Rockville Centre-based artist Meghan Taylor teamed up with Crossroads Farm at Grossmann’s to exhibit her paintings, which feature wildlife and native plants, at a community event last Friday.
The Wildlife Center of Long Island took part in Taylor’s presentation at the farm as well, with two animal ambassadors on hand. Her exhibit, “Wildlings of New York,” will be on display in the farm store until Dec. 23, when Crossroads closes for the winter.
For Taylor, the farm is the ideal place for the exhibit. “I’ve been aware of Crossroads as a community place, kind of representative of nature and sustainability,” she said. “I knew I wanted this particular show to be shown in a place that had those same values of sustainability, community and seeing nature as neighbors.”
One of the night’s themes was that wild animals and plants are our friends and neighbors, in the sense of seeing them for what they are, appreciating them and letting them be wild.
“To me they represent the sometimes hidden lives that we have among us,” Taylor said of the wildlife in her paintings. “… We could use more appreciation of them. I just want to honor them, and their role in our lives, in our town, in our state, from the forest to the suburbs.”
Taylor creates many pieces focused on wildlife and wild plants, but her main work is painting pet portraits. She starts with a micron pen and follows up with expertly applied watercolor. “It’s a very meditative process,” she said. “I get really into the details.”
One of her many pieces on display, titled “Ghosts,” features coyotes, luna moths, ghost pipes and birch trees, all of which are native to New York. After working at a wildlife facility rescue upstate, which housed a coyote she grew fond of, Taylor decided to create art inspired by the animal.
“Despite human alterations to the environment, they’ll just figure out a way to survive,” she said. “Despite that, we don’t see them. They’re just elusive. It’s very hard to see them and observe them.”
Observing wildlife is the exhibit’s central message. Taylor encouraged visitor to do three things: go on a walk and pay attention to details; draw what you see, even if it’s just for yourself; and download an app she recommended, Seek by iNaturalist, for identifying things in your environment.
“When you do that, you start developing a connection to it,” Taylor said. “You have a story. You understand where it came from.”
Connection was another theme of the night. Michael D’Angelo, the farm’s operations manager, said that the exhibit showcases the role of the farm in the community.
“Malverne is the farm — the farm is Malverne,” D’Angelo said. “There’s such a special mom-and-pop vibe here in Malverne. Bringing everyone together for something like this, and bringing in a local artist, is what we’re all about.”
D’Angelo discovered Taylor’s art while visiting Barrier Brewing Company, with locations in Oceanside and Long Beach, a partner of the farm for events that even crafted a specialty beer from Crossroads’ berry harvest this summer.
“We’ve been really trying for quite some time to have an artist come down and do this kind of exhibit,” D’Angelo said. “I’ve been at the farm for three years now, and Meghan is the first artist that took that initiative and ran with it. This is something we would like to do every month, or seasonally … Any artist who’s interested can reach out to us.”
One of those in attendance last week was Lauren Schulz, director of the Wildlife Center of Long Island, who brought two animal ambassadors with her, a great horned owl and an American questral. WCLI is a Huntington-based nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of Long Island’s wildlife and natural habitats.
“By doing events like this,” Schulz said “we’re able to share a bit about local wildlife with the public, raise awareness about species that we share our environment with, and hopefully we can teach people about different habits and things that they can do to mitigate the impacts on these animals in the wild.”
Both animals were raised by humans and injured early in life, so they could never be wild, but are comfortable in captivity. The wildlife the center treats are almost always injured by human activities, and most can be released once they heal.
“They’re really striking with their appearance,” Schulz said. “They also have really good stories for what happened to them, and a really good educational impact.”
Taylor said that the two animal ambassadors hold a mirror up to our humanity. “They represent something very deeply wild that’s almost unnameable,” she said. “I think every human has it deep in their soul, this connection to the wild, and seeing them so close was like a flash of that wildness.”
