Add to that his boundless energy and his whimsical cast of puppet friends: Gary the Groundhog, Bernard the Turkey Vulture, Bob the Big Brown Bat. Rowlands designs and makes the puppets himself.
“When I write a song, the first thing I’ll do is decide what I want to teach people about— what particular animal or ecosystem,” he says. “If the animal doesn’t lend itself to hand motions, I’ll make a puppet.” At the moment, he’s working on a Great Egret. “Did you know that in the early 1900s an ounce of egret feathers was worth more than an ounce of gold?” he asks.
Beverly Horwitz, a long-time parent-involvement specialist for the Dayton Public Schools, says you can’t help smiling when Rowlands performs. “Chris is a breath of fresh air,” she says. “We all know that young children learn best when they are engaged through music and art. That’s how Chris teaches them about the natural world.”
A case in point is Aullwood’s upcoming Drum Making Workshop scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 21. Rowland will guide participants in making and playing their own Native American drums. After the workshop, he’ll escort them on a short nature hike in the woods.
Though he’s comfortable in the traditional role of a naturalist—pointing out various tree species or picking up a black rat snake — Rowlands is more likely to be on the move, painting a nature mural with students at an area school or helping the kids write their own lyrics to a song about barred owls. In his interactive stage performances, he has kids on their feet making broad hand motions and joining in refrains while he plunks his banjo or ukulele.
Youngsters delight in mimicking the “flat tail, big buck teeth, swimmin’ in the water, chewing on trees, building a dam.”
“You know what I am,” they sing. “I’m a beaver, I’m a beaver, I’m a beaver!”
Rowlands is teaching all the while. At the same time the families are being entertained, they’re learning nifty tidbits of information. One example? Caterpillars have only six legs. “That’s because they turn into butterflies and butterflies are insects and insects have only six legs,” Rowlands tells them. Or they may learn that the back side of a beaver has castor glands that produce a secretion that’s not only used to mark a beaver’s territory but is used to flavor ice cream as well.
“I always try to give kids a couple of things they can go home and tell their parents that the parents don’t know,” Rowlands says. “That makes the children feel empowered.”
CHOOSING A PROFESSION
As a talented art student at Dayton’s Meadowdale High School, Rowlands was encouraged to attend art school after graduation. But after only a few days at the Columbus College of Art and Design, he wanted something more. He returned to Dayton and enrolled in liberal-arts classes at Sinclair Community College.
A “eureka” moment came when he spent a day at Aullwood and joined one of the staffers for a nature walk.
“I’d always loved being outside,” Rowland says. “When I was young, I would go fishing with my grandfather and Uncle Bob on the Stillwater and Miami Rivers. While they were fishing, I’d look for snakes and frogs and salamanders. And I took classes at the Museum of Natural History.”
In those days, he says, he wouldn’t have known the difference between a hawk and a hemlock. When the Aullwood nature walk was over, Rowlands asked his guide what he’d have to do to become a naturalist.
“He took me into the bird-watching room and handed me a copy of ‘The Peterson Guide to Birds,’” Rowlands recalls. “I’d been in the woods for years and probably seen a billion woodpeckers, but I had never really noticed them before. I couldn’t have been more excited if I had seen a bald eagle. At that momentI realized I could do this!”
After Sinclair, he took a job at the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, where he spent six months traveling the rivers of Ohio in a canoe, checking the quality of the water. Then he headed for a degree at the Audubon Expedition Institute.
“We traveled all over the country in an old school bus, lived on the bus and camped,” Rowlands says. “We studied everything from volcanos and glaciers to birds and reptiles. I fell in love with aquatic insects in Death Valley and we lived with the Navaho and Hopi Indians for a month.”
Before returning to Dayton and Aullwood, Rowlands spent 20 years working for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. He came up with a “Ray Cycle” musical program that explained the importance of recycling, reusing and reducing our waste. Others began to hear of his talents and began commissioning him for special programs: Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History asked him for a program about dinosaurs. He performed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and at the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut.
