GNSI Conference 2002 - Presentations

Monday
Keynote Address: Digital Illustration and Scientific American Magazine with Ed Bell
	Ed Bell, who is the Artistic Director for Scientific American Magazine, will discuss the effects of digital media on magazine publishing, science illustration, and the artist. He will talk about digital illustration in Scientific American and the magazine’s relationship with the science illustration community. Mr. Bell can speak with authority, since he has worked with the magazine for thirty-three years and has watched the evolution of science illustration in public science magazines firsthand. He has been the Art Director for eight years and has directed the magazine through two redesigns. He was born in New York City and has lived there most of his life. He also lived and attended school in Bermuda, where most of his relatives were born. He attended the City University of New York, and the School of Visual Arts. His mentors include artist Jerome Snyder of Push Pin Studios, and writer Toni Cade Bambara. He was adjunct professor at Polytechnic University of Brooklyn for seven years where he taught magazine design, and for the past five years he has lectured at the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication Program. He currently maintains a design studio, Matrix Design, in New York City and lives in Valley Stream, NY.
Creativity, Culture, Change with Moira Cullen and Craig Lueck
	Prepare for inspiration! Moira Cullen and Craig Lueck will give you an insider’s view of Hallmark’s creative legacy as they describe how Hallmark’s illustrators and designers drive innovation and change through their creative process. The range, scope and opportunities for Hallmark illustrators will be revealed through images from the illustration archives, such as the Louis Prang collection and natural history and rare book selections, as well as current images from the new 2001-2002 illustration images from studio artists. Craig will share his images from a six-month floral project he completed last year. Craig will explain "emotion" in the greeting card world and his own approach to using watercolor and the Photoshop techniques. Moira Cullen is an internationally published design writer, educator and strategist whose career spans the worlds of dance, photography, fashion, marketing and design. Formerly creative director and U.S. representative for one of Japan's foremost fashion specialty retailers, she was research manager for Pentagram (NY), marketing director for The Pushpin Group (NY), and associate professor in the graduate Communication Design program at Pratt Institute (NY). From 1996-2000, Ms. Cullen was Chair of the Communication Arts Department of Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, which offers degrees in graphic design and illustration. Concurrently, she was President of the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), having been AIGA's national director of programs responsible for producing the AIGA's design and business conferences, competitions, exhibitions and events. In the fall of 2000, she moved to Kansas City, MO where she currently leads the Corporate Design Group at Hallmark Cards Inc. As a writer, her essays and criticism appear in leading design journals and publications. She was recently named one of GRAPHIC DESIGN USA’s Fifty People to Watch in 2002. Craig Lueck, Master Illustrator with Hallmark Cards, has worked with the company as an illustrator since 1982. He was studio manager in a variety of roles and product formats from 1988 to 2000 when he earned the title of Master Illustrator. He was also the 1998 Vice President for Product Development for Heart & Home in Minneapolis. Craig teaches and illustrates with watercolor, and he specializes in botanicals and flower-related themes.
A Beginner's Guide to the Natural History and Landscapes of Kansas with Craig C. Freeman and Rex Buchanan
	Prepare to push aside those dusty, flat, tornado-ridden mental images which probably were implanted after numerous viewings of the Wizard of Oz! The natural history of Kansas is a much richer story, and an enjoyable one to hear when told by Craig Freeman and Rex Buchanan. Craig will use general vegetation patterns as a backdrop to describe and highlight the ecology of Kansas and representative elements of the flora and fauna. Rex will describe the state’s physiographic regions, how they came to be, and how they have influenced people who live in them. It will be an enjoyable and perhaps surprising trip through a very diverse state and unique landscape. Craig Freeman is Curator-in-charge of the R.L. McGregor Herbarium, Natural History Museum & Biodiversity Research Center at the University of Kansas, and he is an Associate Scientist with the Kansas Biological Survey, University of Kansas. He has over twenty years experience in plant systematics, floristics, and grassland ecology and is an excellent guide. Craig’s publications include Roadside Wildflowers of the Southern Great Plains (1991) which he co-authored with Eileen K. Schofield. Rex Buchanan has been the Associate Director for Public Outreach at the Kansas Geological Survey for twenty-four years.Rex grew up outside of Little River, in Rice County, Kansas, on the edge of the Smoky Hills. He has an undergraduate degree from Kansas Wesleyan University in Salina and graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the co-author of Roadside Kansas: A Guide to its Geology and Landmarks (1987); editor of Kansas Geology: An Introduction to Landscapes, Rocks, Minerals, and Fossils (1984), both published by the University Press of Kansas; and co-author of The Canyon Revisited: A Rephotography of the Grand Canyon, 1923-1991, published by the University of Utah Press (1994). He is the past president of the Kansas Academy of Science, Kansas Association for Conservation and Environmental Education, and the Association of Earth Science Editors.
