WUNDERKAMMER: The Cabinet of Curiosity Show

I'm very excited to have curated the Toronto Etsy Street Team Gallery's first group art show, WUNDERKAMMER: The Cabinet of Curiosities from May 11 to 28. This art - or science art - show, is inspired by the Wunderkammer or Cabinet of Curiosity, the immense, eccentric, encyclopedic natural history collections gathered by collectors since the Renaissance. Cabinets of Curiosities featured treasured zoological, botanical, anatomical, fossil and gem specimen, collected by early citizen scientists. WUNDERKAMMER features original sculptures, drawings, hand-bound books, prints, paintings, printmaking, ceramics, jewellery, generative and multimedia specimen of natural and unnatural history on all scales, from the microscopic to the macroscopic. We are featuring the work of local artists (myself included):

István Aggott Hönsch			Erin Candela
Gavin Canning			Andrée Chénier
Carolyn Eady			Leslie Fruman
Monika Millar			Heather Ibbott
Colleen Manestar			Peggy Muddles
Teodora Opris			Christine Strait-Gardner
Tosca Teran			Rovena Tey
Lauren Vartanian			Ele Willoughby

Explore our curiousity cabinet of wildlife biology, mathematics, chemistry, mycology, micro and cellular biology, marine biology, entomology, botany, and fantastical lifeforms through the lens of art.

Join us Saturday, May 13, 6:00 pm to 10:00 for our Opening! FOLLOW THE LINK TO RSVP

Multimedia Cacti

The elusive cactibou, linocut by Ele Willoughby 2014

I've been working on a sort of quite possibly completely imaginary cryptozoological menagerie, which began sometime after the elusive cactibou a prickly desert cat-cactus hybrid complete with caribou/saguaro antlers improbably appeared fully formed in my mind. (Part of the delight of this project for me is to write the pseudoscientific description of each of my beasties. You can find the cactibou's description, from zoology to ethnobotany here.)

People sometimes ask me where I get my ideas. It's not an obvious question to answer well ("from my head?"), but I do know that cats are indeed prickly, mine seems to store water and disdain drinking, and that cacti seem to be more an more apparent in art I see. I thought today I would share some of the cacti art I've been admiring.

Valentina Glez Wohlers' Prickly Pair Chair- Classic

Their unusual though organic forms are appealing, but I love the whimsical improbability of cactus as home decor, as the prickly plants do not suggest comfort. Mexican born London-based designer Valentina Glez Wohlers' heritage shines in her delightfully whimsical Prickly Pair Chairs, which merge Mexican cactus shapes and colours and patterns with traditional European chair designs.

Valentina Glez Wohlers' Prickly Pair Chair- Tenango de Doria

More straitghtforward perhaps would be a simple cactus shaped pillow. Here's a cute one complete with DIY from everything emilty. 

DIY a cacti sampler with a Japanese craft book

It's easy to find cacti in all sorts of different forms and media. Check out ceramicist Lina Cofán’s
amazing wunderkammer of cacti and other plants.  

Lina Cofán

Lina Cofán

Lina Cofán

There are even functional ceramic cacti, like this beauty of a teapot:

lofficina ceramic cactus teapot

 

I love also the cacti in perhaps even less expected media.

ThornAndNeedle has a series of knit cacti

Cactus cake by Tetyana

Cactus cupcakes via Alana Jones Mann

Czech artist Veronika Richterová's magical sculptures from recycled PET bottles include some truly magical cacti (and jellyfish, amongst other things, via thisiscolossal).

Veronika Richterová PET cacti

Veronika Richterová PET cacti

Veronika Richterová PET cacti detail

There are also some beautiful illustrations in more traditional media.

Cactus Nest by Michelle Morin (unitedthread on Etsy)

Cactus Trio by Michelle Morin

Bird Sanctuary No. 5 by Michelle Morin

Anatomy of a Cactus by Rachel Ignotofsky

Transparent Still Life

Physicist Arie van 't Riet specializes in radiation physics, and very low energy x-rays in particular. He began making artwork employing x-ray nature photographs, where radiography intersects fine art. His colourized x-ray photos of bioramas are a sort of see-through wunderkammer. He creates entire scenes in x-ray form. It makes me think of how the natural world might look if my eyes could see in x-ray wavelengths (or those back-of-the-comic-book x-ray specs really worked).

