Scientists’ SciArt featured by The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)

Posted on by CommNatural
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Front page article in The Times-Picayune features hand-drawn #SketchYourScience sketches by ecologists, quotes me encouraging folks to evaluate sketches based on self-identified goals

Journalist Sara Sneath* of the New Orleans Times-Picayune recently featured ecologists who sketched their study organisms as part of an impromptu, humorous initiative led by Dr. Solomon R. David* (Nicholls State University). Sneath’s front page story details how ecologists responded to the call to sketch their study organism using the MS Paint program and their nondominant hand. My take – that doing #sciart is a valuable skill and that skill set can be developed with practice – was included in both the online and print versions of the article. Keep reading for some background. Continue reading Scientists’ SciArt featured by The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)

Laramie Boomerang covers dedication of downtown mural

Posted on by CommNatural

In spring 2017, I was one of 13 artists commissioned by the Laramie Mural Project to design and paint a component of the expansion of the downtown Laramie “Gill Street” mural.

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The “Gill Street” mural features fish designed to evoke Wyoming icons.

My design depicts a group of five pronghorn along their ~100-mile migration route – the Path of the Pronghorn.

The mural was dedicated in August 2018. Read about it in the Laramie Boomerang!

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Follow this link for details about my inspiration, the pronghorn migration, and the Laramie Mural Project.

Book review of “Then There Were None”

Posted on by CommNatural

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Last year, a book I illustrated was published! The book, Then There Were None: The Demise of Desert Bighorn Sheep in the Pusch Ridge Wilderness, by Paul Krausman, details the demise of the desert bighorn sheep populations in the mountains around Tuscon, Arizona. It is both a conservation history and a warning for current conservationists.

I was delighted to recently bump into a review of it that also mentioned my illustrations.

You can order the book from the publisher, New Mexico University Press, here.

Gillette News Record picks up press release about grad students’ interpretations of local murals

Posted on by CommNatural

Gillette news and record

In Autumn 2017, I led a co-taught graduate seminar course called “The Art of Science Communication.” The first project we assigned to the students, who were all PhD candidates in the sciences, was to select a mural in downtown Laramie. They each developed an audio script (which they then recorded) that interpreted their chosen mural in a way that connected the mural to their own research.

Their research ranged from super-massive black holes to birds that are inadvertent gardeners in tropical rain forests. We collaborated with the Laramie Public Art Coalition and the Laramie Mural Project to make the recordings available online. And, the University of Wyoming Press Office helped us distribute a press release about the project that was picked up by the Gillette News Record. 

Learn more about the course, other communication and engagement projects developed by the students, and more, at the course website they maintained: engagelaramiescience.weebly.com.