May 30, 2026 | Current & Upcoming Events, Water, Writing and Publications
Read my essay about Meditations of Geometries of Water: Summer Lake in ARTerrain.
The interplay of irregular, natural shapes and regular, human-imposed geometries reveals our values, desires, and priorities as expressed in how we manipulate the land. Water, left to its own devices, creates ever-changing curving shapes and forms. While humans, in order to maximize efficiency, create straight dikes and canals as well as the perfect circles you see in center-pivot irrigation…
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Jan 25, 2026 | Events, Speaking
THE RESER PRESENTS
ARTIST TALK: THE BEAUTY OF STRUCTURE
Date February 21, 2026 1:00pm
Artist talk with Leah Wilson & Sally Finch | Saturday, February 21 | 1:00 – 2:30 pm | Free with a reserved ticket.
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Jan 25, 2026 | Events, Exhibitions
The Art of Ecology: Rhythms of Timbre February 6, 2026 – March 14, 2026 at the Reser. Rhythms of Timbre by Leah Wilson and Sally Finch. Each artist observes, records, and responds to the living systems that surround us. In their work, observation, research, and reflection intertwine, data transforms into emotion, and art becomes a language through which we can understand our changing world.
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Aug 1, 2025 | Current & Upcoming Events, Events, Listening to the Forest, Studio Notebook
Listening to the Forest is on the map! Oregon Arts Commission and Travel Oregon have launched 50 for 50, a campaign to showcase 50 public artworks from all regions of Oregon created over the past 50 years of Oregon’s Percent for Art in Public Places program and mine is included. Woohoo! Come tour public art in Oregon and stop by Oregon State University to visit Listening to the Forest.
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Jul 31, 2025 | Creative Process, Field Notebook, On the Other Side of Grief, Studio Notebook, Work in Progress
I started three new paintings. One is another small Ode to the Eddy Muffin painting, the other two are for my new series with the working title of On the Other Side of Grief. The 2023 fire that burned over 2/3 of the HJ Andrews Forest, a place where I have been delving into with my art since 2012, was devastating for scientists, artists, and the ecosystem. Every person who has engaged with the place in any meaningful way experienced grief and we are all finding our ways through it. I have invited some of the Andrews Forest community who I have gotten to know through the years to take me to...
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Jul 20, 2025 | Beauty, Creative Process, Klamath River Project Introduction, Patterns, Rivers
In July I finally finished these two little eddy muffin paintings. I had started them last fall but they were put on pause while I focused my attention on the marathon predawn painting sessions of Bloom to meet the deadline. These paintings, the fourth and fifth pieces of art in the Ode to the Eddy Muffin series, but the first two paintings, were made to look slowly and deeply at a particularly gross eddy on the Klamath River in Keno, Oregon and its ubiquitous thick foam. One of the things that fascinates me is that I can start with something that repulsive, but the more deeply I look at it,...
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Jul 13, 2025 | Art & Science, Field Notebook
Standing on the rim of the caldera on Paulina Peak with volcanologist Daniele McKay, I attempted to orient myself from what I knew about the volcano after spending hours peering at a Lidar map and making my painting Bloom while she poured out fascinating information about the volcano.
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Jul 1, 2025 | Color, Klamath River Project Introduction, Pigments, Studio Notebook
Have I mentioned I recently started making my paints? It’s a slow meditative process, and I am developing a sensitivity to the personality of each pigment and learning their fascinating histories. Especially after writing what I did above about the powerful combination of learning information and experiential knowledge at Newberry Volcano, essentially the way I move through life whenever possible, I am flabbergasted that it has taken me this long to make my paint. Now that I have started, I don’t want to use manufactured paint anymore. It’s all so homogenous and lacking personality. Blues...
