Wildlands Inspire: Lina Tharsing Spotlight

Wildlands Guest Blog by artist Lina Tharsing

Note: Lina is a member of the Pine Mountain Collective, the group of artists engaged in KNLT’s conservation efforts. This spring, she created a special art piece for KNLT’s midyear fundraising appeal. We invited Lina to share her perspective on her connection to nature, her thoughts on KNLT, and her process for creating the piece.

I grew up in downtown Lexington but much of my time as a child was spent with my parents hiking through farmland, forests, and creek beds of rural Kentucky. While my mother and father painted, I squatted, half naked in the water fishing for crawdads and lifting stones to find salamanders. I think I was almost always barefoot, happy to have my feet in grass, and toughening up my heels by running over rocks. We spent our summers on a somewhat remote island in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia where we drew our water from a well and crossed the ocean in our own little boat. We spent most nights looking up at the stars and naming the constellations we could remember or staying up late to see the Perseid meteor shower. Appreciation of nature was a foundation of my childhood and now almost all of my paintings focus on wild places. 

In 2015 I was fortunate to be invited to KNLT’s artists’ retreat, which also marked my first visit to Pine Mountain. At the halfway point of a lovely group hike, I remember standing at the top of a rocky outcrop, gazing out over an ocean of trees in full autumn color, and feeling deeply grateful that KNLT is preserving this dense forest. By protecting, connecting, and restoring wildlands in Central Appalachia and across Kentucky, KNLT is preserving rich biodiversity and ensuring future generations will inherit these forests. Now more than ever we need to dig deep into our connection to one another and to the land. 

 After the Pine Mountain Collective reunion in 2019, my partner Warren and I and a few friends visited Blanton Forest State Nature Preserve (KNLT’s first project). The timing was perfect, the mountain laurel was blooming and delicate, white, origami-like blossoms and bright orange salamanders covered the forest floor. I took many photographs that day and was especially awed by the rock maze we wandered through. This painting of Blanton Forest is from a photograph from that trip. I had a hard time deciding on an image and so I painted several gouache studies before choosing one. It’s hard to tell how a photograph will translate to a painting without diving into painting it. So much is revealed in the process of painting and recalling the feeling and magic of being in the place. Every time I get to walk through an ancient forest I think of how these wildlands would not exist if they were not protected. I believe we have a biological need to be in nature (we are nature) and to be reminded of our place in the family of things. These forests nourish the soul.