  Arie van 't Riet

Cameleon, begonia, Arie van 't Riet

Barn owl, Arie van 't Riet

Arie van 't Riet

frog, Arie van 't Riet

Arie van 't Riet

Arie & Hans van't Riet

 As a printmaker, I also appreciate how he's worked with Hans van 't Riet to produce Toboyo prints, or photo-polymer etchings, using UV light to transfer the x-rays to a plate which was inked and hand-printed. There's something poetic about using one non-visible wavelength to photograph right through lifeforms and show their structure, and then use another non-visible wavelength to bite an etching plate and print onto paper- combining the high tech with the centuries-old artistic medium.







Transparent flowers, revealing their skeletal structures, are also the subject of  architecture-student-turned-artist Macoto Murayama's work, but his is a very different medium. He uses computer graphics, 3dsMAX software usually employed in architecture (or animation), to model and then Photoshop and Illustrator depict the anatomy of flowers. It's like a specialized form of scientific illustration, as he bases his images on his own careful dissection of flowers

Chrysanthemum, Macoto Murayama

Rose, Macoto Murayama

Yoshino cherry, Macoto Murayama

Chrysanthemum, Macoto Murayama

Satsuki azalea, Macoto Murayama

(via the scientist)

Cometary

Caroline Herschel, linocut by Ele Willoughby (aka minouette), 2014

I'v been working of late on this linocut of astronomer Caroline Herschel (16 March 1750 – 9 January 1848), known for her discovery of at least 8 comets, and in the process, I've come across all these historical images of comets, which I thought I would share.

Comets have long been interpreted as harbingers, of often terrifying events, though sometimes of wonderous things to come. When something new appears and moves through our heavens, it's not surprising that they have been recorded, especially when obvious even to the naked eye.

a depiction of a comet that may have been an aurora borealis, 1527, Germany, anonymous

from Kometenbuch, written in 1587, a book containing descriptions of comets and hand painted illustrations.

[Notable comets of the period 1577-1652]

Types of cometary forms, illustrations from Johannes Hevelius' Cometographia (Danzig, 1668)

'Halley's Comet' & 'Enckee's Comet' from The Phenomena and Order of the Solar System, c. 1843.

Reynolds' Series of Astronomical Diagrams. Comets and Aerolites

Flowers of the sky, by Richard A. Proctor. New York, A.C. Armstrong and son [1879?] p.24

E L Trouvelot - The great comet of 1881. Observed on the night of June 25-26 at 1h. 30m. A.M

French paste comet brooch, c. 1950, Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Inspired by Science

Inspired by Science on The Etsy Blog

The Etsy blog just posted Karen Brown's article featuring 5 Etsy artists who are inspired by science, including me!

Lise Meitner and Nuclear Fission Linocut History of Physics by minouette

 

“I think the idea that art and science are separate is unfounded,” says print maker Ele Willoughby of minouette. “It takes creativity to be a good scientist and experimentation to be a good artist.” In her Etsy shop, Ele explores art and science through a series of portraits of scientists inspired by the bi-monthly challenges of the Mad Scientists of Etsy team. “I love hearing from parents who want to inspire young children with portraits of scientific heroes or heroines,” she says.

There are some fabulous artists in that inspiring intersection of art and science, and several of my prints included.


(x-posted to the on-going saga of minouette)

Elements Personified

I stumbled upon this wonderful series of illustrations of the elements personified and excited to see they are now available as flash cards on Etsy, by San Francisco illustrator Kaycie D.  She describes the project as 'Experiments in Character Design'. I would think this would make not only a lovely periodic table, but a really great way for students to familiarize themselves with the 'character' of different elements. Check out the first eight elements below.

 

Japanese artist Bunpei Yorifuji similarly created a book called Wonderful Life with the Elements: The Periodic Table Personified which illustrates each of the 118 elements, based on chemical properties, when it was discovered, and more (via BrainPickings).  

 

 

Not always personified, but always illustrated with great creativity are all the prints in the  Periodic Table Printmaking Project. You can find many of these available in my favorite Etsy science items including the ones below.

Tungsten (or Wolfram) by VizArt

Calcium - 20 by pygletwhispers

Medelevium by WingedLion