Scientific illustration: What's the point? Reflections on the craft's ongoing value

By Nora Sherwood

More than 400 years ago, European explorers were traveling to distant corners of the globe and discovering unfamiliar landscapes, people, animals and plants. In a time when travel was prohibitively expensive for all but the most wealthy and too difficult for all but the most adventurous or desperate, scientific illustrators created images of these far-off places to show the people at home what those explorers found. A mostly European audience with an appetite for learning about all things exotic eagerly beheld images of South American flowers and bugs, African large mammals and birds of the Far East. Scientific illustration brought the distant world nearer, providing visuals to further trigger the imagination.

“Sable (Martes zibellina)” from The Cruise of the Marchesa with maps and woodcuts drawn by J. Keulemans, C. Whymper and others, Second edition, 1889, The British Library

Northwest Connections to Empowering Women

To accompany our new Empowering Women: Artisan Cooperatives that Transform Communities exhibit, the Burke Museum created a special display featuring local entrepreneurs, organizations, and committed global citizens who are supporting artisans and transforming communities around the world.

From Wallingford to Mongolia, from the Skagit Valley to the Valley of Oaxaca, each of these efforts uses traditional arts and crafts to address contemporary social issues.

Here's a peek at the stories behind the Burke’s Northwest Connections display.

Short Takes on Plastics

Look around you and you'll notice that plastics are everywhere today. From children’s toys to parts on the Mars rover Curiosity. It’s difficult to imagine what life was like before them. Products made with plastic are often more convenient, cheaper, lighter, safer and more durable, but they also present unwanted side effects to our health, cultures, and environments across the globe.

As part of our Plastics Unwrapped exhibit at the Burke, we recently invited a range of experts from the University of Washington (UW) and beyond to present their perspective (or "Short Takes") on a range of topics related to plastics in front of a live audience at the Neptune Theatre in Seattle. We've captured a few of the presentations on video to share with you:

What was life like before plastics?
Lauren Palmor, a UW Art History student shows what life was like before plastics - specifically related to food. How did people preserve their food without plastic? Watch Lauren's presentation in this video to find out:

My Month Without Plastic: I Survived

 

The plastic waste generated during my month without plastics.

I made it! I survived a month "without" plastic. I managed to mostly avoid purchasing new plastic but still left a small trail of plastic waste behind (see the photo to the right).

It’s less than I expected, which is somewhat of a relief, but I still cringe when I think about this waste still being around for decades after this challenge is over.

We forget about our trash rather quickly when we throw something “away,” but “away” is still somewhere. One of the walls in the Burke's Plastics Unwrapped exhibit is covered with 3,000 plastic bags–the number used every single second by people like me, who hadn’t thought about the consequences of common consumption. I believe as people who can make choices for ourselves, we have a duty to become more aware of our impact and to make a change.

My Month Without Plastic: Wrapped Up

By Samantha Porter


Not only have I had to rethink how and what types of foods I purchase during this month without plastics challenge, but it's also made me rethink other aspects of my life. Have you ever noticed how many everyday items you use are either made of plastic or wrapped up in it?

Plastics are literally everywhere! They're surrounding my shampoo, kitchen sponges and laundry detergent. They're in my clothes, face wash (what do you think those little microbeads are?) chewing gum, and dental floss. Even the little plastic aglet on the end of my shoe laces. It's a fact: plastics exist in my life and in my home.

I certainly can't avoid all plastics and there are some that I don't want to avoid. Can you imagine having a glass shampoo bottle in the shower? That's a lawsuit waiting to happen. Even though there are some plastics I can't easily avoid, I've found ways to lessen the collateral damage of my overall consumption.

My Month Without Plastic: Unexpected Nutrition Overhaul



By Samantha Porter

In last week's post, I was just starting to realize how much effort and planning it would require for me to avoid plastic waste while shopping for groceries. This process is a bit clumsy at first, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it.

What will I eat??
Before leaving for the store, I think through exactly what I'm going to purchase so I make sure to bring the right jars and reusable bags with me to carry my groceries. Though it is a relative hassle, it's given me the opportunity to be more mindful about what I eat.

