Greetings from Big Cypress National Preserve

In December of 2011 I was honored to serve an artist residency at Big Cypress National Preserve. Spending two weeks experiencing the park from a new perspective, painting in oil and pastel, listening to and observing the birds, slough slogging and canoeing was an experience of a life time. Interpretations of this experience are currently on display through January 30, 2016, at Oasis Visitor Center and Swamp Welcome Centers, at Big Cypress National Preserve. It is a privilege to exhibit my paintings at this National Park venue. I thank the National Park System for their support and recognition of the connection art has to my park story.

Sincerely,
Patricia Rottino Cummins

Big Cypress National Preserve

The country’s first national preserve, Big Cypress protects 729,000 acres of wetlands that flow clean water across the Greater Everglades ecosystem, into Everglades National Park, and into the vital estuaries along Florida’s southwest coast. Big Cypress is remarkable for its temperate and tropical mixture of species found across five major habitats: cypress swamps, marl prairies, pinelands, hardwood hammocks and estuaries including tidal marshes and mangrove forests. Explore hiking and paddling trails among these habitats that are home to more than 100 endangered and threatened animals and plants such as the Florida panther, the American alligator, and the famed ghost orchid. The preserve is also home to diverse species of flora and fauna found nowhere else on earth, from the Florida bonneted bat to the Big Cypress fox squirrel to Everglades crabgrass.

State(s): Florida

Established: 1974

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