined, you can do it. Eight women worked in Mendocino County last summer out of about 100 seasonal firefighters. We were a small group but very supportive of each other. Each woman’s experience was different; some worked with other women, while others of us had to work things out alone, but we all left with unforgettable memories of the struggles and the good times.
This past summer was not only a job but a tremendous growing period for myself as well as for the 13 men in my crew. I was the first female to work at my station in Leggett.

All I knew upon arrival was that I was to be on duty 106 hours per week, receive $678 per month with free room and probably share sleeping quarters with men.

Whenever possible I kept a small point and shot camera on my belt when fighting fires. This is what I say when I came back up from setting up a water pump in the Eel River. This intense black smoke was from a pile of large tires burning. I won my first photo award from the International Nikon Competition for this image.

I had a heavy load on my shoulders when I arrived, for I felt that my success would be a victory for women in a male-oriented job, and failure would be a step backward for women as a whole.

I found myself surrounded by sexist, racist ideology and felt that I was always being watched and tested. I just let things ride for a while and got into the routine of the day.

We were up at 7 AM every morning, breakfast at 7:30 (cooked by one of the crew), equipment checked, and station cleaned by 9:30 in time for exercises. On to sharpening tools, polishing trucks or rescue training till dinner, with lights out at 10 PM.

There was a great deal to learn about firefighting: the theory and practical aspects of it. I felt like I was back in school, learning map-reading and memorizing the names, location and uses of equipment. Most important of all was to develop a cooperative, non-competitive feeling among the crew.

Before long I was cutting fire breaks around wildland fires (ranging in size from one-quarter acre to 23,000 acres) and assisting in vehicle accidents.

Everyone was to pull their own weight. It was in this last area that most of the skepticism about women firelighters comes in. I was reminded to pull my own weight and the men were reminded not to step in and pick up my slack (if there was any). I resented being the subject of this skepticism due to my sex.

As the summer wore on I was to show my captains that I could cover for several of the men; four men were fired over the summer while I was recommended for rehire.

At the end of the first week of work I had asked myself if I had made the wrong decision by taking the job. At the end of the fire season, four and a half months later I was sure that I had made the right one. I won’t forget the many skills I learned or the discovery of how strong emotionally and physically I can be.

One of the most rewarding experiences was having a firefighter say to me, "I'd like to apologize for all the harassment and hard times we gave you. I have to admit that when you started I didn’t think a girl could do it, but you showed me otherwise.”

Wildflower Fire Follower

Fire Poppy wildflower (Papaver californicum) springs up in late March 2014 after the August 2013 Fall Fire, Cleveland National Forest, Santa Ana Mountains above Lake Elsinore, California.

Every post-fire explosion of wildflowers provides beauty for the human eye, a banquet for wildlife, and stabilization and nourishment for fire-scarred soils.
~ Susan Tweit

Excerpt from Beauty and the Beast's short story:

Phoenix From The Ashes
California wildflowers and wildfires

Online_Store

More than pretty pictures

This special book, co-published with the California Native Plant Society, is a true collaboration of many hearts and minds. Leading voices in the conservation movement contributed thoughtful personal short stories. Our authors include Jose Gonzales of Latino Outdoors, Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, and Mary Ellen Hannibal, author of Citizen Science. Peter Raven of the Missouri Botanical Garden graciously wrote our Foreword.

Please tell a friend and help us spread the word.

Thank you for support! Thank you for caring!

Nita Winter and Rob Badger

Learn more, purchase books or contact us at

www.wildflowerbooks.com

A Season of Giving

(WinterBadger Collection) — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 19:54:24 GMT

Have You Ever Thought of Supporting A Creative and Inspiring Dream?

As you may know, Rob and I are conservation photographers and climate change activists who have been life partners and collaborators for over 35 years. Because we believe the environment, climate change action and wildflowers may be important to you, we ask, during this giving time of year, that you help us further our dream – to continue to use art and the power of storytelling to inspire hope and action.

You may be familiar with Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change, our 12-time award-winning coffee table book and traveling, educational exhibit seen by over 50,000 people to date.

But what if you are visually impaired? What if you can’t experience nature’s beauty with your eyes?

Because we are so passionate about sharing and protecting nature’s beauty we found a way to help the visually impaired connect with the natural world through the spoken word – artfully painting a picture of our exquisite, intimate wildflower portraits, vast floral landscapes and their habitats with words and sounds of Nature. Our goal is to create a unique audiobook providing the opportunity for everyone to enjoy the beauty of nature, including those who cannot physically get out into the natural world or read English.

"Your descriptions of the photographs help me see the images in my mind's eye, and keep my connection the the beauty of the natural world."

~ Rochelle, our dear friend who is losing her eyesight and is now legally blind and suffers from Optic Atrophy

We will verbally paint a picture of the breathtaking flowers and floral landscapes, along with the environment where the plants were found. Recordings of different habitats by renown musician and soundscape ecologist, Bernie Kraus, will be used to enhance the listener’s experience.

We’ll describe how it felt to have an intimate connection with the wildflowers’ world, and share the emotions we experienced, from exhilaration to frustration, and the challenges we faced, from biting bugs to unpredictable weather.

Rob_BugBites

Rob suffered from over 200 "no-see-um" bug bites while photographing wildflowers in Capital Reef National Park in Utah. No-see-ums are tiny and get into your clothes and ears, their bites are more severe than mosquito bites and they itched for two weeks.

The audiobook, Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change, will inspire hope and action and tell the wildflowers’ story to a much greater audience, in a way that has not been done before.

We have a sense of how much you love our physical book, so we trust you understand why we are so passionate about creating an audiobook version that we can share with more people.

We look forward to speaking with you and sharing more information about our dream. We hope you’ll act soon to support this important work by becoming a patron. Please make tax deductible donations through MarinLink.org, our project's sponsor.

See online and check donation tips below.

Thank you in advance for making our dream possible.

We also express our sincere gratitude to all who now, and throughout the year, generously support non-profit organizations working to create a healthier, more sustainable and happier planet.

Peace and joy,
Nita and Rob

P.S. We won't stop there. We also dream of creating a series of children's books.

Donations

For online donations: please enter "Beauty and the Beast" as the Active Project name at the top of the form.

For checks: payable to MarinLink. Make sure to add "Beauty and the Beast" to the memo field. Mail to: MarinLink

5800 Northgate Mall, Suite 250
San Rafael, CA 94903

GiftofBeauty

How it all began

On a warm and windy spring day in 1992, I witnessed what was then a rare and spectacular wildflower display in the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, a state park in the western Mojave Desert. I was awestruck by what was before me. During twenty years of photographing the West’s dramatic iconic landscapes, I had never seen the desert so alive, shimmering with such an explosion of color and life. Experiencing such intense beauty was magnetic, intoxicating, and almost overpowering.

~ Rob Badger

Excerpt from Beauty and the Beast's Introduction

Online_Store

More than pretty pictures

Please tell a friend and help us spread the word.

Thank you for support! Thank you for caring!

Nita Winter and Rob Badger

Learn more, purchase books or contact us at

www.wildflowerbooks.com

WOW! Flooding in Marin City

(WinterBadger Collection) — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 19:12:04 GMT

WOW, What a record breaking and historic storm!

We are glad to report Rob and I are both safe and sound after the "bomb cyclone" storm exploded on top of us on Sunday. It was exciting, for hours, to watch the rain and sustained howling winds from our kitchen table. (Click on the video link below)

We were amazed to still see the tiny hummingbirds navigate through the powerful winds to visit our feeder. One bird took advantage of its sheltered location and repeatedly returned to just sit on the feeder, protected from the constant wind. We also watched helplessly as our last 6' tall English pea vine was torn apart in the fierce winds. Rob finally brought in the last three pea pods for us to enjoy.

After working on our climate change project for over two decades it is fascinating to see how rising sea levels and extreme weather caused by climate change are affecting us here in Marin City, five miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

On Sunday we received over 8" of rain in 24 hours. The most we'd ever recorded was 5 inches (overall storm total was about 13 inches, HALF of our average annual rainfall). Rob has been keeping rainfall records for 14 years, and, on average, we receive only about one inch for the whole month of October.

Mount Tamalpais, our favorite place to hike just a few miles away, received 14.5" in 24 hours. Once the series of storms ended, the Middle Peak weather station recorded 26.91" over a 5 day period. This doesn't end our drought, but it's a great start to the rainy season and will help fill our extremely low county reservoirs.

Our mini adventure (not a big deal, really, but fun)

Once the howling winds, with gusts over 50 miles per hour, subsided, we ventured out in the rain at 3 PM to attend the Sausalito Books by the Bay's 2nd anniversary celebration. It was only a 2 mile drive so we thought it would be an uneventful trip.

Rob Badger, Nita Winter and fellow author Cathy Rath (holding her new book Ripple Effect) attended the Sausalito Books by the Bay 2nd Anniversary Celebration on Sunday. Photo by Patricia Wood

After enjoying the small gathering at the bookstore for a couple of hours we decided to head home. It was still raining and, much to our frustration, all roads into and out of Marin City were now under more than two feet of water, completely impassable.

When we checked our phone's tide chart app at 5:30, an hour before sunset, we realized that even though the high tide was finally receding, we'd probably be stuck on the wrong side of the flooded Highway 101 freeway underpass for a good two hours or more.

Debating what to do, we realized our options were limited. Due to the pandemic we weren't comfortable going into a restaurant to have dinner. Due to the rain we couldn't eat outdoors. Then Rob came up with, in my opinion, a brilliant idea. He suggested parking the car near the house boats and walking the 1/2 mile home in the rain. We had good rain jackets (and umbrellas in the car) so we knew we would stay mostly dry.

The walkway under the freeway is much higher than the road so it would be above the deepest area of flooding, and safe to walk on. Once on the Marin City side of the freeway we saw the expanse of the flooded area and the stranded cars. We were glad we hadn't waited for the road to clear.

So glad they blocked the road off. The water even flooded one of the lanes on Hwy 101 causing a major back up for people traveling south.

With help from a kind Samaritan we found our way in the fading light around the water, through parking lots and the church property, and then up the long hill to our warm, dry home.

Worried about the supply chain problems?

You won't experience any supply problems when giving our beautiful book as gifts for the holidays this year.

Just order them early to allow enough time for shipping from our fulfillment house in Healdsburg, California.

Or pick up signed books at our home in Marin City.

