Nestled within the Seward Park Audubon Center, the Garry Oak Gallery is a space rooted as deeply in place as it is in purpose—a place where community, art, and conservation converge.
Named for the Garry Oak (Quercus garryana), the only oak species native to Washington, the gallery draws inspiration from one of the region’s rarest and most culturally significant ecosystems. These distinctive trees—gnarled, resilient, and long-lived—once marked the open prairies of what is now south Seattle. Today, Seward Park still protects one of the city’s only remaining groves, a living reminder of landscapes shaped over generations by both natural processes and Indigenous stewardship.
Like the Garry oak itself, the gallery is a place of gathering and exchange. It hosts talks, lectures, and classes that invite curiosity and deepen understanding of the natural world, while also providing a welcoming platform for local artists to share work inspired by it. Here, science meets storytelling, and creative expression becomes another pathway into conservation.
Whether you’re attending a community event, learning something new, or experiencing art that reflects the landscapes just outside our doors, the Garry Oak Gallery offers a space to connect to each other, and to the living systems that sustain us.
Now Showing:
Collections
Artist: Madison Erin Mayfield
Exhibit: October - December, 2026
Artist Reception: October 31, 1PM-4PM
Collections is a visualization of the various ways humans assemble and organize birds. Whether it be through paintings of research specimens found in ornithology natural history collections, sculptures of birds banded by biologists, or the life lists compiled by novice and avid birders, Collections explores the ways we collect the birds around us.
About the Artist:
Madison Erin Mayfield is a natural history artist, taxidermist, educator, & museum professional based in Seattle, WA. Madison uses her background as a conservation biologist and trained scientific illustrator to create works that blend the worlds of art and science together.
Inspired by her day job as an Ornithology Collections Manager at the Burke Museum of Natural History, her work often focuses on birds as specimens and aims to bring the hidden world of collections to the public. Madison is also an avid birder and her spark bird is the Northern Flicker!
For this exhibition, Linton has selected works featuring species native to the Pacific Northwest and familiar to the Lake Washington shoreline—neighbors, in the truest sense. The show brings together original works and curated reproductions, offering an entry point for visitors encountering her work for the first time.
Get Audubon in Your Inbox
Let us send you the latest in bird and conservation news.
