The Whatcom Museum, in close partnership with the Whatcom Land Trust, presents Carving Birds & Conserving Land, the sculptures of Washington State artist, conservationist, educator, and attorney Rand Jack. The exhibition, featuring 20 of Jack’s birds carved from locally sourced wood, will be on view at the museum April 27 – October 27, 2024.
Jack began his work life in Seattle as a lawyer and continued to practice part-time after he moved to Bellingham in 1971. In federal and state courts, he prevailed in several high-profile civil liberties and environmental cases, including – most noteworthy locally – convincing the State Supreme Court to uphold the ban on jet skis in the San Juan Islands.
When he moved to Bellingham, Jack began a teaching career at Western Washington University’s Fairhaven College. There, he founded the Law and Diversity Program (now the Center for Law, Diversity and Justice) to provide a pathway to legal careers for students from communities underrepresented in the legal system.
To protect and conserve Whatcom County's wildlife habitat, water resources, forests, and agriculture and recreation lands, Jack co-founded the Whatcom Land Trust in 1984, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Jack helped facilitate the protection of more than 20,000 acres of land, including the Stimpson Family Nature Reserve, Governors Point, Canyon Lake Community Forest, Lily Point, Galbraith Mountain, Nesset Farm, Point Whitehorn, Teddy Bear Cove, Squires Lake, and Clark’s Point. He continues to serve on the organization’s board of directors.
Around the same time, Jack discovered wood working. “The graceful shape of birds, honed by evolution, is an ideal place to display the grain patterns, figure, color variations, and richness of wood – combining two of nature’s creations,” said Jack. “After 40 years of bird carving, I am still excited when I open a block of wood to discover what is inside.”
From butternut and catalpa wood to maple burls, Jack carves owls, falcons, herons, shorebirds and more. This exhibition brings together nearly two dozen pieces, along with two new sculptures, all tucked into and around the displays in the Whatcom Museum’s John M. Edson Hall of Birds in Old City Hall.
“We’re delighted to be showcasing Rand’s carvings,” said the museum’s Art Curator Amy Chaloupka. “I hope when people view them, they’ll admire not only the craftsmanship but also his legacy here in Washington.”
Another of Jack’s carvings can be seen outside the Family Interactive Gallery in the museum’s Lightcatcher building: an 18-foot Twin Bear Story Pole (with a raven on top, of course).
The exhibition illuminates how Jack puts into practice, both through artistic pursuits and work with Whatcom Land Trust, his commitment to conserving and stewarding the natural world and making it available for responsible use by those who live here or come to visit.
About the Whatcom Museum:
The Whatcom Museum in Bellingham, WA, is an American Alliance of Museums-accredited museum and a Smithsonian Affiliate. Notable projects have included the 2019 retrospective exhibition Ed Bereal: WANTED: For Disturbing the Peace, featured in The New York Times, the touring exhibition Katazome Today: Migrations of a Japanese Art, and the co-curated, exhibition Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea, which was on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., in 2023.
The Whatcom Museum spans three buildings in downtown Bellingham: the Lightcatcher, Old City Hall, and the Syre Education Center. For more information about exhibitions, programs, and admission, visit whatcommuseum.org.
