Alyse Dietel
Environmental Wildlife Artist
My name is Alyse and I am an artist from San Mateo, California. I have always loved to draw, and decided to pursue art full time after a near-death experience and a career as a professional rock climber. The outdoors and art became linked permanently for me in September of 2012, when I fell about 20 meters off a cliff in a hiking accident. My major injuries consisted of a broken spine, a shattered pelvis, and a collapsed lung. I was paralyzed from the waist down, and consequently wheelchair-bound and told I would never walk again. For someone as active as me, this was devastating and an intensely difficult time in many ways.
Because hiking and climbing were out of reach I became hooked on creating art, previously only an infrequent hobby, and began developing my passion for drawing with an intensity that I never had before. So although I couldn’t move my legs and the mountains were far away, I lived vicariously through illustrations of untamed wilderness and wildlife. And as much as my art allowed me to drift away from the immobilized world I was in, it also fueled a fire in me to walk among the mountains once more. Against all odds, I returned to climbing and became a professional sponsored climber three years after my accident.
Rock climbing has brought me to many wild places that few have experienced, and in my art I try to convey the sense of awe and wonder I feel when experiencing a new landscape or seeing a wild animal. My my deep love and passion for the natural world is the main source of inspiration for my drawings. However, I soon realized that while I will always be a climber, the world of professional climbing wasn’t for me. So I took a gamble and quit my pro climbing career, and dropped out of college to pursue art full time. Now eleven years after my accident I am a full-time artist, and hike and climb as often as I draw.
I have never taken a class and am entirely self-taught, and finding my own artistic style has involved as much, if not more, exploration as rock climbing does. I use micron pens, black watercolor, and white acryl-gouche for my drawings, and love the juxtaposition of controlled, meticulous linework combined with the freedom and flow of watercolor. I have done artist residencies all over the world, from the humid and biodiverse cloud forest of Ecuador to Svalbard, the northernmost community in the world, where there are more polar bears than people. I’m inspired by wild nature and dramatic landscapes, as well as the people who live symbiotically with nature in order to thrive in these environments. My goal as an artist is to utilize my drawings to instill a sense of wonder, curiosity, and respect for nature while also drawing attention to the need to conserve and protect our natural environment and take action on the current climate crisis.