Celebrating National Wildflower Week with Rob Badger and Nita Winter

(WinterBadger Collection) — Tue, 18 May 2021 17:36:14 GMT

The first week of May is National Wildflower Week. This year, MCE is celebrating the week by highlighting Rob Badger and Nita Winter, who are local climate activists and long-time wildflower photographers.

Please tell us about yourselves.

Rob: I’ve been photographing nature for over 50 years, and I began to see the damage being done to the environment. This led me to focus my photography on conservation and environmental issues like mining on public lands, logging, and water scarcity.

At the start of this journey, I worked with a hydrologist and documented how plants in the Owens Valley were impacted by groundwater pumping. I also documented the impact of gold mining on public lands in order to help efforts to reform the antiquated 1872 federal mining law. In 1992, six years after Nita and I met, we experienced our first super bloom in Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. This began our 27-year journey photographing wildflowers throughout the West on our public lands. We were so taken with the beauty and biodiversity of our native species, we decided to commit our lives to protecting the natural communities that made such beauty possible.

Nita: I started my professional photography journey while working at the Women’s Building in San Francisco. During my time there, I was introduced to the Bay Area Women’s and Children’s Center, who wanted to create a series on the children of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. I spent the next two years documenting theirs lives, and the challenges they and their families faced. That firsthand experience showed me the power of visual storytelling through photography. I spent the next few decades working on community art projects celebrating diversity in the Bay Area. After our wildflower experience in Antelope Valley, I began a wonderful transition into full time nature photography, my first love. Together, we created the WinterBadger Collection, jointly producing images of nature to help art consultants and architects enhance indoor spaces, especially healthcare facilities.

Please share a bit about your art-to-action climate change project.

Rob: We created our traveling educational exhibit and 12 time award winning coffee table book, Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change, from the idea of using art to inspire action. We decided to use these beautiful images of wildflowers to tell a story about conservation issues and climate change. In the book the images are paired with first person short stories, from a diverse group of passionate scientists, environmental leaders and nature writers, about climate change, land and species conservation, and what you can do to make a difference.

Nita: We thought it was important to give a voice to wildflowers, which are essential to the survival of all other wildlife. Wildflowers are beautiful and that attracts people’s attention. We wanted to use that beauty to alert people to the impacts of climate change and species loss and hopefully inspire action.

How have you seen climate change impact California’s natural environment?

Rob: California has seen severe droughts, wildfires, invasive species, and loss of trees all because of climate change. I’ve been tracking fires and rainfall for about 14 years as California has seen cycles from drought to deluge. The flooding years allow invasive species to move in and take over the habitat of wildflowers, and the drought years cause great stress on wildflowers communities and all the life that depends on them. Native plants, pollinators, and animals have very delicate relationships with each other, so it’s important to protect that balance.

How do you protect the environment in your personal life?

Rob: We are very enthusiastic about conservation and in 2006, were the first photographers and artists to receive Green Business Certification from the County of Marin. We wash our dishes by hand and use that water to flush our toilets. We also use only cold water for our laundry and we air-dry our clothes. We try not to buy products that come in plastic, and we always recycle our electronics and paper. We are dedicated to incorporating native plants into our landscaping to benefit wildlife and save water. Our biggest commitment to sustainability was our decision not to have children. We made that decision together because we realized that probably the most impactful thing we could do for the environment was not to create two more consumers.

Nita: As far as our energy service, we are proud Deep Green customers. We are actually some of MCE’s first customers and attended MCE’s grand opening 10 years ago. We have solar panels that were subsidized by GRID Alternatives. We also recently qualified for MCE’s Energy Storage Program, so we’ll soon have access to clean backup power.

How can other people help fight for a more sustainable world?

Nita: We believe that one of the most important things people can do is to vote for environmentally friendly candidates. That’s where a lot of the power is to make lasting change, especially around climate change, conservation, affordable family planning, and green energy.

To learn more about Rob and Nita’s art-to-action climate change project visit: https://wildflowerbooks.com/

California Blooming: NOW OPEN

(WinterBadger Collection) — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 09:01:12 GMT

California Blooming: Wildflowers and Climate Change,” a large print version of "Beauty and Beast: California's Wildflowers and Climate Change" just opened at the San Diego Natural History Museum (the Nat) on Friday April 6, 2021. Prints up to 12’ tall will take you into some of southern California’s past superblooms.

Wildflowers and climate change in the Golden State.

Wildflowers are the crown jewels of California’s beautiful natural landscapes. Yet climate change and other human impacts on the environment are threatening wildflowers and the life that depends on them.

In this special and timely exhibition, conservation photographers Nita Winter and Rob Badger offer a spectacular view of California’s extraordinary wildflowers as both a cause for celebration and protection.

California Blooming features more than 35 stunning photographs of wildflowers from diverse habitats throughout the state of California. You’ll see sweeping landscapes carpeted with California poppies and goldfields, stunning close-ups of ghost flowers and desert lilies, and behind-the-scenes photos of the photographers’ process.

While the photographs celebrate the beauty of wildflowers, they also help tell the story of climate change impacts to the flora and fauna in our region. The visual richness connects visitors to the biodiversity of our state and the actions that must be taken to protect it.

The exhibition was curated by the Museum’s exhibits team in collaboration with the photographers, who are also authors Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change. The book, which was published in partnership with the California Native Plant Society, pairs the couple’s striking field photography with thought-provoking and inspiring essays by authors like Robin Wall Kimmerer, Jose Gonzalez, Peter Raven, Mary Ellen Hannibal, Ileene Anderson, and more. Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change is available for purchase online.

Did you know?

California’s nickname, the Golden State, is traditionally attributed to the gold rush. But some claim it has just as much to do with the California poppy, the yellow-orange bloom that carpets the state each spring and serves as our state flower.

photo 16

Meet the photographers

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Nita Winter and Rob Badger have been capturing the transcendent beauty of the natural world in images for over 30 years. Their work has been featured in numerous galleries and publications including the British Museum of Natural History, American Photo, New York Times, Sunset and Washington Post, among others.

Despite 11-month closure, Natural History Museum has been a beehive of activity since March

(WinterBadger Collection) — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 05:41:47 GMT

Update:

California Blooming: Wildflowers and Climate Change in the Golden State

Exhibit Opens on April 2

By Pam Kragen UNION TRIBUNE February 24, 2021

Note: California Blooming: Wildflowers and Climate Change in the Golden State is a large print custom version of the traveling exhibit "Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change"

Like all of the museums in Balboa Park, the San Diego Natural History Museum has been locked down for most of the past year.

The perpetually swinging Foucault pendulum in the lobby hangs still. Glass cases holding rare and antique books are draped with heavy cloths to protect their sensitive pages from light. And the fourth-floor administrative offices have been empty since the pandemic’s arrival last March.

But a peek through the glass atrium windows into the darkened lobby can be deceiving. Behind the scenes over the past year, the museum’s scientists, staff and volunteers have been as busy as the bees in its Living Lab exhibit.

While the public side of the 150,000-square-foot museum sleeps, the museum’s scientific team has been archiving thousands of insect specimens, conducting fossil research, doing field work and hosting online lessons. The downtime has also allowed the museum to expand its online footprint, revamp its fourth floor to build a new exhibition gallery and examine new ways to open its vast specimen archives to visitors.

Museum president and CEO Judy Gradwohl said that she and her roughly 100 full-time employees initially expected the shutdown last spring would only last a few months. But when the true scope of the pandemic became clear last July, officials decided to take advantage of the forced hiatus to spend the rest of 2020 and early 2021 revamping both the building and how the museum at 1788 El Prado connects with the community in the future.

When the museum finally reopens — Gradwohl said the target is early April — it will have a transformed business model. Based on the success of its pandemic-spawned online programs, the museum will carry on this expanded mission even after it returns to full operation.

“I issued a manifesto from my home about thinking about how this crisis can help us reframe our model for the museum,"Gradwohl said, in a Zoom meeting with annual members earlier this month. “We’re trying to create a three-legged stool that includes onsite programming but also puts effort into online activities and activities in nature.”

Because many employees have found working from home so positive and productive, many will transition to a hybrid of home and office hours when the museum reopens. With less space needed for staff, five private offices on the fourth floor were demolished for a new 2,000-square-foot walk-through exhibit that will highlight the natural wonders of the Baja California peninsula.

On Monday, Gradwohl gave a private tour of the museum’s upper floors. It was the first time in months that she’d been inside the building, which was dedicated in 1933 and then dramatically reimagined with a 90,000-square-foot expansion in 2001. Although the public areas of the museum are quiet, the specimen and research labs have been staffed.

The museum is home to more than 8 million specimens of native local insects, animals, fossils, plants and more. Gradwohl’s favorite specimen is a brown lacewing, a small fly-like insect that was collected by Charles Darwin himself on the island of Tasmania in February 1863. It’s pinned inside a display case with a tiny hand-written card signed “C. Darwin.”

The lacewing is among more than 1 million insects in the museum’s collection, each pinned and displayed with a tag detailing the date and location where it was found. One of the projects undertaken over the past year has been to begin digitally archiving the museum’s butterfly (Lepidoptera) collection for a developing national database known as LepNet. So far, more than 17,000 museum specimens have been photographed.

On Monday, entomology lab technician Araceli Gomez was working her way through a case of dozens of Sara orangetips, small white California butterflies that hatch each spring. Each butterfly is photographed with its own QR code, which will someday be scannable to include a photo of the butterfly and its collection details. A few doors down, Tom Deméré, the museum’s curator of paleontology, was working Monday on a set of 15- to 18-million-year-old horse and camel fossils unearthed last summer in Otay Mesa during a freeway construction project.

Before the pandemic, Deméré had a sizeable team of local volunteers who helped out each day in the fossil preparation lab. But he’s been making do over the past year with just a couple of volunteers due to social distancing restrictions. Deméré said the museum has about 1.5 million fossils in its collection, the vast majority recovered from large construction projects, which are required by state law to have archaeology observers onsite to protect and recover fossil remains.

The fossils in the collection range from ancient camel teeth to whole whale skeletons and dinosaurs. Many are housed in a warehouse in Chula Vista but Deméré said plans are being discussed to possibly move much of that collection to the museum’s basement floor, which has been used in the past as special exhibit space. The goal would be to allow museum visitors a peek inside this fossil collection, much of which has never been seen by the public.

