Category
Taxidermy
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11.06.09The RISD Nature Lab +The Importance of Collections
Taxidermy, documenting nature, nature study (4)If you enjoy natural history and haven't yet seen Etsy's visit to RISD's Nature Lab, I highly recommend a peek; apparently we weren't the only ones to think it special! Alis and I met there as freshmen and spent (well, I can say that I spent) more than half my time in the lab after dark, poring over specimens. I sketched at the same long tables you see in the video in a quiet trance until close. It was like a church of curiosity, a place whose doors were (almost) always open to focus and quiet the mind. The Nature Lab was ...
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01.19.09The Bug Box
Scientist, Taxidermy, bugs (3)At the end of his chapter on taxidermy Daniel Beard had the victorian charm to add two brief paragraphs on building a box in which a boy could breed butterflies or moths. The sketch for this box was drawn by someone named Lawrence, so the box is called the Lawrence Breeding Box. The box that Beard and Lawrence suggest can be broken down into individual walls and stored. This is what in design school we would have termed "knock-down furniture". "Knock-down" is pretty much the fate of everything around little boys, so instead of trying to create a permanent box, ...
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01.10.09Collecting Bugs
Crafts, Taxidermy, documenting nature, xo (3)I'm doing dishes. He is four and bored and restless and wriggling over the furniture by midmorning. I tell Chas it's too sunny outside for a movie. Beautiful days are meant to be out-of-doors. Internalize that, little man! With a grudge he plops to the floor, surrounding himself with shoes, to pick out a pair. I grin, cradling a lidded mason jar and pink sandbox scoop, and with my other hand I help him slide on his sandals. The sunshine has warmed the fickle January air here to near-70 degrees fahrenheit, heatwave following a hard freeze, leaving brown and withered shoots; ...
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