Logos, the cosmos in art, & the history of science from print to textile form

This is a peak at the linocut which formed the basis for a logo I designed for a small English furniture company called Galapagos Designs. The specialize in German furniture from the 50's. My lovely customer stumbled upon my portrait of "Darwin on Galapagos" and liked the look of the tortoise. She requested a similar tortoise with a specific German chair, within a circle. The final logo has some further work I did with their name and slogan, in Photoshop. I can share that when their website is complete. I've enjoyed working with her and making this print. I like the whimsical idea!













The Etsy blog posted a great little article last Friday, called Art Scouting: The Night Sky. If you know me at all or have perused this blog more than once, you'll know that an article about the place where art intersects astronomy and a round up of representations, both representational and fanciful, of astronomical phenomena is just my thing. So, I was really pleased to see my "Imaginary Antarctic" screenprint included, especially amongst the works of so many wonderful printmakers. The author even sent me nice little note saying she thought it was a gorgeous depiction of the aurora.



















This is my linocut portrait of Mercator, famed 16th century Flemish cartographer and originator of the ubiquitous Mercator projection (the last of which just flew to Chicago with a friend... though I think I'll print a 2nd edition). You may recall, I was really pleased to be invited to submit of of these prints to the City Museum of Sint-Niklaas, in Belgium, who were hosting a year long exhibit in 2012, to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Mercator's birth. Recently, they wrote to me to say they would be sending me a knitted version of my print. Nothing could be less expected. It arrived today.






 









This is without a doubt, the single most unusual item I have received in exchange for my art. I don't know what to do with it, but I love it. (That's a metre stick for scale, by the way).

Darwin on Galapagos

I made a 2nd edition of my 'Darwin on Galapagos' block print on pale gray Japanese washi paper. Each sheet is 10.5 inches (26.7 cm) tall and 7 inches (17.8 cm) wide. This is one of the 2nd edition of 3.

"The inhabitants believe that these animals are absolutely deaf; certainly they do not overhear a person walking closely behind them. I was always amused, when overtaking one of these great monsters as it was quietly pacing along, to see how suddenly, the instant I passed, it would draw in its head and legs, and uttering a deep hiss fall to the ground with a heavy sound, as if struck dead. I frequently got on their backs, and then, upon giving a few raps on the hinder part of the shell, they would rise up and walk away; but I found it very difficult to keep my balance."

-Charles Darwin, 1835, Galapagos Islands

mad scientists and mutant turtles

Regarding my Darwin entry in the MSOE March Darwin Challenge, jackbear suggested, "That must be Darwin in his "teenage mutant ninja turtle" phase of life!" to which auntcindy replied, "Jackbear - I think it's less of a hero-in-a-half-shell... more of a scientist-on-a-half-shell."

I *heart* crafty scientists. They make me laugh.

The Tortoise is Not For Surfing

The inhabitants believe that these animals are absolutely deaf; certainly they do not overhear a person walking closely behind them. I was always amused, when overtaking one of these great monsters as it was quietly pacing along, to see how suddenly, the instant I passed, it would draw in its head and legs, and uttering a deep hiss fall to the ground with a heavy sound, as if struck dead. I frequently got on their backs, and then, upon giving a few raps on the hinder part of the shell, they would rise up and walk away; but I found it very difficult to keep my balance.

-Charles Darwin, 1835, Galapagos Islands (as quoted in Tortoise by Peter Young)




The Mad Scientists of Etsy (MSOE) challenge for March, 2009, honours the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. I have depicted Darwin as a young man, during his famous voyage on the HMS Beagle and its stay in the Galapagos Islands. The giant tortoises which thrived on the islands, and the variations in species from island to island were instrumental to his thinking, when he later wrote "On the origin of species" which divulged his understanding of biological evolution.

I like the irreverent image of Darwin on the stately, ancient tortoises, but don't try this at home kids! Tortoises are not for surfing.

This is an original lino block print on pale green Japanese washi paper. Each sheet is 12.5 inches tall and 6 " wide. This is one of the first edition of 12.





I have got to say, this one was quite the compositional challenge. The perspective and anatomy were a challenge. There just aren't many images of a young Charles Darwin, nor (luckily for the tortoises of the world) are images of people standing (rather than children sitting) on tortoises common. So, I needed to figure out: Darwin's facial structure (man, did he have a prominent brow, much to the glee of the chariacturists), men's clothing typical of ~1835, the anatomy and relative scale of a Galapagos tortoise, how to combine these in a pleasing and hopefully plausible (if somewhat humourous) way. I had wanted him to really be in a surfing stance, but I couldn't get that to work. I think I got something; it amuses me how, through no effort on my part, he looks inexplicably serious, while doing this silly thing. Also, it appears to me that this tortoise is contemplating how to unbalance him.

Also, things stacked on turtles or tortoises really seems to be an archetype in the collective unconscious. This also interests me, particularly as an earth scientist (who happens to collect turtle-shaped items).