The San Diego Natural History Museum will unveil anew wildflower photo exhibition when it reopens, hopefully in early April. (Jarrod Valliere / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Here are some of the other highlights of work that has been under way since last March at the Natural History Museum:

Installation on the fourth floor of “California Blooming: The Wildflowers and Climate Change,” an exhibit of regional photography by Rob Badger and Nita Winter.
Preliminary talks began on a proposal to build an interpretive garden around the perimeter of the building.
Nat Talks, a new series of Zoom webinars, have doubled the number of audience programs formerly offered in the museum’s 300-seat auditorium. Coming up at 6 p.m. March 3, “California Blooming” photographers Badger and Winter will discuss their work.
Lunchtime Pop-Ups is a new series of scientist talks streamed on Facebook Live. Also, expanded posts on YouTube, Twitter and Instagram have boosted social media engagement by 90 percent.
The Canyoneer team replaced free guided hikes with a permanent online database of seasonal hike videos that have received heavy visitor traffic.
A new series of distance-learning programs has been created including pre-recorded virtual field trips and lessons and monthly live lessons for at-home learning. These new programs have been viewed 19,000 times over the past six months, up 36 percent from the year before.
Museum scientists successfully translocated eggs for the locally extinct species of California red-legged frog from ponds in Baja California to locations in San Diego and Riverside counties in an effort to re-establish the population here.
Scientists wrapped up 12 years of studies of plant and insect species at Camp Pendleton, which uncovered several species new to science and invasive species new to the region.
Botanist Jon Rebman discovered a new species of shrub that had been misidentified in the museum’s botanical collection

Published by: San Diego Union Tribune

"Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change" traveling exhibit which just opened at the Los Altos History Museum. Check on the museums restricted hours and make a reservation before visiting the exhibit. https://www.losaltoshistory.org/exhibit/beauty-and-the-beast/

Our virtual talk: 27 Year Wildflower Journey, hosted by the museum, is scheduled for 5 PM, March 18^th, 2020. It is one of three related talks, including What is Citizen Science? by one of our authors, Mary Ellen Hannibal, at 5 pm on Earth Day, April 22^nd.

California Wildflowers and Climate Change

(WinterBadger Collection) — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 08:49:14 GMT

By Matthew Harrison Tedford BAY NATURE MAGAZINE March 25, 2019

Rob Badger began photographing nature and the California desert when he was 18, having moved from the East Coast to Los Angeles for college. Eventually what was a passion and a hobby turned into a career documenting environmental destruction, from clear-cutting to mining. Roughly 25 years after those first photographic forays, a visit to the desert once again shaped his work.

In the spring of 1992, Badger witnessed a wildflower bloom at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. Amazed at the kaleidoscopic sea of poppies and goldfields, he drove the 350 miles to San Francisco to pick up his partner, Nita Winter, also a photographer, so she could see the multitude of blossoms, too. Badger began to wonder, “What can we do with positive imagery?” rather than constantly focus on loss and ruin. A series of remarkable blooms brought Winter and Badger back to the Mojave Desert again and again, launching a decades-long investigation of wildflowers in the western United States.

As beautiful as blooming wildflowers are, they are not immune to the effects of climate change. Like all native plants, wildflowers adapt to the habitats where they grow. As climate conditions like rainfall and temperature change, some wildflower species may not survive. Scientists monitoring plant diversity at UC Davis’s McLaughlin Reserve found that 15 years of drier winters reduced the diversity of native wildflowers in the reserve’s grasslands between 2000 and 2014.

News like this led Winter and Badger to create Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change, a series of exhibitions and a forthcoming coffee-table book featuring approximately 200 photographs and more than 20 essays by conservationists, biologists, and activists. “The whole purpose of our work,” Badger says of this project, “is to use art to inspire hope and action.” The show was first exhibited in 2016 at the San Francisco Public Library, traveled around the state for three years, and is now returning to the Bay Area this spring at the Bay Model Visitor Center in Sausalito, thanks to the Marin chapter of the California Native Plant Society.

The latest version of the exhibit includes some 80 photographs that capture the vibrancy, complexity, and gossamer quality of wildflowers in places like the Merced River Canyon, Joshua Tree National Park, Mount Tamalpais, and Point Reyes National Seashore. The photographs divide roughly into two camps: close-ups of single wildflowers and landscape photographs. Badger speaks of specific flowers as “individuals,” and Winter, who spent much of her early career photographing people, sees similarities in how portraiture can bring out “the spirit” of both people and flowers. “We want to bring people into their world,” she says of the wildflowers.

Winter and Badger’s landscape photographs tell a broader story. An image taken in Marin County’s Ring Mountain Open Space Preserve depicts a cluster of small yellow tidy tips growing atop a rocky yet verdant hill. Distant Corta Madera homes illustrate the wildflower’s proximity to development. “Someone needs to tell a story about every living thing out there,” Badger says, because “all life has value.”

The connection between the exuberant life in these images and climate change isn’t direct. These aren’t pictures of loss, but rather potential loss. Winter and Badger photograph wildflowers almost exclusively on public lands; they want to show viewers the amazing flora that is held in the public trust but which is nonetheless threatened by climate disruption, industrial uses, or reduced protection of natural resources.

Winter and Badger take a painstaking approach to their work, only photographing wildflowers in the wild, sometimes spending as much as an hour and a half on a single flower to ensure the perfect lighting and shadows. While on location they take great care to avoid damaging any of the flowers or surroundings, and if that’s not possible, they move to another location. Likewise, they stick close to trails and roads, essentially writing off photographing locations that might require off-trail traipsing. Ultimately, Winter and Badger put the flowers before their work, speaking to how our current ecological crisis can be solved. As Badger puts it, “Everything on this planet deserves a right to have its own existence fulfilled and to have an environment that supports that.”

Published by: Bay Nature

In Wildflowers’ Beauty, A Call to Action

(WinterBadger Collection) — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 08:45:00 GMT

By Kathy Morrison FLORA MAGAZINE, CALIFORNIA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY November 20, 2019

Photos from the upcoming Beauty and the Beast book. All photos courtesy of Nita Winter and Rob Badger.

New book showcases the diversity of native blooms, and what could be lost

The beauty of a wildflower is ephemeral, and much more so when viewed in the shadow of climate change. Will the same species of flower bloom in the same spot next year, next decade, next century? If not, will future generations know what has been lost?

photo 19

Photographers Rob Badger and Nita Winter have made California wildflowers their cause and their rallying point in the fight against “the beast” — human behavior that threatens native landscapes. Their photographs are collected in a magnificent book, Beauty and the Beast: California’s Wildﬂowers and Climate Change, to be published at the end of the year in partnership with the California Native Plant Society. The book also features essays by 16 noted environmental scientists, activists, and writers including Peter H. Raven, Mary Ellen Hannibal, Gordon Leppig, and Robin Wall Kimmerer. CNPS Executive Director Dan Gluesenkemp wrote the opening note to the reader.

Badger and Winter, who are partners in life as well as business, have been photographing wildflowers in nature for more than 20 years. Working only on public lands, they lug pounds of photo equipment into the desert or up mountain trails so they can capture the serene glory of a sacred datura (Datura wrightii), or the fiery red and yellow blooms of Franciscan paintbrush (Castilleja subinclusa). Astonishing photographs of common harebell (Campanula rotundifolia) — the blooms glowing as if illuminated by blacklight — and translucent petals of checkerbloom (Sidalcea malviﬂora) demonstrate the breathtaking beauty of our native plants.

Eagle-eyed Winter often will spot their next subject. The flowers always are photographed in natural light as they grow, whether a few inches or several feet above ground. Badger and Winter use a black or white portrait backdrop to allow the flower’s details to come to the fore. To get the best angle, Badger often lies flat on the ground with his digital camera on a tripod, while Winter holds a reflector above. At other times, they gently wrap cloth around the plant to create complementary folds and shadows. Every once in awhile, a spontaneous picture presents itself; they call these shots their “Contact” Series. They also photo- graph panoramic landscape scenes.

One eye-catching image included in the book shows a rufous hummingbird feeding at a scarlet fritillary (Fritillaria recurva), its wings moving too fast for Badger’s camera.

He says that picture was just luck; he was already photo- graphing the flower when the bird flew into the frame. He clicked off two shots before it flew away. “That was the luckiest photograph in my entire life,” he says.

But the pair refuses to take pictures in any place where they feel their work will disturb the flowers or their habitats. They are dedicated to respecting the rights of the individual plant and its community, as well as any people who might follow them to that site. “Nita’s really conscious about where I place my knees and my feet,” says Badger. If they do have to move a rock or a twig, they gently restore it to its original spot, Winter says.

Badger loves the desert, where he became overwhelmed by a superbloom in the Antelope Valley in 1992. In fact, he was so enthralled that he jumped in his car, drove all the way to the Bay Area to get Winter, then drove all the way back to show her the colorful expanses in the California Poppy Reserve. He was a landscape photographer at the time, while Winter was focused on the diversity of human faces. But they joined forces to record wildflowers beginning with the 1998 superbloom.

Now, after wet winters they begin photographing in late January, then follow the blooms as they unfold across the state. “One of the fun things about California is that you can find things, good blooms, probably seven months of the year,” Winter says. Peak bloom at 11,000 feet in the Sierra might even be in August. “Weather can really affect what’s blooming where,” she says. “We’re all up and down the state,” Badger notes.

photo 20Beauty and the Beast preview

photo 21Beauty and the Beast preview

photo 22Beauty and the Beast preview

Climate change itself is hard to track over just a few years, but one thing the pair has noticed in California is the increase in superblooms. The 1998 event they photo- graphed was called a 100-year bloom then. But now, they say, there are more high rainfall years between drought years, and more moisture is available in desert regions. That creates more astonishing flower displays but also encourages invasive plants to move in and outcompete the native plants.

Winter and Badger also are concerned about the increased traffic from superbloom tourists, who trample the flowers or even lie down in them to take pictures, as seen this past spring. “It’s really hard for us to see people’s behavior,” Winter says. “We want people to get out and see, and value, the outdoors,” adds Badger. “But do you love it to death?” There are different levels of consciousness among humans when it comes to nature, he notes. So the people behind “Beauty and the Beast” have a hope and a goal for the publication: To raise awareness, and to change the actions that destroy the plants and their communities, Winter says. “The book really is about motivating action,” Badger says.