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Jun 29, 2025 | Events, Speaking
Stelo Portland’s Park Blocks 412 NW 8th Avenue, Portland, Oregon Panel Discussion Saturday, July 12 @ 2:30 – 4:30 PM Oregon Origins Project in partnership with Stelo presents an epic new musical work and art exhibition depicting the dramatic events of Oregon’s geologic history. Join us for a panel discussion. This conversation will include Leah Wilson, Christine Bourdette, Ian Madin, and Matthew Packwood about our artistic exploration of the state’s geologic origin stories, including Columbia River basalt flows, Basin and Range earthquakes, Cascade volcanoes, Missoula floods, and...
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Jun 21, 2025 | On the Other Side of Grief, Work in Progress
Last year I recorded an episode for the Spring Creek Project’s podcast “Luminaries” about my relationship with fire and water in response to Bill Viola’s installation “The Crossing” which I saw about 30 years ago. My issues with fire stretch way back before that to my childhood in Southern California. I am not a fan of fire and have mostly ignored it with my art. Note that my project for Wildfire + Water is more like Water + Water. I can’t ignore fire any longer. Now I am embarking on a new project directly relate to wildfire. The HJ Andrews Experimental Forest has been impacted by three...
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Jun 17, 2025 | Color, Light, Sunrise, Time
I took the first sunrise photo in December 2020. Why do I keep doing this? Because it is a simple act that gives me so much in return. Every morning I connect to what is happening on this planet where I am.
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Jun 16, 2025 | Color, Workshops
Come explore color with me! Dive into the vibrant world of color in Exploring Coloring, an engaging workshop designed for adult artists. This 5-day evening class invites participants to investigate how colors interact, behave, and affect one another through both intuitive and practical exercises.
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Apr 22, 2025 | Events, Exhibitions
The Arts Center is thrilled to exhibit the exceptional work created during the inaugural Wildfire + Water residency at PLAYA in Summer Lake, OR. This timely exhibition explores environmental, spiritual and socio-political issues not only affecting the Chewaucan region, but the entire world.
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Apr 22, 2025 | Events, Exhibitions
Oregon Origins VI The Birth of Cascadia The Reser Center 12625 SW Crescent Street, Beaverton, Oregon Performances June 21, 2025 @ 7:30 PM June 22, 2025 @ 2:00 PM Oregon Origins Project in partnership with Stelo presents an epic new musical work and art exhibition depicting the dramatic events of Oregon’s geologic history. Join us for an artistic exploration of the state’s geologic origin stories, including Columbia River basalt flows, Basin and Range earthquakes, Cascade volcanoes, Missoula floods, and much more. Reserve Your Tickets Oregon Origins VI The Birth of Cascadia Stelo 412 NW 8th...
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Mar 14, 2024 | Environmentalism, Musings on Art, Speaking
I gravitate toward water. I spent a considerable amount of time as a river guide and instructor. much of my life has been shaped by water. I run from fire. It has also shaped my life. Fire is my shadow. The Spring Creek Project invited me to record a podcast episode for their series “Luminaries” produced by the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University. This series invites people to share stories about writing and art that illuminates their environmental thinking or work. I responded to Bill Viola’s video installation “The Crossing” in which he blended fire and water...
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Mar 17, 2023 | Klamath River Project Introduction
The gun club and the eddy are two places I wouldn’t enter without good reason, and together, they have a darkly seductive draw. I have entered the gun club twice because that’s where the eddy is accessed. My first visit to the eddy was punctuated by the sound of gunshots. The second was snow-covered and silent.
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Feb 11, 2023 | Sunrise
Today I feel less adrift and more at home. The feeling of home includes the memory of standing in the snow 1,200 miles from here eleven sunrises ago, as well as a month ago. The sunrise gave me roots.
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Feb 9, 2023 | Klamath River Project
This beginning on a cold dusky evening was so near to the last place I floated the Klamath River years ago when I was teaching kayaking. This beginning met the previous end, picking up the dropped thread and beginning to weave a new pattern. That night we slept in our tents next to the river, listening to foxes screaming in the night.
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Feb 4, 2023 | Exhibitions
February 3 – February 25, 2023, at Truckenbrod Gallery in Corvallis, Oregon.