Reading is sexy XVI

(image is A Yong Girl Reading by Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) via Guarda chi legge)
Well, I am home sick again today. I hardly ever take a day off sick. In fact, I hardly ever take a day off period - occupational hazard. I have checked my email remotely and the like. I have my laptop and could be working on the paper I should have finished, but I figure my brain is tired and busy fighting what ever bug it is that has taken up residence in my throat.Plus, I feel like death warmed over. The least I can do though is catch up with my record of what I have been reading... because I have. Been reading. If I don't write it down I feel like I will forget.

6. The Pharmacist's Mate by Amy Fusselman - I bought this book because of the rave review by Zadie Smith and the cover by Marcel Dzama. It is short but moving book. It is a memoir of sorts. She is breathtakingly honest. She grapples with her father's death - the titular Pharmacist's Mate, having been rejected by the Navy because he was in medical school, and doctors were needed, he signed up for the Merchant Marine and ended up in the dispensary - and her and her husband's quest to conceive a child. She intersperses her life, her grief, with excepts of her father's journal while at sea. This is a little gem.

7. The Troll Garden by Willa Cather. This is a book of short stories I bought at the U of T bookstore because a) it was some ridiculously nominal price, like $2 and b) I had not read any of her work, so I thought I might as well. It is one of those University Press editions with erudite introductions. I did not read all of the introduction, because while part of it was helpful, it was bent on systematically spoiling every plotline of everything she ever wrote. The stories themselves are mainly about artists and rustics, civilization and rural existence. They are not vastly different from contemporaries such as, for instance, Henry James.

8. Tortoise by Peter Young. This is a cultural history of the tortoise. A bit Anglo-centric, light on science, heavy on history. I learned some interesting things.

9. The Brie Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. This book is as good as they say. Read it. Oscar, is an overweight, hapless, scifi-obsessed Dominican nerd, living in New Jersey. Sadly for Oscar, he is not one of those nerds who are oblivious to women- no, Oscar loves women. This is an incredible story. It is the story of Oscar, and his family - his mother, and how and why she left the Dominican Republic, his sister, his abuela, interwoven with the history of the island and its fukú (or curses), violence, love and tragedy. And golden-eyed mongoose. The story is told by a narrator who eventually becomes part of the story and relates the story as Oscar himself might think, in scifi, pop culture metaphors and extensive footnotes- in a gripping, high-energy style. Later part of the story is told by his sister. What I know about the Dominican Republic and its former, brutal, dictator, "the failed cattle theif", El Jefe, Trujillo, I learned from Mario Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat, a novel referenced a few times here, and which I will never forget. This novel explains more of what happened to some people in this community after Trujillo, those who immigrated and those who remained, and how the country is still recovering. Mostly, though, it is about individuals. This novel, amazingly, is about love.

10. The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie. It took a little while for me to get into this novel, but once I did I was hooked. It weaves together Florence under the Medicis with the Mughal Emperor's court. A tall, yellow-haired man in a magician's coat, decorated with lozenges and filled with hidden pockets, arrives at the Mughal court, to deliver a message, tell a story and claim kinship. The story is about what is real, what is make-believe, east and west, religious tolerance, love, beauty, treachery, family and friends. Not 14 pages in, we have Scottish pirates, with what some on the f-list might call slashy angst, and the rollicking tale goes on from there. An enjoyable read.

11. Cloud Atlad by David Mitchell. I got this book on the suggestion of . She is also a Haruki Murakami fan, so I was intrigued. It is quite an amazing book. I do not want to tell you too much about it. You need to read it for yourselves. Its structure is musical in six parts, life stories in different times and places, subtly woven together. The story takes place in the 1850s in the south Pacific, in the early 1930s in Belgium (near Bruges, fresh in my mind having just watched In Bruges and being in nearby Holland while reading), in 1970s Buenos Yerba, more or less contemporary England, and into the future. The story is about humanity, society, consumerism and freedom. Just read it.

12. Scribbling the cat by Alexandra Fuller (author of Don't let's go to the dogs tonight). Scribbling is African slang for killing, as in curiosity scribbled the cat. The hero of the memoir, Bobo, is home in Zambia, visiting her parents (her husband and children, safe in Montana), where she meets their neighbour K. He is a veteran of the wars of the region. He fought in one of the elite corps for the Rhodesians and also for the Portuguese in Mozambique. Bobo gets it into her head that the two of them could return to where he fought these wars. She wants to understand what could make this violent, estranged, born again man. He, for his part, thinks he is in love with her. The narrative voice is strong and recognizable from her last memoir. I am not sure what this will all tell us.... People are rotten? War changes people irreparably? Yet, in some senses, some people (especially men) thrive on it.

Happy Darwin Day

Darwin Day, is a global celebration of science and reason held on or around Feb. 12, the birthday anniversary of evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin. This year marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth.

Since the Mad Scientists of Etsy had already selected "mycology" as our theme for February, we have put off the Darwin challenge until March. But you, gentle reader, get a advance hint: tortoises & surfing. :)