• A Smith Gallery
• Deadline: February 17th 2025
• Prize: Exhibition + Sales + Publication
• Theme: Botanical
• Entry Fee: Yes
• REGISTRATION: CLICK HERE
"People say that Finn, in his youth, read Thoreau’s Walden. I read it too, though I barely remember it. Finn, however, was deeply inspired. Something in him shifted. A friend once mentioned seeing him tinkering with a broken air conditioner in his backyard soon after. Finn, it seemed, was bent on becoming self-reliant. I don’t know how far that went, but one thing changed forever: his relationship with nature.
Before Walden, we both viewed the flora of East Texas as a mass of green and brown—a vague, indistinct presence in the pine forests where we grew up. But Finn came alive to the world of plants. He studied them with vigor, digging into books on local botany and learning from a wise Coushatta elder who knew every woodland plant and its purpose. Finn’s enthusiasm spilled into his life: he collected art depicting plants, displayed his sister’s quirky paintings of local trees, and even altered his diet to nearly all meat.
Now we’re old men with grown families—three kids for Finn, five for me. He became a biology professor; I built a lawn irrigation business. Yet our friendship has endured through weekly golf games for over forty years. If I outlive him, I’ll make sure people know about his masterpiece: The True Taxonomy of The Flora of East Texas. This massive book contains everything he discovered about the plants of the Big Thicket, complete with original names and detailed drawings. One favorite is the sassafras tree, which he called 'affable dinosaur foot.' Finn never sought fame or fortune; he just loved the natural world."
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