The Virginia Institute of Marine Science has selected world-renowned marine artist, filmmaker, and conservationist Dr. Guy Harvey as the featured artist for its 10th-annual Art Show and Auction in April 2008.
The two-day fund-raiser will take place on Friday and Saturday, April 25th and 26th, on the VIMS campus in Gloucester Point. On Friday evening Harvey will present a public art show and narrate several of his dramatic billfish films. The event resumes on Saturday evening with a silent and live auction.
Proceeds from the 2008 events will support research by four VIMS graduate students. Kate Brodie will use the funds to help predict damage from coastal storms; Dan Dutton to study roundscale spearfish; Erica Holloman to assess the risk of eating mercury-tainted seafood; and James Douglass to investigate the interaction between eelgrass beds, overfishing, and pollution.
Harvey, a unique blend of artist, scientist, diver, angler, and explorer, has received numerous honors for his work, including the first-ever "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the International Game Fish Association. His 13-episode, made-for-television fishing series "Portraits from the Deep" is in its fourth season on Versus (formerly the Outdoor Life Network), and his one-hour documentary "Billfish: A Challenge for Survival" airs frequently on PBS stations.
Harvey has worked closely on several research projects with VIMS fisheries scientist Dr. John Graves, who chairs the U.S. Advisory Committee to ICCAT (the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas).
VIMS is responding to popular demand in inviting Harvey back for his second appearance at a VIMS Art Show and Auction. The artist's first appearance in 2006 drew large crowds and helped raise more than $60,000 for VIMS programs, including a marine science project with local middle schools, graduate-student research support at VIMS' Eastern Shore Laboratory, and a fisheries genetics study of the non-native marine snail Rapana venosa.
For more information on the Art Auction, visit www.vims.edu/events
