A Journey Toward Nature
Chris Peterson is a busy man: a loving father, a teacher, an activist, a guide, an artist. But he has found a way to integrate all these elements of his life into a cohesive journey that informs and influences the world around him.
Chris states that his footsteps were influenced growing up as he explored the wild corners of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau country. He began very early using paint to express the iconographic and threatened nature he saw around him. He studied art and painting at Brigham Young University and then at the Kansas City Art Institute. “My absence from Utah instilled a deep appreciation for the beauty and unequaled character of the Great American West,” states Chris. “While in the Midwest, I decided to use my creative abilities to increase public awareness of important community, public land and sustainability issues in our Western communities.”
Upon his return to Utah in 2001, Chris founded a nonprofit organization that would later become the Great West Institute, focused on empowering creative and young grassroots leaders Soon after starting the organization, however, Chris realized he needed additional training and knowledge of the issues to effectively achieve his goals. So he returned to the University of Utah to pursue graduate training in Public Administration, with a focus on management of non-profits, board development and environmental policy. During this time he worked on programs for the Institute while gaining fundraising experience with Hawkwatch International, and program development experience with Utah Rivers Council. In 2003 he was hired as Executive Director of the Glen Canyon Institute. “I learned a lot about activism and environmentalism while working to reform Western Water Policy and for the restoration of Glen Canyon,” states Chris. “In 2005, as Lake Powell retreated to record low levels, I was truly fortunate to spend a lot of time in Glen Canyon, documenting the emerging habitat, amazing features and even rediscovering a lost inscription by John Wesley Powell.”
Chris continued to explore and expand his own story, and eventually decided to return again to the University of Utah as one of the very first research fellows in the Environmental Humanities Graduate Program (now a nationally recognized program that attracts students from across the country). He notes, “It was here, under the guidance of mentors such as Terry Tempest Williams that I explored the importance of leadership, creativity, learning models, and dialogue.”
Chris successfully completed his graduate work in Environmental Humanities and moved immediately to a position as Program Director for the Murie Center (Moose, Wyoming), with a focus on experimental programs designed to generate new methods and ideas for the future of Conservation. It was here that he and Brooke Williams crafted a vision for rebuilding the Great West Institute into a conservation think tank focused on empowering innovative and creative grassroots leaders. An experimental leadership development program called the Next Generation Project was the initial program of the Institute until 2008, as the first cohort of fellows graduated the experimental program and began designing new projects under the organization’s direction.
The ArtParks Project is where much of, Chris’s time is focused on currently. “This is a community arts project,” Chris explains, “designed to facilitate children’s innate affinity towards nature.” The project utilizes arts-integrated curricula to provide multi-disciplinary learning opportunities for students to design and interact with urban parklands. “Our pilot project location at the Tracy Aviary is really taking off, as many community partners are getting involved in the effort.” Chris states that the ultimate goal of the ArtParks Project is to develop a model for grassroots leaders in urban and suburban areas around the world to utilize in their neighborhoods; for the sake of their children.
Chris’s life has also taken an unexpected turn, bringing much of his background and experience full circle. In addition to his work with Great West (plus his own painting and work as a seasonal flyfishing guide on the Provo River), he has taken a position as Art Specialist at Dilworth Elementary School (Salt Lake City, Utah) as part of the Beverly Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program. “This position represents a sort of culmination for me,” states Chris. “My experiences as an artist, student, activist, and father have led me to this unexpected opportunity.” In particular, Chris is now exploring how art might reinforce the larger curriculum in elementary school and how an intensive and interdisciplinary arts-based approach might increase the learning capacity for children.
Chris painting with his daughter, Shiloh