My love of nature began as a child in San Diego — playing at the beach, exploring canyons and trails, and embracing the 1970s call to end littering and pollution. I loved drawing, especially nature and science topics at the zoo; biology, physiology, and oceanography classes felt like coming home. Writing, listening to storytellers around me, and recognizing what was engaging were daily fascinations. I went on to study illustration and design in college, and living at Lake Tahoe for over 35 years has only deepened my appreciation for the natural world and strengthened my commitment to protect it through art and storytelling.
Today, as an environmental storyteller and illustrator, I work to inspire a love of nature and a desire to protect it. That mission lives at the intersection of creativity, science, community, and lived experience in a space called creative conservation.
What Is Creative Conservation?
Creative conservation uses art, storytelling, and nearly any other creative practice you can imagine to help people understand, value, and care for nature. At its heart, it recognizes that conservation is not only a scientific or technical challenge but also a human one. People protect what they know, value, feel connected to, and believe they can help care for. Creativity helps build those essential connections.
An Invitation to Participate
Rather than simply presenting facts, creative conservation invites people to experience, interpret, imagine, and participate in the stories of the places and species around them. It weaves scientific knowledge together with cultural traditions, local observations, personal experiences, and artistic expression.
Science and Creativity Together
Science helps us understand what is happening in the natural world. Creativity helps us see why it matters and how we are connected to it. Creative approaches make complex ideas more visible and accessible and create opportunities for communities to share their knowledge and perspectives.
This is not about making environmental messages more entertaining. It is about expanding the ways people can know, experience, and relate to nature.
How I Practice Creative Conservation
I use illustrated storytelling to help people understand environmental issues, find personal connections, and imagine how they can contribute. I draw on my own lived experience and the experiences of others. When I don’t have a personal connection to a subject, I look for a universal entry point—something that helps people see why it matters and how it relates to their own lives.
My goal is always to inspire curiosity, deepen connection, and widen the desire to protect the places and species around us.
Hope & Healing Through Creative Conservation
We live in a time when environmental disasters bombard us and leave many feeling overwhelmed, grieving, or tempted to turn away. Creative conservation offers an outlet that helps us heal through connection to nature and community. It brings joy and gives us hope as we actively care for what we love.
I’m available for storytelling through illustration and writing, speaking engagements, school visits, and workshops. Contact me to discuss how we can bring creative conservation to your community or to talk about an illustration project of your own.
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
Bringing Botanical Medicine to Life
The first book I illustrated from beginning to end was Medicine From the Mountains: Medicinal Plants of the Sierra Nevada by Kimball Chatfield. I had a profound interest in botanical medicine and had studied the topic extensively. The project perfectly blended my illustration skills with my interests and led to more book projects.
Faery Medicine: Blending Art and Plant Conservation
From 1996 to 2010, my project, Faery Medicine, was an evolving educational exhibit in illustrated story form. It chronicled historical medicinal plant usage worldwide, using faeries and nature spirits to represent plant qualities and protect nature. Notecards featuring these images and stories were sold nationwide, further fueling my commitment to conservation and education.
Mentorship with Yuyi Morales
In 2009, I had the honor of being chosen by award-winning children’s author/illustrator Yuyi Morales as one of her mentees in the Nevada SCBWI Mentor Program. Under her guidance, I wrote and illustrated my first picture book focused on environmental stewardship. This mentorship shaped my creative approach and influences every story I illustrate or write to this day.
Volunteer Leadership with SCBWI
Following the mentorship, I continued with children's illustration while managing my design business. Several years later, I served as Illustrator Coordinator and then Co-Regional Advisor for SCBWI’s California: North/Central region, creating events and content for our illustrator and writer community.
Continued Environmental Stewardship Storytelling
Then, in 2023, while developing book projects in Chris Oatley's Clockwork Heart Mentorship, I received a grant to produce my all-ages environmental stewardship book, With Love, From Tahoe, in English and Spanish. This significant milestone reinvigorated my passion for stewardship storytelling and opened the door to new book projects focused on protecting nature.
A SAMPLING OF CLIENTS & PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS
With Love, From Tahoe (Author/Illustrator) • Nature Kids Activity Book: Lake Tahoe Edition (Author/Illustrator) • Encounters With the Imaginary - Vol. 1 (Illustrations & Story) • A Petite Work of Heart - Vol. 1 (Illustrations) • Medicine from the Mountains: Medicinal Plants of the Sierra Nevada (Botanical Illustrations) • When Technology Fails (Edible Plants Illustrations) • Edge Vol. 1-4 & 10 (Illustrations) • The Tale of Riverhaven (Cover Illustration)
CLIENTS
Society of Young Inklings • Alpensong Healing Arts • Thoroughweb Press • Range of Light Publishing • Author & Acupuncturist - Kimball Chatfield • Clear Light Publishers • Tahoe: Lost & Found • Grass Roots Natural Foods • Jim Stamates Wildlife Photography • Goodie Chest • Attorney George Keller • Author - Matthew Stein • Council for Responsible Nutrition
PRESS & FEATURES
Moonshine Ink • Tahoe Arts and Mountain Culture • Creative Brew • Tahoe Mountain News • South Tahoe Now • Tahoe Daily Tribune • Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority • SCBWI Featured Illustrator • SCBWI-CA: North/Central Acorn • Faery Medicine
ILLUSTRATION GALLERIES:
Painting at five (left) and off to art school (right).
Favorite Color: Sunset
I grew up in an art gallery. (Yes, I did.)
I got into business early. For one venture, when I was 12, I made little creatures called “Nice Mice” and sold them at the India Street Art Colony Jazz Festival.
I have been using Apple computers since 1980.
In the 80s, I worked for a software company called Beagle Bros. that made games and utilities for Apple computers.
1983 SoftTalk magazine article with the Beagle Bros. crew.
That's me (aka Minnie Assembler), second from the left.
I have been living, working, and playing in South Lake Tahoe, CA, for over 30 years.
One of my first jobs after college was doing paste up for a newspaper. (If you don't know what paste up is, here's a video about this lost art.)
In the early 2000s, I developed a method for printing on raw silk and was featured in a Rochester, New York, art show with fellow art printing innovators.
I had the tremendous honor of being chosen to work with author/illustrator Yuyi Morales in the 2009 Nevada Mentor Program through the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.
I wasn't aware of how much I use my hands when talking until I animatedly described some illustrations during a live radio interview. I managed to unplug all the sound equipment with one enthusiastic gesture.
I wear many hats in my life, many of which are helmets.
Our grown child has a PhD in trustworthiness and privacy in natural language processing—something we desperately need in AI.
Our brave dog.
When we rescued our dog, she was afraid of trash cans, tree stumps, people, other dogs, and shadows. She is currently only scared of our houseguest—a cat named Wren.
The most validating thing a publishing house art director ever said to me: “You can obviously draw the hell out of anything.”
My love of nature began as a child in San Diego — playing at the beach, exploring canyons and trails, and embracing the 1970s call to end littering and pollution. I loved drawing, especially nature and science topics at the zoo; biology, physiology, and oceanography classes felt like coming home. Writing, listening to storytellers around me, and recognizing what was engaging were daily fascinations. I went on to study illustration and design in college, and living at Lake Tahoe for over 35 years has only deepened my appreciation for the natural world and strengthened my commitment to protect it through art and storytelling. 
©2007-2026 KRISTEN SCHWARTZ •
