
Pictured Above: Pages of nature sketches by artist Catherine Gowen. Photo Credit: Contributed.
The Passage of Time is Implied: Hikes and Sketches with Catherine Gowen
By Louise Feder
Writer Louise Feder takes her feature interview on foot for an inspiring trail journey with self-described “natural history artist,” Catherine Gowen. Gowen works in watercolor, graphite, and pen and ink and is based in Princeton, NJ & State College, PA.
The back-to-back heatwaves this July have been brutal. We’re talking hot, sticky, and oppressively humid – the kind of weather where you just want to give up and collapse in front of the first available fan, AC vent, freezer door, you name it. So, when I spoke with artist Catherine Gowen about going for a hike, you can imagine my relief when she both accepted and suggested a walk on a shaded trail I’d never visited before.
Pulling into the Sourland Mountain Preserve, Catherine is already there and waving at the top of the trailhead. I’ve known Catherine for well over half my life, and she’s the kind of person who just picks up right wherever you left off, even if, as in our case, the last time we saw each other in person was easily over a year (or two!) ago. And so we jump right back in, as though no time has passed, hugging, laughing, and talking about kids, spouses, friends, jobs, trips and, of special focus this morning, her art.

Pictured Above: “Carex disperma, by Catherine Gowen. Photo Credit: Contributed.
Catherine is a self-described “natural history artist.” Based out of Princeton, New Jersey and State College, Pennsylvania, her work is founded in intense observation of the natural world, exploring themes of botany and ecological conservation. Primarily working in watercolor, graphite, and pen and ink, her close study and deep understanding of each subject is readily apparent through her incredible attention to detail. She is drawn to, “things slight, small, and ephemeral, things easily overlooked,” bringing her background in biology and biochemistry, love of botanical illustration, and memories connected to the natural world to her work. When I ask her what she looks for in a subject, she says simply, “something that reminds me of something; something I want to research and spend more time with.”
We follow the trail into the woods and are immediately covered under a thick, leafy canopy. When I tell you it must have been about 10 degrees cooler, I’m not exaggerating – there’s instant relief. We’re able to slow down and really take in the forest around us. My 8-year-old son Howie is tagging along with us today (a rare non-camp week for him this summer), and I expect him to run ahead to check out the field of boulders or dry creek bed already visible a few feet down the trail, but instead he hangs back to show Catherine some wineberries. He hasn’t seen her in ages, barely remembering their last meeting, but she has this calm, patient way about her and the two of them are immediately in deep conversation about where to look for the best berries, and how sour they are if picked too early.

Pictured Above: Berries observed. Photo Credit: Louise Feder.
Catherine is intimately familiar with the Sourlands, having illustrated seasonal plants for the Sourland Conservancy’s Journal and art to accompany parts of the trail system for about three years now. She tells me that the team at the Conservancy give her and a few other artists free reign when it comes to what to paint and sketch, but that she tries to find interesting, seasonal plants to keep members up to speed on what’s happening in the woods.
Beside us, Howie has picked more wineberries than he can carry. Catherine opens her bag and shows him that though she usually takes pictures of what she’d like to draw or paint, she always carries plastic bags to bring the occasional specimen home for closer study. Today he’s welcome to borrow one to carry around his newfound snack. He opts to instead eat them all in a couple quick gulps, and meanwhile Catherine shows me that she also brings jars along on each walk in case she wants to bring home water from where she’s been. She’ll then use it in some of her watercolors, literally saturating her paintings with part of the original landscape native to her chosen subject.

Pictured Above: Hike photo with artist Catherine Gowen with Louise Feder.
This fascinates me since Catherine’s work features plants, rocks, shells, and more floating on a blank page, separated completely from their environment, without even a shadow behind them. More often than not it’s simply a plant (or rock, or shell…) on a page, almost always labelled in Catherine’s careful calligraphic hand. Wherever the object has come from disappears from view, but is still present in the very materials she uses to bring the subject to our attention.
She does this so that the object can be an entry point into her work, the thing itself without distractions. And, by representing the object at hand in careful, precise detail, Catherine is attempting to pin the subject down, showcasing a specific moment in time. By doing this, her work implies the passage of time, prompting the viewer to imagine what it took for the subject to arrive at this state – it’s growth, it’s many previous selves – and what it will inevitably change into next.

