Artist in Residence - 2011

We are pleased to announce that the 2011 Delnor-Wiggins Artist in Residence is Erwin ("Erv") Krause, Hawsksbill Natural Images.

Do some people have an innate affinity for the natural world? Erv Krause is such a person. His fascination with nature and its secrets was there from the beginning and was cultivated in a most unlikely setting: his boyhood neighborhood in the Borough of Queens, New York City. Back in the 1950s, a few pockets of woodland and marshland still remained, and Erv would spend hours exploring these natural oases, reveling in the joy of discovering a new bird species or a nest of rabbits.

After graduation from Queens College (SUNY), he earned his Masters at the University of Illinois and embarked upon a teaching career that would span thirty two years. In his twenties, Erv began taking a camera along on his forays into the natural world, and another new world opened ... he had found his calling!

Over the years, there were regular trips to the woodlands of upstate New York, annual treks into the Montana wilderness, often accompanied by his children, and an ever expanding portfolio of wildlife images.

Upon retirement in 1999, his photography entered a new stage with the establishment of Hawksbill Natural Images. Now a resident of Fort Myers Beach, Erv concentrates on the spectacular wildlife of Southwest Florida and is a frequent visitor to the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. That joy of discovery that began in his Queens childhood is now being regularly relived in the unique wild habitats of the Sunshine State.