Ranchos de Taos wildlife photographer, ecology activist and published author Sandy Seth has added another award to a long list of honors she has received. Friends of the Bosque del Apache awarded its highest honor, the Martha Hatch Award, to Seth at the recently completed Festival of the Cranes. As webmaster for the Friends, Seth is the online voice for the renowned Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge south of Socorro.

Seth, a second-generation New Mexican and daughter of parents who loved the Refuge, is known in the Taos area for her advocacy of building with native materials, and for five houses in the Territorial and Pueblo styles which she hand-built from adobe. Her award-winning wildlife photographs are represented by the Carson House Shop and at BirdSongGallery.com, an on-line gallery which she operates with artist-partner Valerie Graves.

The Martha Hatch Award, given annually "to the person who best exhibits the characteristics of an ideal volunteer and who has made outstanding volunteer contributions to the Friends and the Refuge", was presented to Seth in a ceremony at the recently completed 23rd annual Bosque del Apache Festival of the Cranes.

Anyone who has visited the Friends' website FriendsoftheBosque.org which Seth designed and maintains as webmaster will understand why this award is richly deserved. Seth also left an indelible mark on the just-completed 2010 Festival of the Cranes: her photograph titled "Sandhill Crane Pair- Reflections" was chosen as the Festival's theme. The image was reproduced on banners lining the main street in Socorro, and on Festival literature and merchandise. Finally, Seth posts a Day-by-Day Diary of Festival and refuge happenings on festivalofthecranes.blogspot.com which she created.

In presenting the Martha Hatch award, Friends' president Paul White said: "…our honoree has loved everything about the Bosque ever since she first laid eyes on it…Sandy, it seems as if every time I turn around, I am discovering something else you have done in support of the refuge and the Friends." White followed this introduction with 14 concrete professional and financial contributions Seth has made since she became a member of the Friends in 2003.

Seth has had numerous one person and group shows at galleries and museums through the country. She was an Artist in Residence at Djerassi Foundation, Woodside, CA, and her work was selected for the Smithsonian Institution's Renwick Gallery Nationwide Juried Show and the Museum of New Mexico Biennial Juried Show, among others. Her many photograph awards include winning Best Photograph at the Taos Fall Arts Festival Invitational Show.

Before turning to photography, Seth pursued an interest in regional architecture and native materials in building. She co-authored Adobe! Homes and Interiors of Taos, Santa Fe and the Southwest, was featured in Janice Goldfanks' book Making Ourselves at Home: Women Builders and Designers, and was included in Stand Against the Wind, a Biographical Sketchbook of New Mexico Women by Maryann Abkemeier and Laura Robertson. Seth has lectured on Southwest art and architecture at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, and was a tour leader for the Smithsonian's National Museum of American Art Forum.

Seth says she views her wildlife art not as a business, but as way to call attention to the to value of all life, especially birds and wildlife and the habitat they rely on for survival.

Seth derives her passion for New Mexico's natural resources and traditions from a family with deep roots in New Mexico. Her father, Judge Oliver Seth, was for 34 years a member of the Federal 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, retiring as its Chief Justice. Her mother was founder of the pioneering Canyon Road Art Gallery, one of the first of Santa Fe's illustrious showplaces for regional artists.