Dr. Alexander F. Skutch

My amazing friend Alex Epstein, owner of Nudashank Gallery, just offered me the incredible opportunity to help her with a show she is curating at the Park School that will feature past students who went on to do great things. I am especially excited because she wants me to do two paintings of birds based on the illustrations by Dana Gardner that compliment the writing of Park School alumnus Dr. Alexander F. Skutch in his Guide to Birds of Costa Rica. Dr. Skutch was a botanist by training (at Johns Hopkins), an ornithologist by passion, and a writer and philosopher who lived in Costa Rica for the majority of his long life. He funded his extensive tropical bird studies by collecting and selling plant specimens because he "never wanted to shoot birds and make bird specimens" - from an interview by Richard Garrigues. He wrote hundreds of papers and 40 books about birds and a few about philosophy. He died just a few days before his 100th birthday, May 12, 2004 at his home in Costa Rica.