Beauty and the Beast is a companion to a large-format photography exhibit that already has been seen around the state, including at the California Museum in Sacramento, the Fullerton Arboretum, the Hi-Desert Nature Museum in Yucca Valley, and most recently the Bay Model Center in Sausalito. A semi-permanent exhibit also is at Chico State’s gallery through Nov. 24. The exhibit tour will continue in 2020 once the book is published, Winter says.

collage

Nita Winter and Rob Badger in the field.

Published by: California Native Plant Society

Rob Badger and Nita Winter: 5 Things We Must Do To Inspire The Next Generation

(WinterBadger Collection) — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 08:37:18 GMT

By Penny Bauder AUTHORITY MAGAZINE December 5, 2020

Reduce consumption. Conserve, steward, and protect resources. Use less, get more. Do you really need everything you buy or own? What could you live without? Asking these questions is step one in lowering your footprint and impact. Saving resources and money while reducing clutter and waste is good news all around!

As part of my series about what we must do to inspire the next generation about sustainability and the environment, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rob Badger and Nita Winter.

Internationally acclaimed, award-winning conservation photographers Rob Badger and Nita Winter, recipients of the Sierra Club’s 2020 Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography, have been life partners and creative collaborators for over 3 decades. In 1992, they discovered and fell in love with California’s spectacular wildflower blooms in the Mojave Desert’s Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. This inspired their 27 year journey photographing wildflowers throughout the West. In 2016, their documentary art project became a traveling exhibit, “Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change.” Their new award-winning book, a companion to this exhibit, has 190 images of floral portraits and superblooms, and essays by 16 passionate environmental leaders, scientists and nature writers to that inspire hope and action.

Their work has also been featured on NBC and KQED television, in Time, Mother Jones & Sierra magazines, and in the New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle & Los Angeles Times.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?

Rob: I grew up in central Massachusetts, close to nature, where our home was surrounded by acres of hardwood forest. My parents were nature lovers and encouraged my sister and me to spend time outdoors exploring the beautiful place we were privileged to live in. In my early teens space travel was just beginning. I wanted to be part of it, so in 1966 I began my formal education studying aerospace engineering at Northrop Institute of Technology in Los Angeles, a very different world far from the nature I was used to. I became interested in nature photography and found joy exploring and photographing the new and stark beauty of California’s different deserts. After 2 years I left engineering school and took classes in natural history to learn more about the places I visited. For the next 20 years I had more than 20 unskilled jobs, including five years of seasonal cannery work that gave me time to photograph the West’s magnificent scenery. My dream was to be a professional nature photographer.

At the age of 38 I finally summoned the courage to quit my current job, and take the leap to become a full time nature photographer. This was just a month before Nita and I met in a San Francisco photo lab. Over time, I focused more on environmental issues like logging and mining, and their negative impact on our public lands, but I eventually burned out on all the destruction I was witnessing, so I devoted my energy to documenting the beautifully diverse wildflowers, and where they lived, that remained remaining on our public lands. I was thrilled to have Nita join me on this new journey.

Nita: I grew up in a peace and social justice household on Long Island, NY, attending civil rights, anti-nuclear, and anti-war demonstrations throughout my youth. My father loved taking photographs, and exposed me to the work of many of the great, early and mid 20th century photographers. My brother, sister and I were truly fortunate to have access to forests and nature just outside our front door. We also greatly enjoyed hiking and camping as a family throughout the parks in New England.

I received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. After graduation, in 1977, I became a seasonal firefighter for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (now Cal Fire) and later led tours of Alcatraz for the National Park Service.

I thought I would become a nature photographer but found myself drawn to people photography while working at the Women’s Building of the Bay Area in San Francisco. I focused on celebrating human diversity through documentary and public art projects for the first 25 years of my photography career. Over time I found I was ready to join forces with Rob to enter the fascinating world of wildflower photography. We wanted to share what we loved, and find ways to protect the flowers and where they lived.

Was there an “aha moment” or a specific trigger that made you decide you wanted to become a scientist or environmental leader? Can you share that story with us?

Rob: On a warm and windy spring day in 1992, I witnessed what was, back then, a rare and spectacular wildflower display in the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, a California state park in the western Mojave Desert. I was awestruck by what was before me. During twenty years of photographing the West’s dramatic, iconic landscapes I had never seen the desert so alive, shimmering with such an explosion of color and life. Experiencing such intense beauty was magnetic, intoxicating, and almost overpowering.

That evening I called home to Nita and described as best I could how it felt to see the wind move in waves across a vast sea of glowing, orange California poppies and purple bird’s-eye gilia. Hearing my excitement, she knew she had to see this for herself. Because these flowers would soon in the drying winds and growing desert heat, I quickly returned to San Francisco, where Nita was between assignments. We immediately drove back to the poppy reserve to enjoy and photograph this unbelievable beauty together. We did not know then that this was the beginning of a lifetime adventure exploring and photographing what we believed to be a limitless world of wildflowers.

My own work for many years focused on both land conservation and the environmental destruction caused by human activities, such as development, logging, and mining. I was becoming more and more discouraged and emotionally burned out by what I witnessed and documented. However, I still was determined to use the power of visual story telling to protect what remains of the natural world and its vanishing beauty, so I wondered if we could inspire people to act if they were shown positive images of what was being threatened, images like the field of wildflowers we saw in the desert poppy reserve in 1992.

Nita: This amazing wildflower bloom inspired our 27 year journey photographing wildflowers throughout the West. After we had produced a strong body of work we looked for ways to use our images to help protect the magnificent biodiversity found in California and throughout the American West.

Our “Aha!” moment was when we realized we needed to become a voice for wildflowers to inspire hope and action. We produced our traveling, educational exhibit, “Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change,” and later published its companion coffee table book. It features 190 images of wildflower portraits and landscapes, and short essays, in a story telling style, by 16 passionate environmental leaders, scientists and nature writers that inspire hope and action. Both the exhibit and book tell the wildflowers’ story and what we can do to help protect them.

Is there a lesson you can take out of your own story that can exemplify what can inspire a young person to become an environmental leader?

Rob: Finding something to be passionate about, to fall in love with and be committed to saving, for us was the first step in becoming environmental leaders. We were deeply, emotionally committed to photographing wildflowers, and that which opened up a new world for both of us. It allowed us to collaborate in many different ways, and brought us closer together as photographers and life partners. Our photography now included both the grand landscape and a variety of creative ways to capture the world of a single flower. Exploring new areas, developing new skills, and learning more about native plants and where they live consistently brought joy into our lives and really lifted my spirits. Searching for new places and flowers was like a magical treasure hunt, for it seemed that there would always be new wildflowers to discover, photograph, and share.

Over time we were creating a visual story about Nature’s diverse wildflower communities, now surviving primarily on federal, state, county, or local public lands. From below sea level in Death Valley National Park, to naturally occurring alpine “rock gardens” above 13,000 feet in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, we documented the spectacular wildflower landscapes and created intimate floral portraits.

Nita: We found something we were passionate about, so despite the physical discomfort and pain we faced at times doing this work in the field, and the unanticipated challenges publishing Beauty and the Beast, we persisted. We are so proud of what we have created, and grateful for the enthusiastic responses we have received. We are thrilled that we have received 8 book awards so far, and truly honored to have recently been given the Sierra Club’s 2020 Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography.

So we encourage young people to discover what they are passionate about, find others working in those areas (both students and professionals) and explore how you can get involved and develop your own voice. Read about young and established environmental leaders and learn where their journeys have taken them. You will find that many of them were just like you before they found something to be passionate about that led to their role as influential environmental leaders.

Rob: Remember that you can combine your passion for saving nature and humanity, with your own unique experience and gifts, such as we did with photography/art, wildflowers, conservation, science and storytelling, to positively influence others and create a better world. So again, what do you love and what do you like to do? How can you combine them?

Can you tell our readers about the initiatives that you or your company are taking to address climate change or sustainability? Can you give an example for each?

Our biggest initiative has been to use our business resources to create our Beauty and the Beast: Wildflowers and Climate Change documentary art project. With our traveling educational exhibit, seen by 45,000 people, and now its companion coffee table book, we use art to attract attention to address climate change and sustainability, and promote hope and action. We also carefully chose a diverse group of people to write for the book, thus offering our readers many different voices. For example our youngest writer was 20 and the oldest 82.

Also, regarding climate change and sustainability, years ago we were the first artists in our county to receive green business certification because of the many steps we have taken to save energy and resources and reduce waste.

Can you share 3 lifestyle tweaks that the general public can do to be more sustainable or help address the climate change challenge?

To best answer this question we want to share the following:

Our book includes an essay by a young environmental activist Erin Schrode. Her essay, You: The Changemaker, what you can do to make the world a better place, offers 25 different steps, or tweaks, people can take. Here is an excerpt:

“Seeking inspiration about where to begin? Here are twenty-five simple, impactful steps for citizen activism and conscious living in your everyday life. (We are featuring just 4 of these lifestyle tweaks)

Reduce consumption. Conserve, steward, and protect resources. Use less, get more. Do you really need everything you buy or own? What could you live without? Asking these questions is step one in lowering your footprint and impact. Saving resources and money while reducing clutter and waste is good news all around!
Restore natural habitats. Our environment is all we have and simple restoration — removal of invasive species and planting of native plants — can help ecosystems to thrive, and wildlife to flourish, all while cleaning air, filtering water, and mitigating floods and erosion.
Vote in every election at every level. And in order to vote, you need to be registered. So get out and register every single other person you know and don’t know — of every background, political party, race, religion, ethnicity, gender — over the age of eighteen.
Volunteer. Do good. Contribute meaningfully. As a proud nonprofit co-founder who has spent her life in activism, I know the extraordinary value volunteers bring to any and all movements. Think globally, act locally.
Nita: We believe one of the most powerful and critical steps for everyone, especially young people, is #6. Vote in every election, once you are old enough, and encourage others to do so!

Ok, thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our interview: The youth led climate strikes of September 2019 showed an impressive degree of activism and initiative by young people on behalf of climate change. This was great, and there is still plenty that needs to be done. In your opinion what are 5 things parents should do to inspire the next generation to become engaged in sustainability and the environmental movement? Please give a story or an example for each.

Rob: Parents can first and foremost lead by example. They can inspire the their children (and their friends) to be engaged, to act, by showing them there is great satisfaction in taking action, both alone and with others, whether its working toward a sustainable future, dealing with climate change or protecting the natural world.

We believe it is very important for parents to both talk to their children about those issues, and encourage them to educate themselves so they can confidently learn about what they can do to truly make a difference. As one of your previous guests Jay Gould said, “Knowledge is power.”