Preparing Illustrations for Print with Julie Rinke and Tony Kugler
	This presentation is a special opportunity to learn about the current requirements for submitting artwork for print production from two people who happen to be employed at the premier scientific publisher in the nation, Allen Press. Julie Rinke and Tony Kugler will discuss and demonstrate such critical topics as file formats, applications, fonts, types of figure files, resolution, color models, and color corrections. Julie Rinke has twelve years in the printing and graphic arts industry and specializes in print production analysis with an emphasis on digital imaging and composition. Tony Kugler has twenty years’ experience in the printing and graphic arts industry.
Tuesday
A Science of Shadows: Carbon Dust Illustrations in the Herrick Collection with Susan B. Case
	(Presentation, 8:00-9:00 AM, General) Spencer Research Library's Special Collections Department at the University of Kansas contains an untold wealth of scientific and medical illustrations. Susan B. Case took the opportunity to curate the Herrick Collection, and she was amazed to discover halftone illustrations unlike any she had encountered before-carbon dust illustrations. She was hooked! And then she discovered that the illustrator's name was missing from many illustrations and had even been deliberately removed before publication, a fact which, in her words, "set her hair on fire." This presentation will review the carbon dust technique and its origin. Susan will then describe the scope of the Herrick Collection. She will give a brief biography of Charles Judson Herrick (Distinguished American neuroanatomist) and discussion of illustrations for his publications, sharing carbon dust illustrations by A.B. Streedain, del. (Early 20th Century Scientific Illustrator, University of Chicago; illustrations produced for the published work of C. Judson Herrick). She will conclude with a discussion of the importance of scientific illustrations in special collections Susan B. Case's twenty-five years of experience include a B.A. in Biology; an M.S. in Botany; and an M.L.S. in Library Science. She is bibliographer for the Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Kansas, Anschutz Library.
Creativity As A Lifestyle with Stephanie Cloes Engstrom
	Stephanie will provide an overview of her Thursday workshop with a discussion of the all-important topic of creativity. All illustrators and artists at some time have felt that their creativity was blocked, been overcome by conflicting responsibilities, or been overwhelmed by deadlines. Steph will give some organizing and planning strategies to overcome creative blocks and delineate goals. Stephanie draws from a variety of sources - including The Artist's Way books by Julia Cameron -that focus on creative blocks and ways to overcome them. Stephanie Cloes Engstrom is a freelance wildlife artist who has given workshops on creativity for five years. In April 2002, she will facilitate a 10-week creativity workshop at the Palos Verdes Art Center, CA. A self-taught artist who augmented her skills through GNSI workshops, she has specialized in wildlife drawing and painting for the past 15 years. Last year, Stephanie had a solo show at The Distinctive Edge, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA. Her awards include the 2000 People's Choice Award, Second Place, Artists Open Group, Palos Verdes, CA. Her work can be viewed in various publications and in permanent exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoological Park.
