Bison and Carbon Sequestration
2024 Street Wise Mural Festival
Location: Alleyway behind High Country Boulder, 1117 Pearl St Boulder, CO 80302
Photos by Dona and Niko Laurita and Cam Margera
Assisted by Alex Deloach
Inspired by the theme of inspiring climate action and optimism, local artist Kate Fitzpatrick created a mural to emphasize how much we need wildlife to maintain a healthy planet. Her magical work illustrates how nature (without human disruption) takes care of itself.
Kate flips the orientation of the scene in her mural Bison and Carbon Sequestration, enabling her to feature more of the landscape above and below the main figure of the bison. Spinning the orientation from the traditional horizontal to the unexpected vertical also draws in viewers. The unique orientation invites viewers to get closer and consider every detail of the mural.
As the sun peers over the mountain range, sending rays of sunshine onto the plains, a bison roams an open field full of lush green grass. Painterly patterns in the animal’s shaggy fur mirror the energetic patterns of the mountains and foothills behind them. The bison walks through sprouting plants pushing through the topsoil. Magically, the viewer also sees the plants’ long roots stretching deep beneath the earth, and eventually turning into stars that populate what appears to be a dark night sky.
Kate’s mural illustrates a carbon sink, a natural or artificial carbon sequestration process that absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Wildlife such as bison, whales, wolves, and sea otters play a key role in carbon sequestration. In particular, bison fertilize the soil, spread nutrients, and generally make the soil richer as they roam, allowing plants to grow longer and deeper roots. This allows plants to capture more carbon from the atmosphere and pull it into the soil, creating a more effective carbon sink. Additionally, bison tamp down the soil with their hooves, further compacting it and trapping the carbon beneath while also preventing erosion.
Kate’s artistic style features a tension between beauty and brutality. Nature is both beautiful and magical, but also incredibly violent and unforgiving. She developed her style over the years to express the magic found in the natural world through bold colors, expressive brush strokes, and elements like stars and glitter. However, the pain of brutality tinges her works too, although in a more abstract way.
The artist was inspired to feature this keystone species in her mural because Colorado was formerly bison territory. (In 1800, more than 30 million bison roamed the American West; subsequent Western expansion and colonization reduced bison populations and pushed them to the verge of extinction.) No wild herds roam the state anymore, although some small captive herds exist.
Kate hopes her mural can spark discussions of rewilding bison locally. Rewilding Europe and WWF Romania rewilded a bison herd in Romania. A recent study estimates that the 170 bison captured and sequestered the carbon equivalent of taking 43,000 American gas-powered cars off the road.
Artist Bio:
Based in Colorado, Kate Fitzpatrick is a visual artist who creates magical paintings inspired by nature. She graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design and has a background in film, writing, and illustration. She developed her own language of symbols that she incorporates into her paintings to express her sense of wonder at this world which holds so much beauty and so much brutality all at once.
As an emerging muralist, she has painted murals for the Fort Collins Mural Project, Fraser Mountain Mural Festival, Roswell Arts Fund, and more.