Alexander Tamahn, Scenes from the Illinois, 2021, watercolor, colored pencil, alcohol inks, and marker on paper, 9” x 12”
the Creative field Guide
The Creative Field Guide project began in 2020 as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic when schools were shut and kids and adults were stuck at home. Many of us turned to the outdoors for solace and certainty. “Go touch some grass” was a common phrase—meaning whatever worries you were experiencing, they might be alleviated by going outside and touching something real, alive, and natural. People also took up new creative hobbies, like baking bread, journaling, or trying out a new art form. In that dark first year of the pandemic, it was clear that creativity was needed in all areas of our lives—in business, in education, at home, and in the caretaking of ourselves and the planet. Combining these ideas, Creative Field Guide to Northeastern Oklahoma was born: a book that grounds its readers in this place and expands the field guide genre with original artwork, creative writing, and creative writing prompts and art activities.
Creative Field Guide to Northeastern Oklahoma inspires people of all ages to spend time outside and learn about the place in which they live (and the creatures with which they share it) and endeavor to protect and create art about it. While the book is designed for youth, it helps foster the creative inner worlds of people of all ages, encouraging them to share their perspectives with the outer world and to value and care for our environment—qualities desperately needed as the climate crisis continues its disastrous march across the planet. There will be, with hope, more creative field guides in the future—each rooted in a region and featuring artists who live in that place.
Humans claim places by telling stories and making art about them. And while we become who we are in places—changed by what happens within them—we also change places by what we create. Writing and making art about place is powerful—it creates a new meeting ground between outer landscape and inner world, between personal and public life. Art made about place evokes more than our inner worlds—it also evokes culture, social conscience, political outrage, and more. In other words, place grounds our larger concerns in life.
The late author Barry Lopez writes, "If we could speak more accurately, more evocatively, more familiarly, about the physical places we occupy, perhaps we could speak more penetratingly, more insightfully, more compassionately about the flaws in [the] various systems which … we wish to address and make better.” Learning about, interacting with, and writing or making art about a place can aid in the survival of it and its inhabitants.
The book was finished in 2021. In 2022, Creative Field Guide to Northeastern Oklahoma was first printed and given away to 1,000 Tulsa-area kids and families as a free tool for self-led discovery. For the following year, a commercial version was made.
This guide wouldn’t have been possible without our contributors and sponsors!
Creative Field Guide to Northeastern Oklahoma features 90-plus species, both native and naturalized to NE Oklahoma, plus information on weather phenomena and the three main ecoregions found here. Deciding what to include and what not to include was difficult—there is so much amazing biodiversity in Oklahoma! So, this book isn’t a complete list of the northeastern Oklahoma species but a sampling of the incredible life that abounds in this place.
In each section you’ll find original artwork, creative writing pieces (stories, poems, or essays), and visual art activities and writing prompts meant to inspire you to make art about your own experiences in nature. In the back of the book is a glossary of terms and a directory of places with easy access to nature. You can take this book into your backyard, a neighborhood park, or a state park—it should work with you wherever you can be outside.
Creative Field Guide to Northeastern Oklahoma was published by Okiebug.