An empowered person will act. Knowing this is true, we included a wonderful short essay in our book called “Talking to Children About Climate Change Without Scaring Them,” subtitled “Avoid doom and gloom, and focus on their ability to create their future.” It was written by Amber Pairis, founder of Climatekids.

To best answer your important question from one perspective we share some of Amber’s words with you. Here is an excerpt:

“I now have two young children of my own, and I often have considered how to talk to them about climate change without scaring them. Out of this emerged the Climate Kids program (www.climatekids.org), a multigenerational collaborative I founded in 2015 to support K–12 youth education on climate change impacts and solutions.

Climate Kids nurtures the budding scientist in every child with activities that demonstrate how climate impacts the places where they live. Since 2015, the program has reached hundreds of thousands of youth and families throughout California and Baja California with multi-day events, and it has trained more than 2,000 formal and informal educators on consistent climate messaging. Through strategic partnerships with climate scientists and qualified educators, Climate Kids encourages curiosity about the natural world while providing the tools necessary to take action on how to protect our communities and the planet now and in the future.

At the heart of this program, we work to foster active-learning experiences. We seek to awaken the scientist, the planner, the comedian, the inventor, or the artist in every child, for it will take all of these characteristics and more to spark the kind of innovation and solutions we need as a people and a planet. Specifically, we encourage outrageous ideas and a feeling that no idea is insurmountable. A new level of innovation and creativity we have not experienced to date is needed to solve this crisis.

Our youth are provided with hands-on and meaningful tools, including the use of storytelling and the visual arts, to convey critical climate messages and to help them find reasons to be hopeful. After testing various strategies with children and families, I have found that it all comes down to three key components: science, solutions, and hope.

Science: What we tell our children must actually be real science, not our interpretation or something we made up because we think they are too young to understand. Children are more aware of what is going on in the world than we give them credit for, and they hear the same messages we hear. We must have our facts straight, educate ourselves, and be prepared with examples that illustrate the content we are trying to communicate. Kids don’t expect us to be climate scientists (unless you are one), and they will appreciate when you honestly say, “This is what I understand of this topic, and if I can’t answer your questions, let’s research it together.”

Solutions: My children want to understand what, how, and why something is happening. We can avoid the doom and gloom and instead focus on our ability to create our future. It just might be an off-the-wall idea that changes our lives. We brainstorm solutions together. No solution is off limits, but we do talk about the challenges or barriers to making that idea a reality.

Hope: Hope inspires creativity and innovation. It motivates empathy and caretaking for each other and the planet. Hope fuels us in times of darkness, despair, and tragedy, and it must be created, nurtured, and sustained.

Here is a list of talking points embodying science/solutions/hope that you can build from when talking to young people about climate change.

• Climate change is a scientific fact.

• The controversy is political, not scientific.

• Based on more than a century of research, the scientific community’s consensus is that:

Earth’s climate is changing, and human activity is responsible.
Climate change will have a significant effect on our society and the world.
Humans are able to take actions to lessen the impact of climate change.
No action is too small. It all adds up.
Taking practical, commonsense steps to address problems facing our environment today is in the best interest of future generations.
We are all connected — humans, animals, plants, land, ocean, water, air.
We — you, me, all of us — must take care of the Earth and all the living creatures that share our home….”

Rob: Nita and I invite you to get a copy of Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change, and enjoy seeing the wildflowers and reading more on these subjects.

Nita: We ask parents to nurture the passion young people have for being involved in the critical issues of our time, and encourage them to direct that positive energy in ways that help create a healthier planet. Find fun things for them to do and exciting ideas for them to discover and explore that are related to making the world a better place. Again, lead by example, and show your children and their friends that living sustainably, reducing the impact of climate change and protecting what remains of Nature’s life and beauty really matter to you, and the future of your children. Share the hopeful stories of inspiring youth and young leaders who are in the media and in your area.

How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?

Nita: In 2006 we became the first green certified artists in Marin County. We follow green business practices not only because it is the right thing to do but also because we save money. We work from home so we don’t spend time and money commuting. We collect and reuse paper already printed on one side for internal office use, instead of buying new recycled paper. Reusing paper uses less energy than recycled paper. In 2007 we switched from a film based business to digital photography so we were no longer involved in using toxic chemicals in the production and processing of film. This also saved our business money. We installed solar panels on our roof and drastically cut our energy bill. We turn off lights when we don’t need them and plug appliances and other devices into power strips we can turn off when we aren’t using them, so they don’t leak energy. We limit our driving by combining many errands into one trip. We conserve water, wash our dishes by hand and use the dish washing water to flush our toilets. These are just a few actions we take.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Nita: First, we are extremely grateful to have had each other as partners for over thirty years, both personally and professionally. We each have our own skills and strengths, and neither of us could have achieved what we have without the other.

Rob: I most heartily agree with Nita. When I met Nita she was finishing up her Children of the Tenderloin series and was about to print and frame her first major exhibit. I had worked at a frame shop when I lived in Colorado so when Nita lost the free services of the photo lab forcing her to print her own show I was able to step in and help her get the exhibit framed and hung in time. We continued supporting each others work for decades, making it possible for each of us to reach of our goals.

In the early 2000’s Nita decided to stop taking assignments photographing people so we could team up and both focus on photographing wildflowers. This collaboration created something that neither of us could have accomplished alone.

You are a person of great influence and doing some great things for the world! If you could inspire a movement that would bring the greatest amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Nita: We want to inspire both hope and action in regards to climate change. Inspire artists and other people to think creatively to both find solutions and to in turn inspire others to take action. A movement starts with one person’s dream followed by action.

One movement we support is that of humanity recognizing and acting upon the need to voluntarily create a population the Earth can sustain so that all life, human and natural, has all it needs to fulfill its potential on a planet that has a stable and hospitable climate. This can be accomplished by making affordable family planning available and educating all girls worldwide.

Do you have a favorite life lesson quote? Can you tell us how that was relevant to you in your own life?

Rob: This David Brower quote, “Truth and beauty can still win battles. We need more art, more passion, more wit in defense of the Earth.” David Brower is considered by many to be the father of the modern environmental movement. Eighty-eight years of courageous, contentious, and joyful activism made Brower one of the most successful advocates the Earth has ever known. More than 50 years ago the early Sierra Club photo books started by David and his son, Ken, truly inspired me to become a nature photographer. This led to my rewarding 40 year career focusing on conservation and environmental issues.

What is the best way for people to follow you on social media?

https://twitter.com/BeautyBeastWild

https://www.facebook.com/Beauty-and-the-Beast-California-Wildflowers-and-Climate-Change-113346363462072/

https://www.pinterest.com/beautybeastwild/

https://www.instagram.com/beautybeastwild/

To purchase our award winning coffee table book or learn more about “Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change” we invite you to visit: https://wildflowerbook.com

To see more images please visit: https://winterbadger.com

This was so inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Published by: Authority Magazine

Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change

(WinterBadger Collection) — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 08:34:22 GMT

By Jennifer Jewell PACIFIC HORTICULTURE MAGAZINE Spring 2018

A dazzling carpet of desert candle (Caulanthus inflatus), lacy phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia), and hillside  daisy (Monolopia lanceolata) carpeted Carrizo Plain National Monument in San Luis Obispo County in a wildflower  “Super Bloom” following winter rains in 2017. Photo: Rob Badger & Nita Winter

In 1992, conservation photographer Rob Badger first experienced a rare and spectacular display of California wildflowers in the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, a state park in the Mojave Desert. Not wanting his partner and fellow photographer, Nita Winter, to miss what he was seeing, he returned to San Francisco to get her. They quickly drove back to the desert to enjoy and photograph this beauty together.

photo 2

Bright blue desert Canterbury bells (Phacelia campanularia) and Bigelow’s monkey flower (Mimulus bigelovii) blossoming in a desert wash in Joshua Tree National Park. Photo: Rob Badger & Nita Winter

photo 3

Desert chicory (Rafinesquia neomexicana). Photo: Rob Badger & Nita Winter

photo 4

Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve in Los Angeles County, awash in color from California poppies (Eschscholzia californica) and bird’s-eye gilia (Gilia tricolor). Photo: Rob Badger & Nita Winter

Traveling to public lands throughout the West, Rob and Nita document spectacular wildflower landscapes and use only natural light to create their intimate floral portraits. They work in habitats below sea level in Death Valley National Park and above 13,000 feet in the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains. Their photographs show us what we may lose if climate change continues to irreversibly alter these delicately balanced ecosystems. As wildflower habitats change or disappear, the animals, birds, and insects that depend on them will vanish as well.

Castilleja miniata abstraction. Photo: Rob Badger & Nita Winter

Rob and Nita’s mission is to inspire action through visual storytelling, by combining documentary art with conservation and climate and botanical sciences. Now, more than 25 years later, their partnership continues with their documentary art project “Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change.” “Beauty and the Beast” is a visual story about nature’s diverse wildflower communities, now found mainly on our public lands.

Rob and Nita’s greatest hope is that they—with all of our help—can ensure that these striking flowers, and the natural communities that support them, will be around for generations to come.

photo 6

Rob Badger’s set up for shooting a natural light wildflower portrait of a fairy slipper orchid (Calypso bulbosa) in Mt. Tamalpais State Park, Marin County. Photo: Rob Badger & Nita Winter

The creative process

A critical aspect of Rob and Nita’s work is their insistence on photographing wildflowers without harming the plant or its surroundings. Limiting their impact on the land takes time. First, they find plants close to trails and roads where they can work with the least impact. If photographing a landscape or wildflower would damage the immediate area, they look for a better location. Then, after they’re done, they restore the rocks, twigs, and leaves to the way they found them.

Creating these beautiful images is physically demanding. Rob carries 65 pounds of gear, often to remote locations. For 30 minutes or more, he often finds himself precariously balanced over a blossom, or with his head on the ground for an eye-level perspective. Nita endures pins and needles in her limbs as she holds a reflector or wind barrier to create the necessary lighting or stillness. Despite the discomfort, the results are gloriously rewarding. These images reveal and celebrate the wonders seen in a grand floral landscape, or through the intimate and exquisite beauty of a single wildflower.

