Frances Stilwell

Frances Stilwell was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. She attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and received a BA in botany from the University of Cincinnati, specializing in taxonomy of plants of southwestern Ohio. She received an MS in botany/biophysics at the same institution under a Public Health Service grant in radiation biology.

She worked two years in biophysics for the research group at the UC Medical School. She came to Oregon in 1961 and eight years later (1969) began a four year study in ethology (the science of animal behavior) at the University of Oregon. This research was published in Science, Nature, and eventually (2010) by Cambridge University Press. She was employed by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Bureau of Land Management, and Oregon State Department of Forestry. In 1981, she left science and devoted her time to art.

Her artwork won the Curator’s Choice Award twice at the Howland Open Yearly Exhibition at the Corvallis Art Center, and has been juried into two other exhibitions: All Around Oregon and Art About Agriculture (the latter at Oregon State University LaSells Stewart Center’s Guistina Gallery). In 2000 she illustrated a book about one of Dr. Helen Gilkey’s plant collectors. Come Walk Through Spring with Bessie Gragg Murphy was selected by the Salem Statesman-Journal as one of the top ten books reviewed by them in 2002, the first time a self-published book had been so honored. Her second book, Oregon’s Botanical Landscape: an Opportunity to Imagine Oregon before 1800, is a compilation of her art in pastels and watercolor of botanical landscapes in each of the ecoregions of Oregon.

Also self-published, the purpose of the book was to share “how to educate ourselves about our natural world, to slow down and stop, to consider colors, shapes, and shadows.” This book grew from Stilwell’s solo exhibit of 72 paintings in 2011 at the Benton County Historical Society and Museum’s Moreland Gallery. She used a grant from Benton County Cultural Commission and other donations to print copies of the book to distribute among Benton County schools and libraries.

Stilwell has been a member of the NPSO since the mid-1980s and has served as secretary in the Corvallis Chapter and as a Director-at-Large on the State Board of Directors. Stilwell’s primary contribution to native plant appreciation in Oregon has been through her artwork to create opportunities for students and the public to share a special sense of our Oregon home.–Be Davison Herrera and Rana Foster, Corvallis Chapter.