Our relationship with a river determines how it is seen. Depending on our personal experiences, we each see a river through a different lens. In this show, two artists (Wilson and Myers) and a scientist (Bartholomew) share their views of a river through different perspectives.
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Jan 2, 2023 | Sunrise
If I let it, a procedure can become the foundation of a ritual. When a ritual is honored, it has the potential to open a door to the unexpected.
Sunrise is no longer a habit or a routine. This year I have designated it as a project and it is now housed along with my formal projects on my website. It is a ritual.
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Nov 1, 2022 | Art & Science, Environmentalism, Listening to the Forest, Speaking
Emeritus beckons. Time and time again, I’m inexorably drawn to stand within it with my head tipped toward the sky. There’s an unease, a dis-ease, underlying the elegance and grace of the forms. How will you respond?
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Oct 17, 2022 | Art & Science, Klamath River Project Introduction
An introduction to my Klamath River Project: What interests me more than knowledge and answers that science provides are the questions we each ask, why we ask them, and the ways we go about trying to find answers. Within the questions, I have found many points of convergence between art and science, primarily in process. My goal with this project is not to explain or illustrate science with my art. Doing so would keep the science contained within the realm of the intellect. Rather my aspiration is to ask better questions so I can know the river, as well as I can, to see and experience it from different perspectives, and to create artwork alongside science that may provide a shift of perception or a doorway that opens to awe and wonder.
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Mar 12, 2022 | Field Notebook, Klamath River Project, Water
Dams fascinate me. We build large walls to hold the water back. We try to tame the water so we can control how much and when it flows. This contradicts the nature of water which is to constantly flow. Dams make me uneasy.
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Aug 30, 2021 | Environmentalism, Stories Told by Water, Water
Louie is proud of this work at Three Sisters Irrigation District – it is a benefit to wildlife and he wants to spread the story. But there is more to it than that. This is a mutual and reciprocal healing: a story I want to spread.
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Aug 23, 2021 | Environmentalism, Stories Told by Water, Water
Environmental problems are not a dichotomy of problems with nature on one side and humans on the other. The dichotomy begins to crumble as soon as the concept of nature is removed. How will our relationship with our ecosystems change and how will our decisions be different if the distinction disintegrates altogether?
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Aug 16, 2021 | Environmentalism, Field Notebook, Stories Told by Water, Water
The creek has been stretched back in time, erasing not only the human created erosion and damage, but also eliminating any chiseling the creek had done on its own prior to human intervention. It’s like shaking a giant Etch A Sketch until all evidence of previous drawings have been eliminated and the raw material is reset to a flat smooth plane where a new drawing can start to take form.
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Aug 9, 2021 | Field Notebook, Stories Told by Water, Water
My relationship with Whychus Creek started tentatively. The milky glacial water was not inviting even though it was a hot day in July. The headwaters on Broken Top are not very far away. The water is cold.
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Aug 5, 2021 | Creative Process, Environmentalism, Rivers, Speaking Video Archive, Stories Told by Water, Time
In conjunction with my solo exhibition, Stories Told by Water, Umpqua Valley Arts hosted an artist talk on August 5. In this talk I give context to Stories Told by Water and I introduce work in progress the studio.
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Jul 31, 2021 | Environmentalism, Field Notebook, Stories Told by Water, Water, Work in Progress
This place is defined by water.
I came to Pine Meadow Ranch to listen to stories of the creek on this ranch in Sisters, Oregon. The ranch is idyllic with its unobstructed views of the mountains and Whychus Creek, its milky glacial melt waters originating from Broken Top and all Three Sisters, running through the ranch.
Little, if any land on the ranch is untouched. It is a fully constructed landscape dating back to the 1800s when settlers cleared fields for cattle and began diverting streams to irrigate their ranches. Some of the coveted water rights for this ranch date back to 1895, superseding the water rights of Three Sisters Irrigation District (TSID).
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Jul 5, 2021 | Beauty, Environmentalism, Musings on Art
Even if we are wary of beauty and its seductive qualities, it is still very difficult to avoid being seduced. Is there is a bias toward beautiful landscapes regarding scientific research?
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