The Dinosaur in the Lobby

Paraphysornis brasiliensis

Like many natural history museums, the Burke has a dinosaur in the lobby. Ours just happens to be a terror bird. (All birds are dinosaurs, but not all dinosaurs are birds!) In honor of this year's Dino Day, meet our terror bird.

The theme of Dino Day this year is "Predators and Prey"—and terror birds were top predators. These giant flightless South American birds had huge hooked beaks and sharp claws. Ranging in size from the 3-foot-tall Psilopterus lemoinei to the 10-foot-tall Brontomis burmeisteri, they probably killed their prey by stabbing it with their hooked beak. Their strong legs might have helped hold down struggling prey while the beak stabbed and ripped it.

Terror bird foot

As for who they ate, we can't be sure. Larger terror birds probably could have eaten small- to medium-sized mammals.

There are no birds alive today close enough to terror birds to tell us exactly how they lived and hunted. Modern large, flightless birds—ostriches, emus, rheas, and cassowaries—are not hunters (although they can be dangerous). Terror birds' closest living relatives, the seriema, may be close to what the smallest terror birds looked and acted like.

Terror bird head

The Burke's terror bird is a cast (replica) of Paraphysornis brasiliensis. It lived in Brasil 23 million years ago.



Dino Day 2012 is coming up on Saturday, March 3rd!

Posted by: Winifred Kehl, Communications

Student Work at the Burke

It’s the start of a new school year, and we’re excited to see the campus and the museum full of students again! How could you be anything but excited? At the Burke Museum, students are at the heart of our work. They assist and lead in research, volunteer in collections and provide valuable work through internships and practicums.

Arryn Davis and Mary Jane Ides, University of Washington students who are also a part of the Burke education staff, spent part of their summer working on amazing costumes for our ¡Carnaval! exhibit. In this video, Arryn describes some of the pieces she worked on that represent Carnival costumes from communities around the world. You can try on their creations yourself by visiting the exhibit – and if you’re a UW student you get in for FREE with your UW ID!

Posted by: Andrea Barber, Communications

Moving Giants

Sometimes at the Burke Museum, we move giant things. From whale skeletons to dinosaur bones, our collections vary and all require some expert moving skills. So how do you move an art piece that is really tall—as in over 15 feet tall? And not only one piece, but two?

The Burke’s exhibit team was given this unique challenge with two giant parade dolls for our newest exhibit ¡Carnaval! They mirror the style of the giant dolls (or boneco gigante in Portuguese) from the Olinda, Brazil Carnival and were made by local artists as part of a collaboration between the Burke Museum and the Brazil Center.

So how do you move them? The team put the “Midnight Man” and the “Woman of the Day” dolls on a wheeled platform to maneuver them. Dipping is an important skill to learn, not just for dancing, but for getting the dolls through a door frame that’s a few feet too short.

Once through the doorways, the dolls take a quick trip in the Burke’s famous elevator up to the special exhibits gallery that will be their home for the next few months.

The dolls are then taken off of the wheeled platforms and lifted to their mounts. A scissor lift helped steady the “Woman of the Day” doll, which had the higher mount.

Clamps are put in place to temporarily stabilize the dolls, which are then drilled securely into place. And voila! The dolls are ready for their costumes and final touch ups.

You can see these amazing giant dolls yourself in the Burke’s newest exhibit ¡Carnaval! On October 1, come celebrate with the dolls during our ¡Carnaval! Opening Celebration!
 

Posted By: Andrea Barber, Communications

Tip of the Day: Reading Object Labels at the Museum

Reading object labels at the museum? Thrilling blog post topic, you say. Next please! But hold on just a second, often there's more to museum labels than meets the eye. We've all seen the grand interpretive labels that have larger print and try to provide context about the objects. But what about those little, non-descript beige placards (or white if you are in an artsy institution); should I pay them any attention? Well, there actually can be quite a bit of information packed into these little labels. Think of them like business cards. If you want to know more, get in touch with the artifact, have lunch with a Theropod...read the ID label!

Here are a few examples of object labels from Burke Museum exhibits with a guide to decoding the information provided on each label.

