Some SciArt for September and New Things for ... the uh, end of the year

I've been taking part in #SciArtSeptember for the last several years. Check out the hashtag on Instagram!* Since I have such a big portfolio of prints I am often re-sharing art to match the daily prompts but each year I make a lot of new science art each September. Here's some of my new work.

Vincetoxicum rossicum, gel plate print, 11" x 14" by Ele Willoughby, 2023

For the #SciArtSeptember theme “strangling” I made gel plate prints of Vincetoxicum rossicum, also known as European swallowwort, or Dog-strangling Vine. Introduced to the northeastern US gardens in the mid-1800s, it’s become wildly invasive in south and central Ontario. While it doesn’t actually strangle dogs, it can be a risk to native plants and animals. It’s illegal to buy, sell, trade or purposely sell dog-strangling vine in Ontario; nonetheless I found this unwelcome plant in my garden. It can produce 28,000 seeds per square metre which are spread by the wind. They can crowd out native plants and mats of tangled vines make it hard to even walk through the forest. The leaves and roots can be toxic so animals avoid them and thus end up putting even more pressure on yummier native plants. They are also a threat to the monarch butterfly, a species at risk; their eggs laid on the vines do not survive to adulthood.

European Swallow-wort, gel plate print, 11" x 14" by Ele Willoughby, 2023

If you find them in your garden (here in North America) you should dig it up and place it in a black plastic bag; don’t add it to compost or it can spread. Or, if you are like me, use it as free art supplies!

Tomorrow, the prompt is simian, so here's a sneak peak at my post.

A Conspiracy of Lemurs, linocut, 9.25" x 12.5" by Ele Willoughby, 2023

I decided to extend my ongoing series of Terms of Venery prints by adding a primate. The term for a group of lemurs is irresistible: a conspiracy. Looking at photos of ring-tailed lemurs I can imagine where the term arose. They are very social and live in large groups, huddling to socialize and for warmth. I wanted them to look like they were up to something and made the word lemur with their famously striped tails. Endemic to Madagascar, these wet-nosed primates are sadly endangered due to habitat loss.

I've also been thinking ahead, and though I don't mention [REDACTED winter holidays] until after Halloween, because it can all be a bit too much hype, if you like to send cards, check this out. I have new and returning  [REDACTED winter holidays] cards in my shop! It's good to order early to receive them with plenty of time to send them out to your friends and loved ones.

My 12 Days of Christmas card design - find it in my shop!

*I'm also posting on Bluesky, where I'm @minouette and at @minouette@spore.social on Mastodon. Sadly, I think I am going to have to remove my account on what is left of Twitter.

Freedom of the Press, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Creative Blocks and Animal Prints

 I have been working away, when I could, while we've been trying to do remote school for the first couple months of the year. I actually managed to keep up with the Printer Solstice prompt and made a new print a week. Now that schools have reopened here, I have a chance to share some of my latest prints. 

Freedom of the Press, linocut by Ele Willoughby, 2021

I wasn't quite sure where to go with the theme "freedom of the press". I went with a winged Gutenberg press, thinking of the initial freedom it represented after its invention. (By the way, it's often presented as the first press, moveable type and paper were invented in China). I made a several different prints with this block, rather than a single edition.

The next theme was Blood, Sweat and Tears:

Blood, Sweat and Tears, linocut by Ele Willoughby, 2021

This "Blood, Sweat and Tears" lino block print is about how we as people reflect our origines in the ocean. Printed from 8 hand-carved blocks it shows blood cells racing through an artery, a cross-section of our skin with a sweat gland, an eye with a tear and a section of ocean seawater.

There's a well-known quotation from Isak Dinesen (the pen-name of Karen Blixen);

“‘Why, yes,’ he said, ‘I know of a cure for everything: salt water.’

‘Salt water?’ I asked him.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘in one way or the other. Sweat, or tears, or the salt sea.’"

This oft-given advice that hardwork, releasing your emotions or visiting the sea is the answer to any problem plays on the fact that sweat and tears are just salty water. But, in fact, we ourselves are predominently water, and we preserve the salinity of the environment of our earliest ancestors, from even before the first lobe-finned fish decided to seek refuge on land, in the Devonian (about 360 million years ago).

Next up was Creative Blocks. I opted for carving a collection of kid's wooden building blocks and then printing them on assorted beautiful patterned papers (both Japanese washi and European papers), so that some of them were "creative". I have made a whole series of these prints, each unique.

Creative Blocks, series of linocuts by Ele Willoughby, 20201

The next prompt was Animal Prints. So much of what I do is animal prints I wasn't sure what to do. It occurred to me that choosing insects might be a less common choice. Then I discovered that a group of moths is called an eclipse and I knew I had to add to my terms of venery series for groups of animals.