Over the years, Rowlands has developed entertaining programs on subjects ranging from dinosaurs to oceanography. He’s currently working on a program related to bird migration flyways and the ways we can be of help. “The only way to keep people lobbying for our planet is to connect them to nature,” he says.
TRAVELING THE COUNTRY
In addition to his Aullwood responsibilities, Rowlands continues to travel around the country for programs. He’s been entertaining visitors at the Beardsley Zoo in Connecticut each summer for more more than 10 years, performing both on the farmyard stage and at the Peacock Pavillion.
Zoo director Gregg Dancho said it’s great to have someone on hand who can make up a song about any animal at their zoo. “He’s written songs about our peacocks, the tiger, the porcupine,” he says. “ When we got a new baby anteater, he came up with a new song.”
Dancho says Rowlands arrives dressed like one of the zookeepers so he looks like he's part of the staff. "And really, he has become part of our staff. Everyone here loves him," he says. "For some reason when he's here that beaver song gets in my head all day long."
ARTIST-IN RESIDENCE
Dan Mecoli, principal of Hillel Academy in Oakwood, says that every kid deserves to have a Chris Rowlands in their life. Mecoli has known Rowlands since he was his art teacher at Meadowdale and has hired him as an artist -in-residence at a number of schools over the years.
“Artists think differently, they look at things in different ways,” Mecoli says. “So it’s important for artists to work with children on problems or challenges.”
As a teenager, Mecoli remembers, Rowlands was already a “phenomenal artist, a free spirit with a lot of energy.” He says whenever Chris Rowlands entered a classroom, the room came alive. “He had a very active mind but when he would get into drawing he would focus on the finest of details and get lost in them.”
That attention to detail is still evident. You’ll see it in the intricate nature paintings that Rowlands creates as well as the realistic backdrops he designs for his performances.
“He’s very smart,” Mecoli says. “I think of him as Robin Williams with a guitar.” After talking to the teachers and finding out what the children are studying, he says, Rowlands will help the kids come up with lyrics and art that comes from them. “In all these years I’ve never seen him repeat a concept, an idea or a theme. He’s a great person who pushes us. He’s a gift.”
Preschool intervention specialist Melanie Lewis has watched Rowlands interact with children for years and has been impressed by the way he’s always able to find a way to engage them. “At Gorman School at Jackson Center he included the children in wheelchairs by taking their hands and helping them put their hands on the tapestries we were creating,” she says. “Every child had a handprint in a different color and then he turned their handprints into different animals.” When autistic children found it hard to stay in their seats and wandered up to the stage during a performance, Lewis says, Rowlands never blinked an eye.
Aullwood’s executive director Alexis Faust says Rowlands is a deceptively serious artist and musician. That may go unnoticed, she says, because he’s a kid at heart and has an uncanny knack of knowing exactly how to inspire, excite, and delight children of all ages.
“He is also an extremely knowledgeable naturalist and imparts his love of nature and the outdoors with whomever will let him,” she adds. “ No one forgets Chris once they meet him.”
WANT TO GO?
What: Drum Making Family Workshop with Chris Rowlands. And a nature walk, weather permitting.
When: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday, Jan 21.
Where: Aullwood Audubon Center, 1000 Aullwood Road.
Admission: Family rate is $45 for up to four people (Aullwood members.) Non-members pay $55 for a family rate. Individual rate is $30 for non-members and $20 for members. All supplies for making your own drum will be provided.
For reservations: Call (937) 890-7360. For more information: www. aullwood.org
ALSO: Songs by Chris Rowlands are available on CDs at the Aullwood Audubon Center gift shop. Nature prints, greeting cards and mugs featuring his artwork are also sold at the shop. If you're interesting in scheduling a program or music or art residency, call Chris Rowlands at (937) 890-7360.
A SUNDAY CHAT
In this periodic series, arts writer Meredith Moss profiles individuals who are making news. If you have someone you would like to suggest for the series, contact Meredith: MMoss@coxohio.com
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