Sam McCoy | Birdsong Nature Center

Plein-air painting with a box frame.

Curated outdoor spaces are everywhere, natural floral and fauna exist here, but it’s not the “real real” outdoors that eco-tourist destinations fawn over. Sometimes these spaces were the pride of a residence, sometimes they are intentionally designed public spaces. I venture out to these places as destinations and consider what exists here to inform other paintings.

Birdsong Nature Center near Thomasville, Georgia is a former plantation turned resort in the post antebellum era. The staff and grounds keepers of this park and others in the area are focused on conservation, keeping land clean, and educating the surrounding area about local flora and fauna. Many parks off of 319 have been leisure destinations for generations now. The care in maintaining pathways to open fields that are home to hundreds of native species is evident. It was about 100 degrees with the heat index when this work was complete.