Conference Artwork
Liz Conlon works in a seed lab. She is also a printmaker. Hailing from the oak and juniper woodlands of Central Texas, she moved to Honolulu in 2018 to pursue educational opportunities and a future working in botany and conservation.
Inspired by a rich tradition of botanical illustration in regional floras and the DIY printmaking of artist-activists, she came to block-printing as a medium to both channel concern about social and ecological crises and to celebrate the species and places she has come to know and love.
This print was born from a studio (aka a kitchen) in Kaimukī. It draws on the artist’s time spent in the Waiʻanae Mountains, and extends from there to creatures from mauka to makai.
Pairings of forest species and their marine counterparts, as referred in the Kumulipo, are highlighted: ʻūlei and puhi umaumalei, ʻalaʻala wai nui and limu ʻaʻalaʻula, ʻēkaha and ʻēkaha kū moana, and ʻākala and limu kala. Also included are forest and marine snails—kāhuli and ʻopihi, as well as pollinators nalo meli maoli and ʻamakihi. A person straddles the zone between land and water, reminding us that everything is connected and we are not separate from the landscapes we’re working to conserve, but intimately involved and related to the dynamics of the systems around us.
This year’s theme, “ʻAuamo kuleana – Amplifying strength through balance,” is referenced in a literal sense by the ʻūlei central to the print, whose wood is used to make ʻauamo. The figure carrying a plant backpack holding wiliwili saplings, perhaps on the way to plant in a restoration site, calls us back to another way we use whatever resources are available to expand our capacity to care for our ecosystems. Whether we grow our capacity in a material sense with tools, or by recognizing that our burdens are easier carried collectively, distributing our responsibilities across the bonds that connect and bring us together can only uplift our efforts towards a better world.