Example #1: Salmon print in Pacific Voices gallery

Example #2: Korean clothing in Pacific Voices gallery


Example #3: Dinosaur in Life and Times of Washington State gallery

Example #4: Scorpion fossil in Life and Times of Washington State gallery

Next time you visit a museum, don't overlook the little object labels. There's a lot to be learned!

Posted by: Emily Sparling

Video: How does a new exhibit get installed at the museum?

The latest Burke exhibit Weaving Heritage: Textile Masterpieces from the Burke Collection opened on Saturday. It's a beautiful exhibition, artfully displaying 130 of the most aesthetically and culturally significant textiles from the museum's collection of over 2,000 textile pieces.

Some might wonder, what does it take to install a major exhibit like this? The day after the last exhibit closed, our exhibit prep team was hard at work preparing for Weaving Heritage. Take a look at this short video to see the transformation of the special exhibit gallery from an empty room to a complete museum exhibit:



Weaving Heritage is on view through February 27, 2011. Keep an eye on our website for a list of special weekend weaving demonstrations and other events.

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications

Come see the ancient point found last year on UW campus

Just under a year ago, a UW freshman was working in a campus garden near the UW Botany Greenhouse when she stumbled upon a small artifact. She turned it over to the Burke Museum archaeology department who analyzed the artifact and determined it to be a stone projectile point between 4,000 and 7,000 years old. The discovery of the point is consistent with other archaeological data from around campus that show that Native American people lived on what are now the grounds of the University of Washington. Read the full story about the point and its discovery here.

There was quite a bit of media coverage about this point at the time of its discovery. Now the projectile point, along with a few other artifacts found near the Botany Greenhouse, are on display at the museum in a small case in the lobby. Come see the point for yourself – it will be on exhibit through early March 2011.

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications

What Makes a Photograph "Award-Winning?"

This past weekend, a new exhibit opened at the Burke. The International Conservation Photography Awards showcases over 75 of the best conservation photographs from around the world. The ICP Awards was the brainchild of Seattle-based photographer Art Wolfe and since 1997, the biennial competition has been inviting photographers to submit their best work in a number of categories, including Wildlife, Nature at Risk, Community at Risk, and Documenting a Conservation Project. The competition is judged by four photography and design professionals, and the winners and honorable mentions from the 2010 competition will be on view at the Burke through Labor Day Weekend.

On opening day this past Saturday, I walked through the exhibit with ICP Awards juror Cynthia Hall (a senior designer at Girvin) with our Flip camera and asked her to talk about the question “what makes a photograph award winning?” She offered some great insight about the factors the judging panel considered when making their final selections:



Each of the photographs in this exhibit has a unique story to tell about conservation and appreciation for the natural world. Come to the Burke this summer and check it out!

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications

The Sahara Before Dinosaurs

Located in the Burke Museum’s lobby, a display currently case holds some important research conducted by Burke vertebrate paleontology curator Dr. Christian Sidor. Specifically, The Sahara before Dinosaurs mini-exhibit displays the objects and research collected by Sidor during expeditions to northern Niger. Research is connected to both science and culture, so the display highlights fieldwork, lab work, and the broader impact of research findings on the public.

During these expeditions, Sidor has been studying the Late Permian period (240—250 million years ago), before dinosaurs roamed the earth. Northern Niger has been the location of his trips because he is specifically examining which plants and animals lived near the equator during this period of time.

Based on information found in the fossils collected, Sidor and his research colleagues concluded that the supercontinent Pangea that existed during the Permian period had a desert-like center. Because of this climatic barrier, the animals in Niger were isolated from the rest of Pangea.

The Sahara before Dinosaurs display will be on view until October 3rd. Come see the display for yourself and view collections that include fossilized remains of Permian reptiles and a giant amphibian!

Posted By: Andrea Barber, Communications

Photos: (Top) The Sahara Before Dinosaurs display case in the Burke Museum lobby; (bottom)Pangea drawing courtesy of USGS

"Rocking Out" on the Fossil Freeway

If you have visited the exhibit Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway in recent weekends, you may have encountered UW students hanging out in the gallery, showing off fossils and talking to museum visitors. These students are part of a group called Rocking Out – they focus on presenting hands-on outreach programs in the earth sciences, and they’ve been kind enough to lend their time to the Burke Museum so that visitors have the opportunity to touch real fossils and ask questions about what they see on exhibit.

