A painted utility box. On it are three bees on top of a honeycomb, painted with semi-realism. The honeycomb is in two colors, warm yellow and dark red, cut across diagonally from the top right to the bottom left. One bee is at the top left, and two are facing each other at the bottom right. There are two blue stripes going across from left to right and slanted downwards at the top right and bottom left corners.

Adaptation Art

Sophy Tuttle was one of the gifted speakers who visited the interns. A skilled artist, you can find her working on huge murals depicting animals and symbolic climate change warnings. Some of these murals can even be found in Arlington, like the honey bee mural at Magnolia Field! Tuttle's enthusiasm for art spread to the interns when she gave a project to do at home. The assignment: create a new adaptation for endangered animals to survive the obstacles of climate change that threaten them. Below are some of our artworks. Enjoy!

If you would like to learn more about Tuttle, please visit her website. It's full of beautiful masterpieces, including her next project!

A hand painted artwork and collage. The background is a watercolor-spill looking design that is white and grey. On the left is a collaged turtle, with the body made out of cut out black and white text, and the shell is made of photos of people’s faces. The arms appear to have black dots on top of the text. On the right is sand spread across half of the page, with eggshell bits glued on in circles, presumably to represent eggs.

A painting of a fish on water next to some land. On the bottom right is a solid color of turquoise with a pink fish about four inches long in the water. On the left, next to the water, is land represented as a solid rectangle of brown. In it are long stems of green with leaves shaped like clovers– these are presumably trees. The sky is light blue.

A pencil drawing of a black and blue salamander. The salamander is black with blue spots, and a ridged tail that is alternating black and blue. It has wings stretched out to the side– blue on its right, black on its left. One wing is about half the length of its body. From its head is a little heart popping out, as if love or a kiss. The background is white. At the top right, text reads in thin black pen, “Sally saved herself!” At the bottom left reads, “Problems Blue-Spotted Salamanders face: habitat loss. habitat degradation. road mortality. disease. Solution: New home [an arrow pointing right] [begin caps] wings! [end caps]. (Sally’s practically a dragon [smiling face])”

A slightly blurry colored pencil drawing of three birds sitting on a line. They are more akin to silhouettes than detailed birds, and are mostly dark and not fully shaded. In the background, at the bottom, are two strips of dark blue, then lighter blue closer to the middle, mimicking what may be an ocean. Higher is a light gray pointy strip that may be a mountain. At the top is a sunrise/sunset from yellow to orange to red ranging outwards. At the top left reads, “2100”.