Amanda Leigh Smith is a LA based artist who makes nature-focused paper cuts, digital paintings, and linocuts that encourage people to consider the urban-wildland interface and biodiversity of Southern California. In 2021 she became a Certified California Naturalist and created losangelesisnotadesert.com, where her writing and art reconsider stereotypes about nature being a place outside of urban centers and instead celebrates the nature that is all around us right here in the middle of LA. A multimedia artist, Amanda has collaborated with Jacksonville Dance Theater’s In Here/ Out There: A Digital Dance Series, written a LA River X Takeover, shown her work at Frogtown Art Walks, been featured in Spillway Magazine Vol. 2, and created a mural at America’s Great Outdoors at the LA County Fair. You can find her on Instagram @laisnotadesert or @spatiumnaturadraws or in-person at a LA River or native plant event around town. Her most popular works are those that celebrate Southern California watersheds and local ecologies.