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The full animation of the second part

           

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The draft of the second part.

Exhibition Review: Endangered by Emily Arthur

            From the perspective of a Cherokee and European American artist, Emily Arthur explored the impact on natural environment due to humane activity in the exhibition Endangered. A series of printmaking pieces told the stories of how environmental changing affected the native species such as songbirds, deer, and butterflies in the United States.

Collaborating with Moore Laboratory of Zoology in Occidental College, Los Angeles, the works in Endangered were mostly based on scientific results. Arthur used different diagrams of the data like species distribution as the background of her works. She focused on the movement across geographic landscapes and we could see some works contained the animal migration patterns with sky map. Besides the printmaking pieces, the exhibition also had a small section introducing a threatened species Coastal California Gnatcatcher and displaying its specimens. This bird species has become endangered because of the habitat destruction for urban development and is currently under conservation.

I  liked the way Arthur drew songbirds and butterflies in the pose as the specimens, which emphasized the idea of being endangered. As a biology major who is interested in bringing science into art, her works had shown me more possible way to combine these two subjects. Science discovered the fact in nature, and art expressed our thought of nature. Without science, we could be ignorant of the world we lived, but without art it would be challenging to express our appreciations to nature. Art and biology are not simply the distinct disciplines but are the two strong approaches for us to understand the Earth.

Presenting Location

I decide to present my project at DMS building in University of Nevada, Reno. On a hallway at the second floor of this building, there are a series of scientific illustrations on both sides of the walls. I think these drawing pieces will be perfectly bound with my projects because of the similar context.

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Artist Lecture: Keith Knight

            On October 24^th, the cartoonist Keith Knight had given a talk about his works and the stories behind them. As an African American artist, Knight mainly focused on social and race issues, commenting the problems directly on his strips. As Knight believed that we had to talk about reality to actually face racial issues, his comics were usually reflected to things happened around him or somewhere in the real world.

            Vet Mentoring is one of Knight's well-known comics, which questions about "don't ask don't tell" policy in military. This strip was run on the newspapers in San Diego, where a lot of military towns located, and had received many responses from soldiers and some readers about how it changed their views on this policy. Coincidence or not, the President repealed "don't ask don't tell" policy in the fall of the same year when the comic came out, and Knight showed a photo that the President was standing in his office, with the Vet Mentoring comics sitting on his desk.

            Knight had a great sense of humor which can be well seen in his comics. He believed humor made strong approach to the subjects like race issues. This talk was probably the most enjoyable speech I have ever had. He made lots of comments on social problems that I’m really agree with. Knight's comic Dog Poop showed how the racial problems were like the big pile of dog poop sitting in front of the apartment. No ones wanted to clean that poop because it seemed to be someone else's responsibility, then soon it just stayed in the same place, being ignored by people who passed through it. I think Knight had made a great metaphor to this problem that we are facing in this country. The racial issue has remained in too many years and it just keeps coming out again and again. People often ignore its existence until something happens but then forgot soon after time passes. Knight's works are not simply to be the comics that make things be humorous. They keep us in mind that there are plentiful issues still exist in this society. And they are urgent to be taken seriously and to be solved.

Vet Mentoring by Keith Knight

Dog Poop by Keith Knight