Old plants, Collections and a Tad of Wisdom

A rambling bit of Science and Art

Art:Science

I recently read somewhere that Artists and Scientists are the worlds noticers, their job being to observe what others cannot. And that really stuck with me. As an artist whose muse is nature this rings true, I am always looking deeper, seeing something that might otherwise be missed. I think thats magic. As I go further in my practise and learn more about the world and it’s creatures (my subject matter) I realize just how much I love biology. It goes hand in hand, as I’ve said many times before, the pairing of art and science. Now I don’t have a science degree but aren’t all artists a little bit of a scientist? We look, observe, ask questions and solve problems - just to create something to share with the world. Some of us (me) go down rabbit holes of information and research on what it is we want to draw, paint, sculpt etc.

Here is an interesting example of this. I recently volunteered at the University of Calgary’s Herbarium with my excellent friend Chantel (who found this cool opportunity). We were helping to affix the plant specimens to sheets for cataloging. So many cool and interesting plants! They were collected by a man who loved plants and his collection was large - 6000 species I believe. He was a pharmacist, but collecting these specimens was his passion. (I’m getting to the point I promise!) All these lovingly collected snippets were arranged (in my opinion) artfully on paper, glued down carefully. On some there are photographs or sketches to accompany the plants. This I consider a merging of art and science. The noticing, the act of collection, preserving and sketching. It was beautiful, a life’s work, a body of work. And now they are held in the herbarium for research, for exploring, for inspiration!

Neat.

And now a little lesson:

At the herbarium we ran into one of our professors from AUArts. Which was a fun surprise. Now I’m mentioning this because as we were chatting and oohing and ahhing over these super cool plants the idea of rules in art came up. I can’t quite remember what I said but it was along the lines of deciding what I should or should not create as ‘proper’ art. He said - “there are no rules”. And while a part of me has always known this to be true in creating it was a very nice and welcome reminder that a lot of what I say to myself and how I create art is all self-imposed rules, I made them along the way for whatever reason. And best of all - I can break them. So thanks Professor, for the reminder. I feel a little freer. I just wanted to share that incase anyone was feeling caged by self-imposed rules that may no longer be of service.

xo

Renée

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