James Prosek will talk about how drawing has been an elemental part of his life since childhood-how drawing has helped him to make observations in, and connect with nature. He will discuss the history of humans making drawings inspired by nature, the relationship of drawing to written language, and how drawing, as an ancient tool for
communication and expression can help us all be more present, and to pay attention in our present, hyper-technological age. James Prosek is an artist, writer, naturalist, and Yale graduate James Prosek who published his first book at nineteen years of age, Trout: an Illustrated History (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), which featured seventy of his watercolor paintings of the trout of North America. Prosek’s work has been shown at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, The Yale Center for British Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and many more. Prosek has written for The New York Times and National Geographic Magazine and won a Peabody Award in 2003 for his documentary about traveling through England in the footsteps of Izaak Walton, the seventeenth-century author of The Compleat Angler. He co-founded a conservation initiative called World Trout in 2004 with the owner of Patagonia clothing company, which raises money for coldwater habitat conservation through the sale of T-shirts featuring trout paintings. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx