Obi Kaufmann

Obi Kaufmann (born 1973) is an American naturalist, writer, and illustrator. He is the author of The California Field Atlas, a guide to the state's ecology and geography. The book features hundreds of his watercolor paintings of maps, wildlife, and other aspects of nature.

Obi Kaufmann
Kaufmann in 2010
Born1973 (age 47–48)
Hollywood, California, U.S.[1]
Occupation
  • Illustrator
  • writer
  • conservationist
  • tattoo artist
Alma materUniversity of California, Santa Barbara (B.A. 1995)
Website
coyoteandthunder.com

Early life and education

Kaufmann was born in Hollywood, California in 1973.[2][3] His father, William J. Kaufmann III, was an astrophysicist who served as director of the Griffith Observatory from 1970 to 1974, and also a writer of several books about physics.[4] His mother is a clinical psychologist.[5]

In 1978, his family moved from Southern California to Danville, California, a town in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area.[6] While living there, Kaufmann spent an extensive amount of time exploring Mount Diablo State Park.[7]

Kaufmann studied at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He entered as a biology major but switched to visual arts after finding inspiration in wildlife painting and the rock art of the Chumash people.[5] While at UCSB, he took art classes under the painter Ciel Bergman.[8]

Career

After college, Kaufmann lived in the Pacific Northwest before moving to Oakland, California in the early 2000s, where he has resided since.[9] Shortly after his return to the Bay Area, he switched from oil painting to watercolor.[6] He has contributed wildlife artwork to a variety of publications.[5] He was an arts writer for the East Bay Express, an alt weekly serving the East Bay.[10] Beginning in 2009, the brand Juniper Ridge employed Kaufmann as its "chief storyteller"; he eventually quit after he "got sick of selling shit."[6] He later collaborated with the Swedish denim brand Indigofera on a line of natural-fabric clothing.[11] He has worked as a tattoo artist for several years, dating back to his time living in the Pacific Northwest.[6] While he was preparing The California Field Atlas, he only took breaks to go on hikes or to work at a tattoo parlor in Oakland.[12]

Kaufmann is a conservationist and has given talks across California on ecology and preservation of nature.[13]

The California Field Atlas and other books
Main article: The California Field Atlas

In 2017, the Berkeley nonprofit Heyday Books published Kaufmann's first book, The California Field Atlas. The book was a surprise commercial success: it sold out of its first two printings, generating pent-up demand, and became a regional bestseller.[14] It was a recipient of numerous California book awards.[15]

His next book, The State of Water: Understanding California's Most Precious Resource, was released in June 2019.[16] It will be followed by The California Lands trilogy, consisting of The Forests of California (Fall 2019), The Coasts of California (Spring 2020), and The Deserts of California (Fall 2020).[17]

References

Citations
  1. Crockett 2017.
  2. Sunset Magazine 2019.
  3. Kaufmann, Obi (April 25, 2019). "The Evolving Language of Conservation". Coyote and Thunder. I was born in 1973, the same year as the passing of the Endangered Species Act...
  4. Khokha 2018; Fraknoi 1995.
  5. Clark 2018.
  6. Smith 2017.
  7. Spotswood 2017; Markoulakis 2017.
  8. Kaufmann 2017.
  9. Clark 2018; Smith 2017.
  10. Kaufmann 2012.
  11. Smith 2017; Markoulakis 2017.
  12. Spotswood 2017.
  13. Sonoma Index-Tribune 2018.
  14. Spotswood 2018; Clark 2018; Markoulakis 2017; Saffo 2018.
  15. Sonoma Index-Tribune 2018; Gilmore 2018; Rogers 2018; Hanlon 2018; Bieschke 2018.
  16. Tahoe Weekly staff writer 2019.
  17. Kaufmann 2018; Spotswood 2018, 14:02–15:41.

Sources
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