The photographers are partnering with the California Native Plant Society to co-publish a companion coffee table book. Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change will publish in spring of 2019.

photo 7

Blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium montanum) shot in the photographers’ native plant garden in Marin County. Photo: Rob Badger & Nita Winter

International award-winning photographers Rob Badger and Nita Winter have been life partners and creative collaborators for over three decades. After working on individual assignments for decades, the artists combined their talents. They are devoted to promoting and sustaining healthy communities, both human and natural, and reducing the impact and influence of climate change.

Last year, 52 of the original 100 images from the “Beauty and the Beast” project were selected for a traveling exhibit with Exhibit Envoy, a non-profit that produces exhibitions that reflect the richness of California’s arts, culture, and natural environment.

Present bookings include:

Grace Hudson Museum, Ukiah, February through early May 2018 [extended through June 17, 2018]

Fullerton Arboretum, Fullerton, September and October 2018

Hi-Desert Nature Museum, Yucca Valley, January through March 10, 2019

The Bay Model, Sausalito, April and May 2019

A modified exhibit will run at the Gateway Science Museum, Chico, from June 2018 through January 2020. Learn more at www.winterbadger.com

Large-flowered linanthus (Leptosiphon grandiflorus syn. Linanthus grandiflorus). Photo: Rob Badger & Nita Winter

Published by: Pacific Horticulture Magazine

“Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change” traveling exhibit which just opened at the Los Altos History Museum. Check on the museums restricted hours and make a reservation before visiting the exhibit. https://www.losaltoshistory.org/exhibit/beauty-and-the-beast/

California’s wildflower blooms: 27 years of photos track the changing climate

(WinterBadger Collection) — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 08:24:44 GMT

By Sam Whiting SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE March 25, 2019

photo 4
California poppies and gilia in the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve during Rob Badger and Nita Winter’s first trip, in 1992.Photo: © Rob Badger Photography, 2009

The first time landscape photographer Rob Badger saw the wildflowers bloom in the Mojave Desert, he drove directly to a grocery store pay phone and put in a collect call to his partner, Nita Winter. She accepted the call in Marin City, and when his verbal description proved insufficient, he jumped in his car, drove six hours home to pick her up and then six hours back to the desert to prove it to her.

It was 1992, the first rainy season after seven years of drought, and “there was no way in hell that she was going to miss this,” recalls Badger. “There was this contrast of purple and white mixed in with orange. I’d never seen anything like it.”

Neither had Winter, who up to that moment had photographed people exclusively. But this sight got her to switch to flowers, and they started a joint project now in its 27th year called “The Winter Badger Collection.” Seventy-three of the best images from the collection will form “Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change,” which opens Tuesday, April 2, at the Bay Model Visitor Center in Sausalito.

photo 16

Wildflower photographers Nita Winter and Rob Badger at Carson Pass in 2017.Photo: Courtesy Nita Winter and Rob Badger

After every wet winter, Badger and Winter drop their other projects and spend up to eight weeks camping with their tents and tripods. Each shot can require a 5-mile hike carrying 65 pounds of equipment, and 90 minutes of set-up. This labor-intensive process has allowed them to capture the red lilies with yellow-checks at the Oregon border, and the white desert lilies at the Mexican border.

They’ve also shot the bloom all over the Bay Area, from yellow globe lilies at Mount Diablo to the fuchsia wild onions that grow at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. (Their exhibit is sponsored by the Marin Chapter of the California Native Plant Society, so their home county is well represented.)

At the Bay Model, the framed images, some as large as posters, hang in the lobby gallery at the entrance to the warehouse-size scale model of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The bay model and the building belong to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It fits the outlook of Winter and Badger, who shoot only on land owned by the government — county, state or federal.

“Those are the only places where a lot of these flowers are found because they are protected ecosystems safe from development,” says Badger.

While Badger has seen private wildflower habitat bulldozed for development, he has also seen fields of wildflowers trampled by tourists in need of selfies, and he believes this year may be the worst yet. The winter and spring rains have caused a superbloom of California poppies at Lake Elsinore (Riverside County) that has created headaches for residents and environmentalists. Visitors are stuck in traffic jams and are now being directed to park at a nearby mall to wait up to an hour to take a $10 tour bus up to the hillsides just to take photos of the bloom.

photo 6

Winter and Badger say they never harm so much as a petal on the wildflowers they photograph, even when shooting what they call “floral portraits.” For these they set up a portable photo studio with a white or black backdrop and delicately wrap the flower in chiffon fabric.

checkerbloom

“No one else does that because they are not crazy enough, but we are,” says Winter.

Winter calls it “magical that there are so many different colors and shapes and sizes of flowers,” but admits “it’s hard to describe sometimes.” That’s why 16 nature writers and biologists were tapped to supply the essays for “Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change,” a coffee-table companion set for publication this fall.

“The book is not just about documenting the beauty with pictures of pretty flowers,” says Badger.

Winter chimes in: “It is meant to educate and inspire action to reduce the effects of climate change, and preserve land and species.”

“Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change”: Photography by Rob Badger and Nita Winter. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, April 2-6. Opening reception 1-3 p.m. April 6. On view through June 1. Free. Bay Model Visitor Center, 2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito. 415-332-3871. winterbadger.com

Published by: San Francisco Chronicle

Nita Winter’s wildflower photography is a blooming success

(WinterBadger Collection) — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 08:17:56 GMT

By Aviva Luttrell CLARK NOW December 18, 2020

Alumna’s coffee table book earns recognition from the Sierra Club’s Ansel Adams Award

Nita Winter ’76 and Rob Badger had never witnessed anything like it. As far as the eye could see, fields of brilliant orange wildflowers blanketed California’s Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve, rippling like waves as the wind swept across the ground on a spring day in 1992.

The incredible “superbloom” was the first of its kind in nearly a decade. Badger had visited the poppy reserve earlier in the week, and after seeing the stunning landscape, he immediately called his wife to tell her about what he had just experienced. “You just have to see this,” he told Winter.

A few days later, the couple made the seven-hour drive back to the Mojave Desert from their home in San Francisco where they spent the next several days creating breathtaking images in the poppy reserve.

The trip sparked a lifelong passion for conservation photography, and compelled Winter and Badger to spend the next 27 years photographing wildflowers on public land across the western United States. Their goal was not only to capture beautiful images, but to advocate for land conservation and action against climate change and species extinction. The couple was recently honored with the Sierra Club’s 2020 Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography after publishing an illustrated coffee table book and accompanying traveling educational exhibit, “Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change.”

“We are not just looking for pretty pictures,” the Sierra Club nominating committee shared with Winter and Badger. “We are looking for photographers who use their work to help further a conservation cause. We were all struck by the stunning photos and the combination of art and activism that was reflected in the book.”

Winter grew up on Long Island and studied biology at Clark University. She met her future husband at a photo lab in

California in the 1980s while waiting to pick up prints. Winter had moved to northern California after college to spend a summer working as a wildland firefighter and later landed jobs with the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Eventually, she moved to San Francisco and began volunteering for the Women’s Building of the Bay Area — a women-led, nonprofit community space that was the first of its kind in the country.

The position exposed Winter to new people and places, and she decided to turn her photography hobby into a full-time venture, beginning a project called “Children of the Tenderloin” that documented life in San Francisco’s toughest neighborhood. “That launched my career as a people photographer and I ended up having my work reproduced in the Village Voice,” she says. “I started working with the Children’s Defense Fund, so for the next 25 years I focused on creating healthy communities and celebrating diversity.”

While at Clark, Winter took numerous art classes, including a six-week photography course at the Worcester Center for Crafts. Her father loved sharing his passion for photography with his daughter, and once Winter began taking her own pictures, she quickly fell in love with the medium.

After Winter and Badger discovered the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve in 1992, they traveled when they could, embarking on three- to four-week excursions to document wildflower superblooms that have become increasingly frequent due to climate change. In 2010, they met with a representative from Blue Earth Alliance — an organization that supports photography projects documenting environmental and social issues — and found a way to use their images to advocate for conservation. With Blue Earth’s support, they created their art-to-action project, “Beauty and the Beast: Wildflowers and Climate Change.”

“Climate change was being talked about, but not very much,” Winter says. “We were learning about how it was going to affect the wildflowers and their natural communities, and we realized we had an opportunity to approach this topic in a unique and subtle, but powerful way. It’s not polar bears, it’s not melting ice, but it’s just as critical. That’s when we realized we could address climate change, land conservation, and species extinction all together.”

To support their work, Winter and Badger were commissioned to create fine art prints and architectural installations from their nature and wildflower images for hospitals and medical centers.

In 2009, Badger won a Wildlife Photographer of the Year award from the British Museum of Natural History and BBC Worldwide. After crowdfunding enough money to travel to London to accept the award in person, Badger decided to put together a book of photographs to bring with him.

“We feverishly put the book together with a whole collection of photographs within a week,” he recalls. “By that time, I had converted to digital photography, which allowed the two of us to do more macro photography and floral portraits, so the book was not just about landscapes, it was about all the different closeups of wildflowers we were finding on these public lands.”

The couple later brought this early book to the San Francisco Public Library where, in 2016, they hosted a 100-image exhibit focusing on California’s wildflowers. They then turned their attention to creating the exhibit’s companion coffee table book, contacting a diverse group of scientists, environmental leaders, and nature writers to submit short essays. “It was about beautifully weaving art and science together to inspire hope and action,” Winter says.

Badger and Winter teamed up with the California Native Plant Society to publish “Beauty and the Beast,” which features 18 essays from 16 authors who range in age from 20 to 82, as well as 190 images of superbloom landscapes and floral portraits. The essays and images are divided into three sections — “The Gift of Beauty,” “The Human Connection,” and “Ensuring the Future” — plus a “Behind the Scenes” section about how Winter and Badger create their photographs without disrupting the landscapes around them.

“We have stories about restoration work, we have stories about the origin of California flowers, we have scientists who are out in the field studying the rufous hummingbird in mountain meadows and how climate change is affecting their epic migration from Mexico to Alaska,” Winter says.

The book also includes a 25-step action guide for those hoping to begin making a difference in protecting the fragile wildflower ecosystems being threatened by climate change and other human activities.

Using their own money, as well as donations and funds raised through a Kickstarter campaign, Badger and Winter independently published “Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change,” which gave them total control over everything from the book’s title and cover to the content on each page. Since the book’s release, Badger and Winter have won 12 awards from the publishing industry and photography competitions — including the 2020 Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography.

“We are a voice for wildflowers and the life that depends on them,” Badger says. “As award-winning conservation photographers, our lives are dedicated to creating change with our images.”

