With the summer issue of Wildlife Art Journal now at your digital fingertips, we're upping the ante in color and commentary.  In this season north of the equator, palettes are in full bloom yet in what hue would you paint the level of discourse?

We've selected John Potter for the WAJ cover because he represents a contrast.  Here is a question meant to provoke, not anger:  Why is the world of contemporary wildlife art—as expressed in the faces of painters, sculptors, shows, organization memberships and collectors—so lilly white?

Don't recoil and turn defensive. Reach out and try to change it.

We obviously have an aversion to political correctness but this is a conversation that all of us who love wildlife art need to have. This isn't about advancing an agenda.  It's about highlighting an opportunity that can make wildlife art more dynamic and accessible to the now seven billion inhabitants on the planet.  Humans in every culture love nature and in every community—especially indigenous ones— it is celebrated by young and old.  Peruse our earlier Gallery of the Commons.  You'll find a sampling there.

Potter is a painter on the ascendency.  He hails from Lac du Flambeau. It's safe to say that most wildlife artists and collectors reading these words have never been there.  Lac du Flambeau is an Indian reservation in northern Wisconsin and home to Ojibwes, a native tribe where Potter has relatives.  It is alive with artisans—talented and creative souls who, as the tribal chairman says in our feature story on Potter, do not feel as if they have a place in the outside art community.

On the theme of wildlife art being able to be more, legendary painter Robert Bateman has written an original essay as a response to Ron Kingswood's missive that appeared here titled Is Wildlife Painting Dead?  Like Kingswood, Bateman doesn't mince words but doesn't rant;  he fashions a forceful, articulate, passionate rebuttal—and we would expect nothing less.

Yes, we've been absent awhile, not lying in dormancy, only reloading and re-emerging with a slate of stories to carry you through the rest of these dog days on into autumn.  Let others know that it's time to put us back on the radar screen.

Remember, if it so moves you, respond to the stories as they roll out.  We have only one proviso: Trolls unwelcome here.