Pictured Above: Fern leaves by Catherine Gowen. Photo Credit: Contributed.
Often, the selection of her subjects is quite personal. Earlier this year, she painted a series of watercolors, depicting a selection of quahog shells. Rendered in shifting purples and blues, Catherine tells me she has collected bags and bags of them, since she was Howie’s age, growing up along the water in Eastern Long Island. Painting them now, after so long, is an intensely intimate act for her, mired in memories of her childhood that seem to exist right alongside her work now, studying and capturing these shells in detail and in essence, solidifying a cherished experience. By the time they come to the gallery, the work arrives imbued with Catherine’s own personal history, but also serves as an object the viewer may project their own history and relationships upon.
“It only matters if it’s personal,” she remarks to me as the three of us walk deeper into the woods. And as she talks about her work, these personal connections continue to shine through. Her trip to Alaska in 2019 is as much about her incredible, thorough, on-going work, to document a 10 year comparison of the Toklat River and its native plants before and after a major fire in 2013 (Would roots have stayed in permafrost, bringing the same plants back, she wonders? Or are more opportunistic plants blowing in and thriving?), as it is about her time with her brother and sister-in-law who live there, not to mention the ecologist at the Denali National Park, passing along data for her to use.
She’s not interested in painting what she hasn’t witnessed, Catherine tells us as we spur off from the main trail. Her subjects are all things that she’s seen, and will see again. They’re objects that she connects with and allow her to delve down, into the detail, and work to understand everything about it.

Pictured Above: Along the trail with Louise Feder and artist Catherine Gowen. Photo Credit: Louise Feder.
The really big boulders and a few caves are ahead of us, and this time Howie is off, rushing to be the first to summit the hill and stretch out on an enormous slab of rock overlooking the forest below (Catherine and I puzzle over it – maybe granite?). The three of us are higher than I realized, and we can see the trail down below, hidden from any hikers who might come after us on our rocky perch.
But no one else comes. It’s just us, looking over the leaves, nuts, and grasses Howie’s collected along the way, and talking about Catherine’s summers on the family boat as a kid. She tells us about how your relationship with nature changes once there’s only a wooden hull between you and the water. About how her father never left the boat when they were at an anchorage because you never know when the wind will change, that you’re always aware you are in a tenuous, ever-changing relationship with nature. And about how there is a great fear associated with that uncertainty, but also a deep love of it, meeting together at a thrill point.
On our hike back to the cars, Howie explores a couple caves, but deems them “too spidery” to go in all the way (fair enough). Catherine takes more pictures of grasses and mushrooms, leaves and berries. We pause to watch a group of turkey vultures pick over some unseen thing deep in the boulder field, and then, before we know it, we’re back in the parking lot, briefly flipping through Catherine’s recent sketchbooks before hugging in the heat and saying our good-byes.

Pictured Above: Sourlands Loop Trail sketch completed by Catherine Gowen. Photo Credit: Contributed.
The next few days were busy ones for me – getting the kids ready for another week of camp and day care, answering emails, meetings, the usual – but in a scheduling miracle, Catherine and I were able to get together again a week after our hike. And again we picked up where we left off, talking about work and Howie, wineberries and hikes through the woods. But this time, as she pulled out her sketchbook, I could clearly see on the page the ways she had captured and studied our morning together. The passage of time is implied, and preserved between the pages of Catherine Gowen’s sketchbooks.
More of Catherine Gowen’s work can be found on her Instagram. She exhibits regularly in juried shows throughout the region and announcements about opportunities to view her work can be found on her social media channels as well.

Pictured Above: The workspace of artist Catherine Gowen. Photo Credit: Contributed.