Nonprofit organization Exhibit Envoy began hosting Winter and Badger’s traveling educational exhibit, “Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change,” in 2018. The show has been seen by more than 45,000 people so far, and the San Diego Natural History Museum is creating a large-print version of the exhibit, expected to open in early 2021.

“This has always been about the power of art and storytelling — about educating and motivating people,” Winter says. “It’s exciting to see how it’s grown.”

Published by: Clark Now

A voice for wildflowers:Marin City photographers see their work as ‘art to action’ on climate change

(WinterBadger Collection) — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 08:12:22 GMT

By Vicki Larson MARIN INDEPENDENT JOURNAL Mach 27, 2019

Melting ice caps, drought, rising sea levels and wildfires are what usually come to mind when we hear about climate change.

Photographers Nita Winter and Rob Badger would like you to think about wildflowers instead.

Not because they’re beautiful to look at, but because climate change is changing their habitat and that has huge consequences for all sorts of wildlife that depend on them.

A Rufous hummingbird gathers nectar from a scarlet fritillary plant at Upper Table Rocks in Oregon.

A collection of their wildflower photography and native landscapes will be on display in a traveling exhibit, “Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change,” at Sausalito’s Bay Model from April 2 through June 1, in conjunction with the Marin chapter of the California Native Plant Society.

The longtime Marin City couple, both professionally and personally, are also working on a coffee table book by the same name featuring their work and essays by various writers and scientists.

Tiburon Mariposa lily, endemic to Ring Mountain Marin County Open Space District.

Badger first got interested in photographing wildflowers in 1992, while visiting Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve while it was in the middle of a super bloom.

“It was just an incredible bloom with a great variety of flowers. I’d never seen anything like that before,” says Badger, who has been a longtime nature and environmental photographer.

Calypso orchids, also known as fairy slipper or Venus' slipper, photographed at Mount Tamalpais State Park.

It impressed them so much that when there was another “100 Year” bloom six years later, they spent a month photographing wildflowers in Death Valley, Joshua Tree and Anza Borrego parks.

“At that point we were completely hooked and said, OK, let’s focus on this,” Winter says.

Marin City photographers Rob Badger and Nita Winter have been working on a 17- year project, "Beauty and the Beast: Wildflowers and Climate Change."

But they didn’t want to just focus on wildflowers without a purpose; they were looking for a way to use their photography to help further their commitment to creating healthy communities, whether for humans or the natural world.

When they connected about eight years ago with Blue Earth Alliance, a nonprofit that provides funding for documentary photographers and filmmakers whose work highlights environmental and social issues, the couple found their mission — to use their wildflower imagery to educate, attract attention and inspire people to take action against climate change.

“Climate change was coming more into the fore of people’s awareness and I was really curious how was this going to affect the wildflowers in the state,” Badger says.

Limantour Lagoon at Point Reyes National Seashore at sunrise.

It wasn’t too hard to see what years of drought and years of intense rains have done to our wildflowers, they say.

Wildflower habitats are slowly being invaded by non-local and non-native species as the climate changes, they note. This is affecting the timing of regularly occurring, seasonal events such as snow melt and leafing, known as phenology, and the wildlife that depend on those events for survival.

“For example, hummingbirds migrate from one place to the other looking for food knowing that the flowers will be there to give them nectar to fuel them on their migration. Well, as climate change happens and the snow melt comes earlier, spring comes earlier; by the time the birds get there, the flowers have already germinated and gone to seed and withered and died,” Badger, 71, says. “So the whole phenology, the timing, has changed.”

Tidy tips wildflowers at dusk atop Ring Mountain Open Space Reserve.

“We’re really concerned about their survival,” adds Winter, 64, whose “Faces” project, featuring portraits of Marin City, Canal and Novato residents to highlight the county’s diversity, lined Marin’s streets in the late 1990s to early 2000s.

Badger and Winter hope their works inspire others to see the importance of wildflowers so they’ll be concerned about their survival, too.

Fog flows into lower Tennessee Valley as seen from the Coastal Trail at the Golden Gate National Recreation

So far, more than 40,000 people across the state have seen their wildflower photographs since they were first exhibited in January 2016 at the San Francisco Main Library.

“An extremely important part of the exhibit is its educational aspect,” Badger says.

“We call it art to action,” Winter says. “It’s in our blood. We have to do it.”

Western azalea wildflower blossoms along Old Stage Road atop Mount Tamalpais.

On their website, the couple note that some predict we may lose 20 to 30 percent of our native plant species by the end of the century if the impacts of climate warming aren’t addressed quickly.

Still, they say they see hope in wilderness and wildflowers.

“Our goal is to give people a truly enjoyable experience when they see the beauty that is on our public lands. Almost all the photography we’ve done has been on public lands,” Badger says.

“The purpose of the exhibit is basically to inspire appreciation for the beauty and the life that’s out there, and to inspire action with regard to conservation and climate change. And to enjoy doing it, to find joy, some satisfaction in just doing the smallest thing.”

Great red paintbrush (Castilleja miniata) photographed at the Inyo National Forest.

IF YOU GO

What: “Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change”

Where: Bay Model Visitor Center, 2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito

When: April 2 through June 1, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.Tuesdays through Saturdays

Admission: Free

Information: 415-332-3871

Published by: Marin Independent Journal

North Bay photographers’ new book captures diversity of native flowers, encourages conservation

(WinterBadger Collection) — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 07:55:00 GMT

By Meg McConahey THE PRESS DEMOCRAT January 15, 2021

Field of California Poppies in burn recovery area, Pepperwood Preserve, Sonoma County, California, USA. (Rob Badger)

It was just another shoot for nature photographer Rob Badger as he headed down to the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve back in 1992. But when he arrived at the state reserve in northern Los Angeles County, he was gobsmacked by the extravagance of its wildflowers — which is saying something for a veteran shooter accustomed to training his lenses on the earth’s wonders.

The reserve was experiencing a super bloom, when above-average rainfall in areas of desert and chaparral germinate seeds that may have been lying dormant for years in the soil. The result is a riot of wildflowers.

That night, Badger called his life partner, fellow photographer Nita Winter, and gushed about the spectacle he had just witnessed.

“I told her that I had never seen such an expanse of these glowing California poppies, going off into the distance in waves. The wind was blowing them so you could see these waves of color,” he recalled. “It was an amazing sight.”

Badger was so bewitched that he scurried home to Marin County to fetch Nita and bring her back to the poppy reserve to share the wildflower show while it was still blazing. With wildflowers, the bloom can vanish quickly with sudden heat or drying wind.

The handful of days they spent capturing the vision on film ignited a quest to learn more. In the last 28 years they have traveled up and down the state with their camera equipment, documenting native wildflowers in their many forms on public lands, including at Santa Rosa’s Pepperwood Preserve. They’ve documented more than 400 different wildflowers.

leopard lilies

Leopard Lily white background, Mount Tamalpais State Park, Marin County, California. Part of Traveling exhibit and/or coffee table book:Beauty and The Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change by (Rob Badger) and Nita Winter© The Winter Badger Press co-published CNPS California Native Plant SocietyAuthors: Peter Raven, Jose Gonzalez, Wendy Tokuda, Kenna Kuhn, Kitty Connolly, Erin Schrode, Dr. Margaret Leinen, Will Rogers, Gordon Leppig, Susan Tweit, Mary Ellen Hannibal, Genevieve Arnold, Ryan Burnett, Doug Tallamy, Ileene Andersen, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Amber Pairis

Several years ago they collected some of their best photos into a traveling art exhibit. They now have compiled them into a 12-by-12 inch coffee-table book, “Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change.” Copublished with The California Native Plant Society, the 264-page book pairs 190 photos with essays from 16 notable environmental writers, activists and scientists to show the perilous impact of climate change on California’s spectacularly diverse wildflower populations.

It is a visual tour of the state’s biodiverse wildflower habitats, illustrated with everything from delicate close-ups showing the natural artistry of flower forms to colorful panoramas of super blooms. But it also serves as a call to action. Wildflowers are threatened by climate change, development and other environmental forces, including the hoards of people who flock to see the wildflowers, particular during super blooms.

The pair have received numerous awards for their work, including the 2020 Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography, conferred by The Sierra Club.

A diverse climate

Caticularly fertile ground for wildflowers. The golden poppy (Eschscholzia californica) is the official state flower. California’s nickname, the Golden State, was inspired not only by the gold rush of 1849 and the Golden Gate strait, but by the golden poppies that brighten the landscape every summer.

Because of its size and vast diversity of climate and geography, from mountains and deserts to ocean and forests, California has more native plant species than any state in the union. Many of them are found nowhere else on earth, said Dan Gluesenkamp, executive director of the California Native Plant Society, in the book’s introduction. Scientists, he added, say it is one of the world’s biodiversity hot spots.

Because of their captivating charm, the state’s wildflowers can serve as ambassadors of the natural world and call attention to environmental threats of all kinds.

“The whole concept (of the book) was to use images of wildflowers to attract attention (and) have people fall in love with them in a way that would educate and inspire action,” Winter said.

“Rob and I had both been using our photography for advocacy purposes,” she added.

In the tradition of Depression-era photographer Dorothea Lange, Winter had focused on telling stories of the Bay Area’s diverse communities, beginning with “Children of the Tenderloin” in the 1980s. But with a degree in biology, she was drawn to nature’s diversity as well.

Badger has excelled as an environmental photographer, creating evocative images for the National Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy and The Trust for Public Land. In 1998 he was one of three American photographers chosen to document the vast and little-known nature preserves in European Russia and Siberia.

Super blooms

People have come to love the super blooms, so much so that they overrun parks like Anza-Borrego and Joshua Tree. These blooms used to be very rare events but now happen once a decade or even more frequently, due to climate change. And those hard rainy seasons have a downside, inviting invasive and other nonnative species that can quickly overtake a wildflower habitat, Badger said.

Badger and Winter aimed to make the book accessible for a wide range of people. Twenty-something Kenna Huhn contributed a piece, “Hope, Joy and Inspiration,” as did octogenarian Peter Raven. The president emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Raven also is on the advisory board of Quarryhill Botanical Garden in Glen Ellen.

In the book, vistas of wildflowers appear as broad strokes painted on hillsides and plains and meadows. But the many botanical close-ups celebrate their intricate individuality, like that of the purple owl’s clover (Castilleja exserta) they captured in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in Marin County and the sky lupine and California poppies they photographed in an ecological preserve in Butte County. They also show us Indian pink on Mt. Tamalpais and Franciscan paintbrush in the Golden Gate recreation area.