The Modern Artist in an Ancient Landscape with Patricia Savage
	(Lecture/Presentation, 9:00-10:00 AM, General) Patricia will discuss her experience as expedition artist for the 1899 Harriman Expedition Retraced: A Century of Change in Alaska, July to August of 2001. The mission of this trip was to collect top scientists, writers, and artists to examine the environmental record of the past 100 years and to explore the current environmental, economic, and social themes. Her focus is on how a modern artist approaches the same landscape that the famous artists Louis Agassiz Fuertes and Fred Dellanbaugh explored and painted. As artists working for a scientific research project, they produced original art to visually introduce to the North American public a landscape and fauna few of them had ever seen. She will present a brief travelogue of her trip, exploring anew the coastal Alaskan land and ecology. Patricia will share photographic studies and her process of developing a painting as she worked to capture the feeling of a place as well as the scientifically accurate details. Patricia Savage is a self-employed fine artist who was chosen by Clark Science Center and the Alumnae Association of Smith College to be one of twenty scholars to take part in a reenactment of the Harriman exploration voyage to Alaska named 1899 Harriman Expedition Retraced. Patricia's work has appeared in North Light Books, The Best of Wildlife Art, and Best of Wildlife Art 2. She currently has a painting on national tour with the Society of Animal Artists, and that piece was selected for exhibition by the National Geographic Society in 2002. Patricia worked in watercolor for fifteen years and is now using oil, pastels, egg tempura, charcoal, and scratchboard with pen and ink.
Capture the Moment: An Introduction to Conscious Camerawork with Bruce Paul Gaber
	(Lecture/Presentation, 10:00-11:00 AM, General) Bruce Paul Gaber will demonstrate how photography is a tool for seeing the visual possibilities in everyday things. Cameras can be much more than gadgets for grabbing a few snapshots or gathering documentation for illustrations. They can guide us to a new way of seeing the colors, forms, and patterns around us. Bruce’s aim is neither perfect technique nor flawless photography, but rather to guide viewers to learn to see the visual possibilities in everyday things. It is rather surprising what wonderful moments can be captured. Bruce Paul Gaber is a physical biochemist and laboratory head at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. He has practiced molecular graphics and illustration for almost 20 years. Bruce picked up his first 35mm camera as a teenager. He is a scientific illustrator specializing in depiction of the bio/molecular world and is a small-object photographer with a strong interest in mineral photography. His illustrations have been featured in exhibits sponsored by GNSI, the Molecular Graphics Society, The New York State Museum, and the Art Alliance Center at Clear Lake. Bruce’s mineral photography has won awards at the Werner Leiber Mineral Photography contest sponsored by the Friends of Mineralogy. He holds a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Southern California, and is an Affiliate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington. Bruce is a certified Dharma Art Teacher and also a rather decent cook.
Preparing the Rainforest Mural for the Miami Metrozoo with Sharon Belkin
	(Lecture/Presentation, 10:00-11:00 AM, General) Sharon Belkin will describe an assignment she was offered by the environmentalist-photographer Arnold Newman, a personal friend who designed the Miami Zoo Rainforest Exhibit. She describes it as "one of those 'fluke' assignments you grab before they change their minds." The clients wanted to reflect a diversity of forest products in their natural environment. They wanted a mural to occupy a wall in an indoor exhibit hall that would feature all sorts of indigenous artifacts, specimens of bone and wood, and small live animals such as poison dart frogs--all from tropical Central and South America. Sharon will describe problems of perspective and composition based on many behaviors and habitats; share reference material and show how organizing of her trip journals from the Amazon helped to approach the content. Sharon will tell how a body of information was created to accompany the image and how the digital treatment was developed. Sharon Belkin holds a BA from UCLA in Biological Illustration which included a minor in zoology as well as training by a medical illustrator in pen and ink, carbon dust, and wash. She has been working in watercolor since high school. Her experience includes a year and a half spent in Hawaii in the 1960s studying marine biology. After nineteen years doing brain research graphics at UCLA, Sharon has done freelance work since 1995. She specializes in Entomology, and pen & ink drawings of mosquitoes paid her way through college. Tropical insects lured her to the Amazon in 1984, and Sharon has become increasingly addicted to the jungle and tropical ecology ever since. All her personal artwork and reading for the last eighteen years have been for the understanding of ecological relationships in the tropical rainforests. She arranged several small exhibits and co-designed a large installation of rainforest and other science art at the Beckman Center in Irvine, Ca., for the Southern California Chapter. In 2001, she volunteered for a month at a remote project site in the Guatemalan Peten to produce stipple drawings (ink on Bristol) of Post Classic Mayan pottery fragments. She relates that this seems simple if one is sitting in a pristine work environment but is much more difficult with giant biting ants crawling on one's rough sawn plank of a table while one drips sweat from every pore.
