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James Lancel McElhinney is an Irish-American author and topographical artist whose work is focused on travel, landscape, history, and environmentalism. A Delaware Valley native, McElhinney holds degrees from Tyler School of Art (BFA) and Yale University School of Art (MFA). His early works were focused American battlefields as a metaphor for how the national landscape is shaped by conflict. In 2005, McElhinney revived the historic art-form of expeditionary journal-painting  to explore heritage itineraries, waterways, and the physical memories of human endeavor. James and his wife; cultural historian/biographer Katherine Manthorne, reside in the Champlain Valley and Manhattan with a feline named Maeve.

“Art gives us ways to organize the terror and mayhem of human existence into experiences that can inspire and sustain us.  Expanding one’s capacity for being in the moment—journaling, writing, drawing, and photography—can transform our encounters with nature into knowledge and ideas, in ways that promote environmental awareness, and lead to self-discovery. Works of art are wonderful when they happen, but clearing pathways to inner peace through a deeper understanding of nature is the real prize.  Horace Mann declared drawing to be ‘a moral force.’ Making art is also an act of love that demands a leap of faith.”

—JLM. Essex, New York. 2023