The Painter as Activist

Several years ago, NRDC Trustee Josie Merck traveled by boat down China's Yangtze River. Merck, a New York-based artist known for her paintings of herons, owls, foxes, and other creatures, was waiting to be wowed by the river's wildlife. But once on the water, she saw hardly any. When Merck returned home after the NRDC trip, she began researching the Yangtze. She soon learned that the baiji, a freshwater dolphin that lived only in the Yangtze, had just been declared extinct. She resolved to pick up a paintbrush and revive the dolphin on canvas.

"I am moved by the vulnerability of creatures like the baiji," she explained. "Man has meddled with nature in such terrible ways, and I try to tell that story visually."

Born in Canada and raised in the United States, Mexico, and Brazil, Merck studied painting at Sarah Lawrence College and received an MFA from Yale University's School of Art. Her work has been featured in one-person shows throughout New York and New England.

Merck's exploration of the natural world in her art mirrors a deep commitment to the environment in her life. "Almost 15 years ago, she put up a windmill at her home, and installed solar panels 30 years ago," said Ashok Gupta, the director of NRDC's air and energy program. "She actually does what she asks others to do."

Merck has been a member of NRDC for 25 years and a trustee for seven. Her enthusiasm and support have nurtured many NRDC staff members, but she has also turned her sights on the next generation of leaders. In 2001, she created the Merck Environmental Policy Fellowship to give college students a chance to engage in advocacy.

Though Merck continues to explore other media (she recently produced a film about the life of Rachel Carson), wildlife studies remain a constant in her work. "Coming into close contact with nature and distilling it onto the canvas have been big parts of my life," Merck said. And while some of the images that emerge from that process communicate loss, as with the baiji, others evoke playfulness, as in a series inspired by a trip she took to Laguna San Ignacio, in Baja California, a gray whale nursing ground that NRDC protected from a salt-manufacturing plant. "The whales came right up to us!" Merck exclaimed. "They nudged our boats and pushed their babies toward us, as though showing them off. It was play. That is what lightness is about -- getting people to play with you: First, come on and play. Then we can get serious."