How Do We See? One Artist's View with Bente Starcke King
	(Lecture/Presentation, 11:00 AM-12:00 PM, General) Sherlock Holmes once said to Dr. Watson, “My dear Watson; you are looking but you do not observe.” Bente Starcke King will talk about perception. She will discuss how artists in the past have expressed what they saw and how they manipulated light. The affect of environmental influences on artists today will be explored. Bente Starcke King has about fifty years experience as an illustrator, a career that began with a B.A. from an arts college in Copenhagen, Denmark. She received a Masters degree from the Natural Resources Department at Cornell in Ithaca, NY. After freelancing while raising her children, she was botanical illustrator at the L. H. Bailey Hortorium at Cornell for fifteen years until her retirement. She teaches natural science illustration during Cornell’s summer session and at Cornell Plantations in the spring and fall. She has exhibited and sold her botanical paintings both in the United States and Europe. Bente works primarily in watercolor, colored pencil on watercolor, and in pen and ink with watercolor washes.
Reconstructing a Carboniferous Fern Forest with Mary Parrish
	(Lecture/Presentation, 11:00 AM-12:00 PM, General-with technical details) This presentation will describe the scientific and artistic process of reconstructing a color paleontological environment. The talk will begin with a broad overview of the reconstruction of paleontological environments through painting. This will be followed by a description of the scientific and artistic process used to reconstruct a 310 million year old fern forest from plants preserved in coal balls from Berryville, Illinois. The painting was prepared under the direction of Tom Phillips of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and Bill DiMichele of the Smithsonian Institution for the scientific journal Review of Paleobotany and Palynology. Mary Parrish works in the Department of Paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. She has eighteen years of experience as an illustrator, and her specialties are paleontological illustration, modern reef and mangrove illustration
The Science and Art of Communication with John Richard Schrock
	(Lecture/Presentation, 11:00 AM-12:00 PM, General ) The science of communications began with Bell Laboratory research on the speech chain and provides an understanding of why a botanist may identify a plant more readily from actual specimens, or why a biology teacher finds computer simulation inferior to actual dissection. However, depending upon the objectives, there are cases where a road map is superior to an aerial photo, or where the conceptual imaging cannot be provided by direct experience. In addition, the immediacy of the experience, ability to genuinely interact, and the potential for real consequences all affect the attentiveness and memory of the observer. The involvement of emotional factors in perception and memory, as detected by recent PET scan brain research, make science communication an art as well as a science. Dr. Schrock will discuss the applications of his studies to scientific illustration. Dr. Richard Schrock is a Professor of Biology and Director of Biology Education in the Department of Biology at Emporia State University. Dr. Schrock has taught at ESU for sixteen years, and he taught middle school and high school science for ten years prior to that. His background is in entomology. He is the editor of the Kansas School Naturalist and of Kansas Biology Teacher, and he directs biology teacher training at ESU. Dr. Schrock is an advisor to Chinese normal schools on biology education reform. He is considered the foremost defender of dissection in classrooms. Dr. Schrock was publications manager for two and a half years at Associated Systematics Collections (when at KU).
Traveling Studio: Painting Aboard a Freighter on an Around-the-Globe Voyage with John Cody
	(Lecture/Presentation, 2:00-3:00 PM, General) John Cody will reveal how illustrators can see the world and create art while doing it. John will divulge the cost (not expensive) and joys of freighter travel and its compatibility with continuing creativity (writing and painting). John Cody is currently retired but hard at work. He has decades of experience in art, medicine, and travel. John has been an M.D. since 1960, an artist since birth, and a medical artist from 1947 to 1955. High points of John's career include a one-man show at Smithsonian and the Kansas Artist Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Governor of Kansas. John is proud of his forty-seven years of happy marriage and his three children.
