The Artwork of Jackson Bloch

            I grew up cradling unsuspecting bumblebees between my fingers, drawing Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, and practicing my signature in preparation for my career as a major league baseball player. The Red Sox never drafted me, but I have always retained my love of nature and art. In high school, inspired by the large flocks of Cedar Waxwings that visited my yard every spring, I combined these interests and embraced the challenge of bird photography. At Bowdoin College, classes in ornithology and oil painting continued to fuel my excitement. The summer after I graduated, I worked on a remote ranch in Wyoming where, without my oils, I started to experiment with a small watercolor set provided for ranch staff. I was captivated by the detail and elegance of watercolor and now use it for all of my nature paintings.

            Art is important to me because it expresses how much I care about animals, nature, and conservation. I try to achieve work that flows well, but also conveys the attention to detail and time I invested in the painting. With climate change and conservation becoming increasingly important issues, anything that motivates people to change their behavior or contribute to conservation is a step forward. Many of the biggest catalysts for change have been displays of the negative environmental impacts of our current behavior. However, I think that conservation can also be achieved positively by teaching people to love the environments around them and artwork, because of the care and appreciation it communicates, can play a large role in this movement.

             Aside from painting, I enjoy endurance sports, especially cross country skiing. I am currently the Assistant Coach  of the Colby College Nordic Ski Team. I love competing, too, and in the past four years I’ve raced seventeen ski marathons in seven different countries, including many of the marathons on the World Loppet Circuit. I hope to finish the remaining ten races on the circuit, which span ten countries and four continents, over the next decade. In the summer, I am also the head sailing instructor at the camp I attended growing up.