An Eclipse of Moths, linocut by Ele Willoughby 2021

This hand-printed lino block print shows five of the noctural moths of Ontario in front of the moon at a lunar eclipse. The five moths are: the gorgeous green Luna moth (Actias luna), the yellow and purplish-pink Imperial moth (Eacles imperialis), the Five-spotted Hawk Moth in brown with orange spots (Manduca quinquemaculata), the red-orange, black and cream Virgin Tiger Moth (Apantesis virgo), and the black and white White Underwing (Catocala relicta).

I designed the typefaces to suggest the meaning of the words. "Eclipse" is full of crescent moon shapes. "Moths" is written in moth shapes.

Looking back at 2017: science, art and life

Wunderkammer, interactive multimedia: linocut, collage, wooden box, electronics, sound files, 2017 by Ele Willoughby

With the new year, like many, I often like to look back. I find sometimes you don't see things accumulate or note acheivements. So, briefly, on a personal front, 2017 was a very interesting year. It was challenging, but over all, I'm quite proud. On one hand it's funny to start off talking about the acheivement of being in the running for a job I didn't get, but astronaut is no ordinary job. I was proud that I even had the guts to submit my application in the summer of 2016 for the Canadian Space Agency's job search. Each step of the year-long search, as I continued to advance I was a strange mixture of astonished yet confident that after all, it was something I could learn to do if selected. So I was very proud to be  one of the top 72 people selected from 3772 initial applicants, who were invited to the Astronaut Recruitment Assessment Centre! It was a unique experience; 3 and half days of gruelling mental, psychological and physical assessment, along with a very impressive and fascinating cohort of fellow applicants (only a third of whom were women). I've had so many questions and comments from people since this experience that I didn't expect. People I just met told me they were proud. Parents told me that they followed my progress with their kids, or asked me advice about how to encourage the next generation of potential astronauts. I wouldn't have imagined that even making it that far in their job search could impact people, but I'm humbled that it did and thank you all for your kindness, encouragement and support.

Another new experience this year was running an art gallery! I'm so glad that Emma talked me into taking on the Toronto Etsy Street Team Gallery, because truth is, I think I would have shied away from the financial risk. But it was a great experience and I'm proud of what we pulled off. I curated my first show, Wunderkammer, with a wonderful collection - a cabinet of curiosity in fact, of science art from some favourite and new-to-me artists. I went on to curate and organize shows about Canada, help foster Rebecca Vaughan curate and participate in Love Your Body, curate and participate in a Mesozoic themed the Dinovember show. I was also really pleased to take part in Tosca Terran's UnNatural History show at the gallery, where I showed my entire unnatural print collection.

2017 also some some great collaborations. WWEST's Phylo Women in STEM trading cards came out this spring. Definitely my favourite commission of 2016, was making and submitting five of my portraits of women. I have previously submitted some art for UBC's Dave Ng's earlier project to use trading cards as a natural historian's version of Pokemon. This latest set brings attention to women in science and technology, throughout history, and the hurdles facing women and under-represented groups. He told me he had seen my blog post about the death of physicist, material scientist and archeometry pioneer Ursula Franklin and it encouraged him to include her, as a great scientist, role model and Canadian. As you can see (above), I've also illustrated marine geologist Marie Tharp, physicist Lise Meitner, seismologist Inge Lehmann and proto-computer scientist Ada Lovelace. The sets are available from Phylo and you are even free to download and print your own! 

Because life is odd, the day after I learned that I did not advance to the top 32 astronaut candidates, Anthropologie approached me about collaborating on tee shirts. They loved my 'terms of venery' series of group nouns for animals.  They licensed two of my existing prints, 'An Ostentation of Peacocks' and 'A Kaleidoscope of Butterflies' and commissioned a third work. They wanted my portrait of my beloved, late, great Minouette the cat, but wanted it to fit in the venery series. While a group of cats is often known as a clowder, I remembered that it can also be called a glaring, and I thought that was a perfect combination for her fierce "Stop carving lino and feed me now!" look. I was very excited to work with one of my favourite clothing stores and it was a lovely experience to work with them. I was gratified that they wanted artwork that I had made simply because I wanted to.

 2017 also saw my home, studio and peculiar combination of jobs and interests as the subject of this Toronto Star article. I participated in another Bees (& the Birds) show. I did all the Toronto Etsy Street Team craft shows: the Midsummer Market, Etsy Made in Canada (where I enjoyed playing second fiddle for the first time) and the Christmas Maket. I sold at the One of a Kind Christmas show once again. I had artwork selected for the Leftovers VI Silent Auction, in Boise, Idaho, and 'Life as we knew it' and 'LUNAR' art shows at Art.Science.Gallery in Austin, Texas.

