Why birds?

This oft-repeated question continually plagues watercolorist Kimberly Roush. Her routine response: "It's just an instinctual attraction."

Of course, the argument could be made that she paints birds with such grace and ability because she was raised in a family where the commitment to maintaining our natural environment was emphasized.

"I just love to watch birds," Roush said, "and I like the challenge of identifying different species."

She moved from Pittsburgh to Utah in 1978 after graduating from Carnegie-Mellon University in graphic design. While working for Thiokol in Logan, Roush met her future husband, Scott Lewis, and together they spent a great deal of time outdoors. She also did some bird-watching with Allen Stokes, professor emeritus of animal behavior at Utah State University.

After Roush and her husband spent a year in Sacramento, Calif., they returned to Utah.

"It was in Salt Lake that I got in with the really top-notch birders," she said. Roush's love for birds was such she even took nature classes from Terry Tempest Williams, Ella Sorenson and Mark Stackhouse.

In 1982, she entered the University of Utah's painting and drawing program, receiving her second bachelor's degree in fine arts in 1990.

Today, Roush loves the challenge of getting a bird and its environment down on paper with watercolor. But her journey as a fine artist hasn't always been easy or appreciated by some teachers and critics.

"My instructors would tell me, 'Kim, you can't paint birds. It's not acceptable as fine art."' This type of pigeonholing irritates Roush because, to her, painting birds is fine art.

"Lars Jonsson is one artist I admire," she said. "In his book he states how he decided to continue painting birds because he's not concerned with what's in vogue. I really admire that; he's committed to the birds, and I think that's part of where I'm coming from. Not only do I love them and love to paint them, I think they're important."

Roush paints with watercolors because of her extreme allergic reaction to multiple chemicals.

"When I got my degree at the U., I had to wear a respirator in my oil painting classes because we had no ventilation and everybody was using solvents."

Art professor Paul Davis taught Roush how to use oil paints without solvents, but it made her paintings very dry, giving them a dragged brush stroke look.

One day, while doing some house remodeling, she became very sick from glue. "At that point," Roush said, "I started reacting to everything around me, and that's where my whole life fell apart."

Following a long recovery, Roush tested every pigment in search of a medium that wouldn't harm her. Eventually, she settled on egg tempera and experienced some commercial success with her art. However, while the medium didn't physically distress her, Roush ultimately found egg tempera too restrictive and repetitive for her desired style.