After a "Wild West Coast Experience" out in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 60's, I returned to Florida with my bride B.J.  Having just spent two intense "colorful" years at UC Berkeley, studying Landscape Architecture with an emphasis on Regional and Urban Planning and Design -- I came home to the Tampa Bay Area with Masters Degree in hand to discover acres and acres of precious mangrove wetlands habitat being bulldozed.  Our hearts were broken.  I went to work at the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council and was soon promoted to Chief of Planning.  After only eighteen months -- I left and began to passionately paint on canvas fragile coastal areas that were about to be destroyed.  Through my art, B.J. and I became a part of an early grassroots movement that was successful in bringing about legislation to halt rampant dredge and fill operations and preserve pristine, jewel-like barrier islands and other sensitive coastal ecosytems -- including Caladesi Island, Honeymoon Island, Three Rooker Bar, and Anclote Key -- all now part of the Florida State Parks system and known globally for their unspoiled sugar white beaches.

Now, with an oil spill of catastrophic proportions in our treasured Gulf of Mexico, vital coastal and wetlands systems are in even more jeopardy. I hope my art and the "Coastal Florida Fragilities" Exhibition will help to energize concerned others of all generations to work at the grass roots level to affect values and ethics and bring about alternatives and more answerable decisions regarding our precious natural systems -- and their perpetuity. How our hard won unique natural open spaces in Florida and worldwide are valued and protected by current and future generations remains to be seen.
See "Drill Baby Drill ..." by Hal Stowers, ASLA  

The challenge in mastering new media to express my heartfelt concern for our natural environment has kept me excited and in a constant learning mode for over four decades -- from hand pulled stone lithographs, copper plate etching aquatints, canvases, watercolors, and monotypes, to monumental stainless steel sculpture, an artists' book, and video.
 
As one travels through my art, I am asked again and again, "How do you stay inspired -- and do you ever get burned out?"  I explain that simultaneous with the development of my work, a creative lifestyle recipe evolved to help mellow out the highs and lows of life and keep channels open for creative flow.  B.J. and I refer to our lifestyle concept as LIFE BLENDING® -- it has helped us survive and thrive as independent environmental artists/authors. It's about attaining a Natural High in an increasingly synthetic world. We are now reaching out, as guides -- to help others who would like to taste, be inspired and benefit from this concept.
 
My art, our LIFE BLENDING® Book, and much of LIFE BLENDING has to do with experiencing the intrinsic value of our natural environment in elevating the human spirit.  It is our hope and dream that seeds from this heightened awareness and understanding of the mystique, beauty, spiritual therapy and energizing attributes of nature will grow to universal significance -- influencing values, ethics, quality of life -- and result in more sensitive choices in the planning, design, development and regeneration of sustainable environments for living, working, playing, and care giving. For more:  http://originaltropicalart.com/

HAL STOWERS, ASLA, 2010