Chris Myers: 65th Annual Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage Artist-of-the-Year

65^th Annual Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage’s Featured Artist: Chris Myers, April 23 – May 19, 2015

The exhibit showcases pieces made in oil paint, graphite, watercolor, acrylic, and painted and stained glass, of local wildlife including black bears, bats, and various birds. Myers technical expertise with the aforementioned media makes his work appealing to not only to artists but nature-lovers and birders as well. His watercolor, Hooded Warbler, is featured on the cover of the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage brochure and their annual T-shirt. The Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage is an annual five-day event in Great Smoky Mountains National Park offering professionally guided programs which explore the region’s rich wildflowers, wildlife, ecology, culture, and natural history through walks, motorcades, photographic tours, art classes, and indoor seminars.

Myers received a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from the University of Tennessee, and has worked as a freelance artist and illustrator, and for various stained glass studios since. Chris Myers contributed many of the illustrations for the Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Tennessee, published by the University of Tennessee Press. In 1997 he completed an original oil painting, “Homecoming,” for Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park to commemorate the return of the Peregrine Falcon to the park. He was also the recipient of the “Distinguished Media Award in Drawing,” at the 17^th Sevier County Biennial Juried Exhibition in January 2015 for his piece, Bear Portrait 2. Myers is also a member of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators.