Sierra Club Foundation 1997 Annual Report

Here in Peace

We ask nothing
Only to live here
In the green stillness
Far from sounds
Of metal and man:

Before he existed
We knew the aeons;
Down from the dawn age
We raised our chicks,
Hunted and were content.

Now men claim all:
Clamouring, breeding
And building strange nests
Side by side
Without thought or respect.

We ask them
To leave us in peace
As part of the living earth:
They were chosen
To guard and cherish

All the rest of us
Who dwell in its lands and ocean

The Sierra Club Foundation, at its international headquarters in San Francisco, has selected the work of Canadian watercolourist M. Morgan Warren to illustrate the cover of the prestigious Sierra Club Foundation Annual Report.

"Here In Peace" depicts a pair of spotted owls perched deep in old-growth hemlock. Ms. Warren wished to portray the owls' point of view in the controversy between logging interests and conservationists.

In February 1998, Ms. Warren was invited to be the guest of the distinguished Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco as artist-in-residence.  During her stay, a director of the Sierra Club Foundation approached her.

"I'm pleased that my artwork can aid the Sierra Club's international conservation efforts," she said at her working studio near Victoria, BC.

Ms. Warren has been painting professionally 24 years and is regarded as one of North America's finest painters of birds. Her award-winning watercolour works are known for their natural charm, anatomical accuracy and meticulous detail.

Her paintings are included in many private collections, including that of HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Not long after the surprise royal request for presentation of her work to Philip in person, Ms. Warren was granted the rare privilege of making a personal gift of her work to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. Royal protocol normally prohibits personal gifts to the reigning Monarch from commoners.

In 1996, at the exclusive invitation of San Francisco's DeYoung Museum of Fine Arts, she demonstrated John James Audubon's techniques to visitors of the national Audubon Birds Of America Exhibition. This was the first public exhibit of Audubon's original paintings for almost 100 years.

Canadians will recognize her work from the Save the Children Fund 1994-5 and 1995-6 Christmas cards.

While the waiting list for her original watercolour paintings exceeds two years, her 33 fine-art prints covering 29 species can be seen at her working studio, located at picturesque Canoe Cove Marina, North Saanich, near Victoria BC (250) 655-1081  /  (800) 580-2473