At this moment David Carroll (BFA/Diploma '65) is probably thigh-deep in a cold New Hampshire swamp with one thing on his mind: freshwater turtles. For decades he has followed the same spring ritual, heading out into the thawing wilderness to observe the turtles that have inspired him to paint and draw, to write books, and to become an unflagging advocate for ecological preservation.

Carroll isn't in it for the moneyhe's the kind of guy who's happy to scavenge free shoes at the local transfer station. But his dedication to turtles and his vivid depictions of their natural world literally paid off last fall, when he won a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation fellowship, commonly known as the "genius" award. "It definitely adds a layer of respect to the mad swamp guy," Carroll says with a laugh.

Carroll saw his first turtle in rural Connecticut at the age of eight. "It was so separate from human life, so wild, with so much mystery," he remembers. Soon he was following turtles through the seasons, and by the time he enrolled in the Museum School, he knew he'd "always be in the swamps." When he found a 46-pound snapping turtle on the Fens and hauled it home to photograph, his young wife, Laurette, whom he met in a painting class, luckily fled only their apartment, not their marriage. After moving to New Hampshire, the couple raised three children and lived without health insurance for 30 years. Carroll barely eked out a living as an art teacher and with his artwork and books such as Self-Portrait with Turtles and Swampwalker's Journal.

Now, with his newfound financial stability, Carroll is putting a new roof on his studio and exploring his "earlier ways" of painting and drawing (influenced by Cubism and Surrealism). He also is preparing a new book. "It's a luxury," he says. "I'm doing it because I want to, not because I need the advance to buy groceries."

Yet Carroll's success, and his eagerness to "drift into the landscape" in search of turtles, is tempered by his fear of what he calls "the landscape of loss." "So much of this planet is under siege right now," he says. "Many places I've been to no longer exist. Conservation land is being turned into human theme parks instead of being protected as ecological preserves."

Still, after a winter of painting, writing, and public speaking about his work, Carroll tries not to think about those losses. He steps outside at daybreak, pulls on his Neoprene waders, and heads for the swamps. "Once the turtles are active," he says, "I enter that world and I disappear."