Painting a Mural for Boston Museum of Science with Amy Bartlett Wright
	(Lecture/Presentation, 2:00-3:00 PM, General) Using the basic concepts of scientific illustration, Amy will show how she painted a realistic mural for the Boston Museum of Science in the fall of 2001. Through slides, she demonstrates the step by step process, beginning with background colors of distant scenery and then gradually building layers of color and detail to create a New England woodland scene compatible with exhibit fabrication. She will demonstrate also how she painted the twenty-seven foot wide by ten foot high mural on three sheets of canvas in her studio and then installed the mural on site in Boston. This enabled her to work efficiently without a commute and also meant that she would be home when her sons got home from school. Amy Bartlett Wright is a freelance illustrator with twenty-four years of experience who has illustrated numerous books and magazines, including several books in the Peterson Field Guide Series. She has recently been developing larger paintings and has painted natural science murals for Boston Museum of Science, Buttonwood Park Zoo and U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
A Field Guide to North American Mammals: A Traditional Approach with Nancy Halliday, Consie Powell, Wendy Smith & Ron Klingner
	(Lecture/Presentation, 3:15-5:15 PM, General) Throughout 2001, Nancy, Consie and Wendy worked as part of a collaborative team of seven professional artists to illustrate a comprehensive field guide to the mammals of North America. From studios scattered throughout various countries, team members had to rely on their own creative solutions to research and accurately render myriad species of the North American continent. These artists will discuss various steps and aspects of the assignment, including a trip sponsored by the authors to the Southwest Research Station in the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona. Many challenges were inherent in the project, such as communicating and working long distance with and independently from the scientist authors, various media and digital issues, and physical challenges and problems that illustrators often face. This presentation will show the illustrators at work at the field station, as well as involved in other processes of researching and creating the work. Nancy Halliday is an Artist-Naturalist for the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, Illinois. Nancy holds a B.S. in Zoology from the University of Oklahoma and an M.A. in Geography and Environmental Studies from Northeast Illinois University. She has almost fifty years of experience as a museum artist for scientific publications and educational exhibits, has field experience in Arizona, Canada and the West Indies, and she has taught scientific illustration since 1977. Nancy authored the bird illustration chapter in the GNSI Handbook. Consie Powell is a freelance artist, writer, and editor with an art degree from Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, and an M.S.T. in Elementary Education from the University of Chicago. She has extensive field experience, especially with carnivores and mustelids. Consie designs, edits and illustrates North Carolina's WILD Notebook, a Young Reader's feature in Wildlife in North Carolina magazine. Her awards and accomplishents include The Best of Picturebook 2000 award (for hand colored woodcuts); a Society of Illustration Exhibit; Don Freeman grant for picturebook research awarded by Society of Children's Books; and Writers & Illustrators, 1996. She has had other exhibits, including one at North Carolina State Museum of Natural Science, and at the North Carolina Botanical Garden. Wendy Smith is a freelance natural science illustrator with a Zoology degree from Humboldt State University. She has extensive experience with illustration for educational, scientific and popular publications; museums & zoo exhibits; and commissioned art for public and commercial use, including postage stamps. She has been a staff and contract illustrator for the Earth Sciences Division of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County for ten years, has given professional presentations since 1992, and has extensive field experience documenting flora and fauna throughout the world. Her awards and accomplishments include numerous juried exhibits throughout United States and, most recently, Portugal; Artist-in-Residence at Rocky Mountain National Park in 2000; illustrations at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation's permanent collection; and various other awards, including creative excellence in dimensional illustration.
Adventures in Amazonia with Scott Rawlins
	(Lecture/Presentation, 3:15-4:15 PM, General) This informational and entertaining presentation will acquaint members of the audience with a biology art program taught by a GNSI member on the Amazon in Brazil and to alert them to the plight of the Amazonian rainforests. Does a visualization of the Amazon include wrestling anacondas? Fending off attacking piranhas? Hiding from natives with blow guns? The Amazon River system includes one of the most diverse and mysterious tropical rainforests in the world. For a week in 2001, Scott Rawlins and a group of fellow artists traversed bayous, archipelagos, and open waterways collecting and drawing native plants, instructed by Brazilian botanical illustrator Dulce Nascimento. Using photographic images generated during his trip, Scott will share some of his discoveries and help to separate fact from fiction. Scott Rawlins is a professor in the Department of Fine Arts at Arcadia University in Glenside, PA where he teaches scientific illustration, drawing, and design. Scott graduated from Earlham College with a degree in biology, and holds graduate degrees in museum education and medical and biological illustration from George Washington University and the University of Michigan respectively. Scott's freelance clients have included the National Museum of Natural History, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. He is a former GNSI and current ASBA board member; Chair of the Fine Arts Department, Arcadia University; and the recipient of numerous faculty development grants at Arcadia University.