Drawing the Motmot exhibit in Okla. museum

Until Jan. 18, birders can visit Sam Noble Museum in Norman, Okla., and see "Drawing the Motmot: An Artist's View of Tropical Nature." The exhibit features the art and commentary of nature artist Debby Kaspari, and it focuses on tropical forests in Central and South America.

Kaspari first began drawing and painting the rainforest in Trinidad in the late 1980s. She fell in love with the lush exotic landscape and made many subsequent trips to the tropics, including sites in Panama and Costa Rica. Last winter, a grant from the Don and Virginia Eckelberry Endowment allowed her to make a trip up the Amazon River to work at a research station deep in the rainforest of Peru. There she was able to draw the flora and fauna of the rainforest canopy thanks to an elevated walkway linking 14 trees through a system of platforms and rope bridges.

For the past four years, Kaspari has been working with the museum to develop an exhibit that would give visitors the same sense of peace, beauty and wonder she herself experienced in the field.

“I wanted this to be more than just an art exhibit,” Kaspari explained. “I wanted to share the environment as I see and feel it. I wanted to bring a visitor into the rainforest and give them the chance to connect with it the way I do, through artwork and media.”

Kaspari maintains a blog, a Facebook profile and a Twitter account, so opportunities to enjoy the artist and her work abound. Although the exhibit will leave the museum in six weeks, you can continue to enjoy Kaspari's talent via the links above.