Badger and Winter want the book to serve as a call to action to help preserve these precious objects of natural beauty. The state is increasingly vulnerable to droughts and wildfires due to climate change. Extreme temperatures stress wildflower populations, leading to lower rates of reproduction, more die-offs, and vulnerability to predators, disease, and invasive species.

checkerbloom

Checkerbloom, Ring Mountain Open Space Preserve, Corte Madera, Marin County, California. (Rob Badger and Nita Winter)

For home gardens

Although all of the wildflowers shown in the book were photographed in their natural habitat in public parks and preserves, many of these wildflowers can be grown in home landscapes. Owl’s clover, part of the genus Castillaja that includes Indian paintbrush, attracts bees and butterflies and is a crucial host plant for the threatened Bay checkerspot butterfly.

Helpfully, the book offers a couple of chapters geared to gardeners who might want to do their bit by planting wildflowers in their own yards.

Kitty Connolly, executive director of the Theodore Payne Foundation for Wildflowers and Native Plants in the San Fernando Valley, wrote a chapter called “Wildflowers at Home.” The American West, she said, is becoming drier. Half the urban water available is used for landscaping, but home gardeners can cut their water use in half, even up to 70%, by planting native plants. Wildflowers make a ”delightful ephemeral element“ amid the sturdy perennials, she wrote.

“The brilliance of poppies makes them classics, nicely complementing the muted gray-green leaves of buckwheat, sage and sagebrush. For a spectacular show, contrast orange poppies with blue or purple lupines, phacella or baby blue eyes. Sow seeds of tidy tips or goldfields to grow a sea of golden light,” she wrote.

The National Wildlife Federation provided an essay on pollinators as “the unsung heroes of our gardens, fields and farms.” Planting native wildflowers along with native trees and shrubs provides nectar and pollen for the bees, butterflies, birds and insects that fertilize plant life.

Badger and Winter traversed the state to capture the huge diversity of wildflowers. But they took many of the photos in the North Bay, to show wildflowers expressly adapted to the region.

They spent time at the 3,200-acre Pepperwood Preserve, located on the ridge of the Mayacamas Mountains on the north edge of Santa Rosa.

“We wanted to include a section in the book on wildflower recovery, and Pepperwood had just burned in the Tubbs fire,” Winter said.

Some wildflowers, such as fireweed and lupine, thrive on burned-bare ground by using the phosphorus and nitrogen in the ash, wrote Susan J. Tweet, an environmental writer exploring “Phoenix from Ashes” in the book. She wrote about “fire follower” wildflowers, such as those that sprout only after wildfires, and otherwise-hidden wildflowers that are revealed after fires. Some are germinated by the heat. Others, she wrote, are awakened by the “smell” or organic compounds in the smoke. The seeds of golden eardrops, she said, can sprout after only 10 minutes of exposure.

January brings a new year of wildflower blooms. Look closely and you might see baby blue eyes, hound’s tongue and trillium.

“We found flowers blooming every month of the year. We noticed just in Marin, flowers start blooming in January and as weather changes in spring, you get more and different flowers,” Badger said. “We can be photographing wildflower blooms in the mountains as late as September.”

For those who might like to bring the beauty of a wildflower display indoors, the photographic duo also creates installations for healthcare facilities, civic centers, public art displays and private homes. They sell fine art prints of their wildflower and nature photography at winterbadger.com. The book also can be purchased at bit.ly/3i6wFl2

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at 707-521-5204 or meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com. OnTwitter @megmcconahey.

Published by: The Press Democrat

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST CALIFORNIA WILDFLOWERS AND CLIMATE CHANGE

(WinterBadger Collection) — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 06:28:21 GMT

Reviewed by Kristine Morris FOREWORD REVIEWS June 2020

Beauty and the Beast is the story of an imperiled glory. Part of an inspiring documentary art project created by conservation photographers Rob Badger and Nita Winter, it highlights California’s famed wildflower “superblooms” that, when conditions are favorable, herald the arrival of spring with a riotous display of color.

Shimmering in vast waves across the landscape or revealing their intricacies in intimate portraits of a single bloom, the wildflowers were all photographed in natural light using harm-free methods that are shared in detail at the end of the book. Eighteen short, insightful essays by a diverse group of scientists and nature writers tell the stories of these imperiled wildflowers and inspire action with suggestions for helping to tame “the beast.”

The book celebrates California’s remarkable biodiversity. Home to more native plant species than any other state, its varied landscapes—cool north-facing mountain slopes, scorching desert terrain, bay estuaries, and beaches—are the result of millennia of tectonic upheavals. The resulting microclimates have sheltered ancient organisms that are now extinct everywhere else, though they are now under threat as overconsumption destroys natural habitats, pollutes, and wreaks havoc on ecosystems.

While Earth’s long and tumultuous evolution has always included periods of climate change, the book reveals that what is happening now is different. Sped up by human activity, climate change is occurring much faster than ever before, leaving plants without the time they need to adapt to changing conditions or migrate to environments better suited to them.

Sensitive and thought provoking, Beauty and the Beast is a delight for the eyes and nourishment for the soul—a strong reminder of fragile beauty on the cusp of destruction, given in the hope that people will be moved to care and then to act on its behalf.

Reviewed by: Foreword Reviews

Rob and Nita Featured on NBC-TV's OpenRoad

(WinterBadger Collection) — Sat, 21 May 2016 04:38:49 GMT

For those who missed the TV program, live outside the San Francisco Bay Area, or just want to see it again (aren't we vain?), we are proud to share our 4 minute interview with Doug McConnell. We were featured artists on NBC's OpenRoad on May 15th, 2016.

We love the wonderful places and people Doug, and his team, offer his viewers every Sunday at 6:30PM on Bay Area's Channel 3 (NBC). You can visit OpenRoad's website for additional episodes of this great series.

Next week we'll share the story behind the marmot eating the wildflowers (his agent is now pushing for royalties and future gigs).

If you so desire, we hope you'll enjoy sharing the video with others.

Oh yes, due to the high demand for Zorro's autograph we are posting his photo here.

Rob Badger and Nita Winter Featured on NBC's OpenRoad with Doug McConnell

(WinterBadger Collection) — Mon, 09 May 2016 23:35:00 GMT

Come Join Us on NBC's OpenRoad with Doug McConnell.

This Sunday, May 15th at 6:30pm on Bay Area Channel 3.

Repeated on July 10th.

Rob Badger and Nita Winter are Featured on NBC's OpenRoad with Doug McConnell.

May 15th, 2016

"A new episode featuring our horseback ride in Solano County, redwood discoveries with

Steve Abbors, the efforts of Bay Area Wilderness Training to make camping and

outdoor adventure accessible to young people everywhere in the region, and Rob

Badger’s and Nita Winter’s photographs of flowers and landscapes in California."

~ Doug McConnell

Thank you to our 3,700 visitors

(WinterBadger Collection) — Mon, 09 May 2016 23:06:03 GMT

Thank you to the 3,700 visitors who attended our "Beauty and the Beast: California's Wildflowers and Climate Change" exhibit at the Jewett Gallery, San Francisco Main Public Library. We are grateful to all who helped create this exhibit and spread the word.

We wanted to share some of the many entries in our guest book:

"Your exquisite collection has made me even more of a fanatical flower lover than ever before. Best we do what is ultimately necessary to change our overall outlook towards saving this great state of my homeland. I can not thank you enough…" ~Anonymous

“Quite lively. I especially enjoyed the different ways of viewing and photographing. I will look at all flowers with new eyes!” ~ Ros W., Catskills, NY

"What an amazing exhibit. Opened my eyes and brain. A hummingbird is doing its part why can’t humans!" ~ DZ

“Absolutely spectacular exhibit! Thank you for reminding us of the importance and beauty of our native flowers and the need to protect them.” ~ Dorothy D.

"Came with students from Concord, they loved it. Thank you."

Beauty and the Beast: California's Wildflowers and Climate Change Exhibit

(WinterBadger Collection) — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 19:54:47 GMT

For those of you who couldn't make it to the opening of our current exhibit: "Beauty and the Beast: California's Wildflowers and Climate Change" at the Jewett Gallery, San Francisco Main Public Library here is a short intro and the slideshow/lecture.

We are so proud of this 100 image exhibit we created featuring California and San Francisco Bay Area wildflowers. Thank you to all those who helped us produce informational maps and text panels. Enjoy!

Intro

Lecture

WinterBadger Collection: Blog

May Newsletter: Wildflowers & Birds Featured at Marin Open Studios

Marin Open Studios Two Weekends: May 6 -7 & 13 - 14

The dazzling, troubling history of California superbloom tourism.

Other Upcoming Events

Annie's Annuals and Perennials

740 Market Ave., Richmond CA

Hooray! The Rains are Back

‘Beauty and the Beast’

Nita's Life as a Wildland Firefighter

A Season of Giving

Have You Ever Thought of Supporting A Creative and Inspiring Dream?

WOW! Flooding in Marin City

Celebrating National Wildflower Week with Rob Badger and Nita Winter

California Blooming: NOW OPEN

Wildflowers and climate change in the Golden State.

Did you know?

Meet the photographers

Despite 11-month closure, Natural History Museum has been a beehive of activity since March

Update:

California Blooming: Wildflowers and Climate Change in the Golden State

Exhibit Opens on April 2

California Wildflowers and Climate Change

In Wildflowers’ Beauty, A Call to Action

Rob Badger and Nita Winter: 5 Things We Must Do To Inspire The Next Generation

Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change

The creative process

California’s wildflower blooms: 27 years of photos track the changing climate

Nita Winter’s wildflower photography is a blooming success

A voice for wildflowers:Marin City photographers see their work as ‘art to action’ on climate change

IF YOU GO

North Bay photographers’ new book captures diversity of native flowers, encourages conservation

A diverse climate

Super blooms

For home gardens

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST CALIFORNIA WILDFLOWERS AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Rob and Nita Featured on NBC-TV's OpenRoad

Rob Badger and Nita Winter Featured on NBC's OpenRoad with Doug McConnell

Thank you to our 3,700 visitors

Beauty and the Beast: California's Wildflowers and Climate Change Exhibit

Marin Open Studios
Two Weekends: May 6 -7 & 13 - 14