SHORT BIOGRAPHY
JIM SULLIVAN is a 4th generation Sonoma county native, lifetime naturalist, with a degree in Biology. He graduated from Notre Dame, studied in Vienna, UC Santa Barbara and San Francisco State, as well as on going studies at SRJC and SSU. A long time environmental and social justice activist, he served 4 years in the Infantry and was instrumental in launching the Natural Foods Movement.. He is a retired Landscape Contractor, an award winning Plein Air landscape painter, and an internationally certified tracker.
Summer 2017 Sonoma Discovery article about Jim: http://sonomadiscoveries.com/born-to-track/
Summer 2017 Sonoma Discovery article about Jim: http://sonomadiscoveries.com/born-to-track/
MORE COMPLETE BIOGRAPHY
JIM SULLIVAN is a 4th generation Sonoma county native who lives near Occidental, California. A long time environmental activist, he also wrote a popular column for the Bodega Bay Navigator for eight years. He is perhaps best known for having led the campaign to open California State beaches for night access, and for serving as the first president of both the Sonoma County Rural Alliance and of the Sonoma County Farmlands Group, and for his involvement in a number of contentious land use issues. He also served on the boards of over a dozen other non-profits, from the Sonoma Land Trust and C.O.A.A.ST, to Native Species Network.
A graduate of Notre Dame in biology, he also studied in Vienna, Austria, and did graduate work at several other universities and still takes--and teaches-- classes and workshops at the Santa Rosa Junior College and elsewhere. He served 4 years in the infantry, including an extended tour in Korea with the United Nations occupation forces, where in 1962 he resigned his commission in protest over US policies in Asia. Upon return to the States, he lived in Santa Barbara, but by the mid-60s found himself in the Haight Ashbury where he became involved in the Civil Rights and Anti-war movements. During that time he also was instrumental in launching the Natural Foods movement, got married, moved to Marin county and raised 4 kids.
Returning to Sonoma county with the back to the land movement in 1976, he settled on Joy Ridge, near Bodega where his ancestors settled in the early 1870s. After a career as a landscape designer/contractor, he retired in the early 90s and has been painting almost daily since.
In May, 2010, Jim was qualified by Mark Elbroch and Casey McFarland as one of about 600 internationally certified animal trackers. Currently he is teaching two SRJC tracking and bird language classes a year, a monthly introduction tracking/bird language class, convening the local monthly Tracking Circle, leading twice-a -month Study Groups for over a dozen personal students, as well as other workshops, and several lectures a year. In 2017 all 7 of his students who tried for certification succeeded.
Notable Art Awards:
2000 Second Place: American Impressionist Society annual show in Cincinnati, Ohio.
2003 Best of Show: Bodega Bay Fisherman’s Festival.
