Christopher Remmers on Art, River, and Relationship
Photo: Brenda Phillips
Written by Christopher RemmersI want to share why I’m involved in Water Wars (how to avoid)—a storytelling campaign for collaborative water stewardship in the Nooksack watershed, where I live in Whatcom County. My role in this collaboration is not just as a visual artist, but as a witness, a translator, and a community member seeking to deepen how we engage with art, place, and each other.
As a painter, I believe art should do more than decorate a wall or hang quietly in the background of social settings. In our current culture, art is often reduced to a consumable object, an aesthetic afterthought to the rhythms of daily life. But what I’m interested in is something more participatory, something transformational.
My work invites people into deeper spaces, spaces that allow reflection, resonance, and maybe even revelation. That happens not just through the brushstrokes or the subject matter, but through the container in which the art is shared. I ask: How can we craft settings, both literal and emotional, that allow people to engage art as an active experience rather than a passive one? What stories, what setting, what facilitation will help the art become a portal?
When I first heard Aaron Straight from Soulcraft Allstars describe the vision behind Water Wars, I felt an immediate pull. He was imagining a project that went beyond film. A multi-sensory invitation into relationship, with each other, with story, and with the river. I knew instantly that I could contribute meaningfully, not just by painting, but by helping translate the unseen, the unspoken, the mythic dimension of what this conflict is really about.
Portraits as Mirrors of Belonging
In this work, I’m creating a series of narrative portraits of those who are directly involved in the water conflict… tribal members, farmers, conservationists, and residents. But more importantly, I’m painting how they are seen by their community, by their ancestors, by the river itself. I listen deeply to their stories. I ask: What is the longing underneath their words? What is the thread they are carrying forward?
These portraits aren’t just likenesses. They are maps. Symbols. Archetypal windows into how each person relates to the Nooksack River and to the land they call home. Sometimes that relationship is spiritual. Sometimes it’s practical, sometimes it’s ancestral, but in every case, it’s personal.
I attend the facilitated dialogues we host, spaces where folks gather to share stories, air conflict, and try to imagine a way forward. These moments matter. But while others on our team are focusing on dialogue, policy, or journalism, I’m listening to something just beneath the surface… the mythic dimension of belonging and loss.
Beyond Politics, Back to the River
There is a larger political and legal conflict unfolding over the rights to the river. But that’s not the level I’m working on. I’m interested in what connects us beneath the surface of the argument. What do we love? What are we afraid of losing? What is our relationship, sacred, strained, intimate, invisible, to this living watershed?
My paintings aim to help us remember that connection. To see ourselves reflected not just in the eyes of each other, but in the waters that feed us. Whether someone is from the Nooksack or Lummi Nations, or a fourth-generation farmer, or part of a conservation foundation, there is a shared thread running through us. The river is the thread.
Art can help us see that. Art can remind us.
That’s why I’m here.
As a classically-trained painter exploring mythological realism, Christopher Remmers bridges ancient wisdom with contemporary practice, teaching artists to find authentic vision through deep relationship with the natural world and timeless storytelling. Based in Bellingham, Washington, he also guides transformative wilderness experiences through Wander Wild, helping individuals reconnect with nature and unlock creative potential. 