On the home front, our son turned four at the end of November, which means that he was able to start kindergarten in September. This is a big shift and I'm still getting used to it. He's now at school 6 hours a day, which frees me up to have much more freedom and control of my time and schedule and he loves it and is flourishing!

I love most of all that this list is very mixed: art, science, family life, and I'm keeping people guessing. When I was young I thought I had to choose, but I think in 2017 I did a good job of not choosing and being as much of a Renaissance woman as I can. I'm rather enjoying not having to define myself one way. This year once again promises new things and I'm looking forward to seeing what it brings.

Say it with me, "A Flamboyance of Flamingos"

Is that not the perfect term for a group chorus line of hot pink, long-legged flamingos? Alliterative, apt, succinct, this flamboyance of three pink and fuchsia flamingos are about to break out into a can-can routine.

The typography I designed for the words represents their meaning; "Flamboyance" is flamboyant in line and colour; the letters of the word "flamingos" are made from the distinctive shapes of long, flexible flamingo heads and necks, and their long, thin legs.

These linoleum block printed flamingos are printed on Japanese kozo, or mulberry paper. The block is inked 'à la poupée', meaning the multiple colours (pink, fuchsia and black ink) are all inked at the same time, in small areas, and the print is pulled all at once. Each print is 10" by 12.5" or 25 cm by 39 cm in dimension. There are 10 prints in the edition.

I like how the reflections turned out.

This is my latest in my terms of venery series.

A Tower of Giraffes

Well, I still have no functioning laptop of my own, but RJH has been kind enough to create a profile for me on his laptop and I'm getting better at using it.*

This linocut shows a tower of giraffes. The collective noun for a group of giraffes is a "tower" of course. The first thing you might notice about a giraffe is its towering neck, and a collection of giraffes tower over most things. The typography I designed for the words represents their meaning; "tower" mimics the shape of a tower complete with a turret-shaped 't' and the delicate, tall, thin letters of 'Giraffes' mimic the animals, right down to the horns-like ossicones on the dot of the 'i'. In fact, the crenellations (the battlement, or cut-out bits of the parapet) of the turret-t also echo the shape of the ossicones.**

These linoleum block printed giraffes are printed in brown ink with black and orange words on Japanese kozo, or mulberry paper. Each print is 9.25" by 12.5" or 23.5 cm by 31.7 cm in dimension. There are 8 prints in the edition.



I love how each giraffe has such personality! The one in the middle looks a bit goofy; the one on the right is a snob; the one on the left wonders what it did to get saddled with the other two. Am I right?

I also love the weird and wonderful terms of venery - the collective nouns for groups of animals (and other things). Some are evocative, some strange and obscure. This is the sixth in a series of such prints.

Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to carve "Giraffes", backwards, when it is so hot I think my brain might be slightly melted, without getting confused about which consonants to double? Let's face it, I might like words, but my spelling is atrocious. In fact, I wanted to put two t's in atrocious, but my spell-checker won't let me. RJH says double consonants are my kryptonite. Reynardin gleefully remembers my high school "writting" folder. I may know where you can get yourself a "Girraffes" print to go with your "Butterfflies". *head desk* I have a new motto (which has two t's - I checked): spell twice, carve once.

*I've used all sorts of machines (PC, UNIX, LiNUX, various Apple, and a few more or less handmade approximations of these), and like most physicists I know, I'm a PC person, not a Mac person. There is no reason for a Mac to give me trouble if I can program a data logger in machine code, and yet, I find them anti-intuitive, to the great amusement of several friends. First of all, I had to learn all the shortcuts (without using CTRL) and then I had to ask about right-clicking when there is no right-hand mouse button at all and generally I find it hard to tell what it's up to. I want to know what a machine is doing, and I'm not very patient... but I'm getting better. Plus, I like my bilingual keyboard. It was a pain to try and list this print in French without any é on the keyboard.

**I managed to use crenellations and ossicones in a single sentence. In fact, I just did it again. Think the sesquipedalian police will get me?

An Obstinacy of Buffalo

The collective noun for a group of buffalo is an "obstinacy". Clearly, these are hard-headed beasts. These ones have drawn a line in the sand. I dare you to cross it. Technically, these are American bison (Bison bison), known colloquially in North America as 'buffalo'. These mighty beasts were once ubiquitous across the Great Plains. Despite the worst efforts of the colonists, they have not been exterminated, and many obstinacies obstinately remain. The nature of the typography reflects the words: black, thick, solid, conservative and capitalized 'OBSTINACY' and 'Buffalo' with letters adorned with horn-like serifs. These linoleum block printed bisons are printed in slightly variable chocolate brown and black ink with dark gold ink grass, and brown, gold and black letters on Japanese kozo, or mulberry paper. Each print is 12.5" by 8" or 31.7 cm by 20.3 cm in dimension. There are 6 prints in the edition.