So what motivates these students to volunteer their time to talk to museum visitors?

Rocking Out member Shelly Donohue describes why she loves volunteering at the museum:

For me, the best part about volunteering in the Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway exhibit is giving kids the opportunity to hold and touch some of the specimens. I am studying science because of educators in my past that took me exploring on field trips, let me hold a snake at the zoo, and energetically answered any question I could think of. These people fed my curiosity and opened me up to how interesting and exciting science can be. When I volunteer, I love giving kids a specimen they can hold, such as a dinosaur vertebra or a fossil shark tooth, and asking them to guess what it is. Some of them get that same excited sparkle in their eyes that I used to get in mine, and it’s great that now I can be the one inspiring curiosity and showing these kids that learning can be fun… or at least to give them bragging rights over their friends about getting to hold a dinosaur bone.

Earth and Space Sciences graduate student Karl Lang discusses his personal favorite fossil – “Jefferson’s Chesapeake Scallop":

This past Thursday was Free First Thursday at the Burke and that evening I was chatting with visitors to the Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway exhibit when I ran into an old friend: Chesapecten jeffersonius. Oh the memories! You see “jeff” and I go way back, at least five million years to the early Pliocene. We originally met in the Yorktown formation, a soft sandy coquina forming large bluffs along the York River in the Virginia coastal plain. Growing up in Virginia, I spent many lazy summer afternoons crawling over these bluffs pulling out handful after handful of Chesapecten jeffersonius.

These shells are the fossilized remnants of a scallop-like creature that dominated the shallow marine seas off the east coast of North America for about five million years in the late Miocene to early Pliocene. The shell is known as an “index fossil” because it is so plentiful over only a short segment of the stratigraphic record, characteristic of a very specific piece of geologic history. Chesapecten jeffersonius has found its way into American history as well. It was the first fossil described in North America by English colonists, and remains the state fossil of Virginia. The Burke museum has a fantastic collection of fossils actively used in research, including this very special scallop. Be sure to stop by the Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway exhibit to say hello and meet the remarkable Chesapecten jeffersonius.

Visit Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway this Saturday from 10 am – 2 pm to meet the members of Rocking Out and try hands-on activities in the gallery.

Bringing Back Bobo

Over the weekend, the Seattle Times' Pacific Northwest Magazine published an article examining the long-standing mystery and controversy surrounding Bobo the beloved gorilla, who lived at the Woodland Park Zoo from 1951 to 1968. The Burke has an ongoing arrangement with the Woodland Park Zoo to provide a home for zoo animals that have died, so following Bobo’s death in 1968, his skeletal remains were donated to the UW and became part of the mammal collection at the Burke.


For many years, Bobo’s skull was inexplicably missing from the rest of his skeleton. In 2007, Bobo’s skull was finally returned to the Burke Museum after being gone for decades. Read Fred Moody’s thoroughly-researched and well-crafted report about what happened here and then come pay your respects to Bobo the beloved gorilla, whose skull is on display at the Burke Museum now through April 25.

Bobo's skeletal remains are of value to the Burke, as a natural history museum, for many reasons. Bobo's bones hold a valuable record of the genetic signature of wild gorillas in 1951. His DNA could be compared with gorillas of today to answer questions about changes in gorilla populations or genetics. Also, UW students have used Bobo's skeleton for decades while studying human fossils, evolution, and paleontology.

Bobo's taxidermied skin is also currently on display at the Museum of History and Industry.

Saber teeth, killer pigs, ancient fish, oh my!

Although it doesn't open for another four months, many of us here at the Burke are already quite busy preparing for the next major exhibition, Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway. Read all about the exhibition, which combines whimsical artwork by Ray Troll with real fossils from the Burke's collection to answer (and ask!) questions about evolution, extinction, and geologic time.

I'm quite excited about the fact that several of the fossil specimens that will be on display in this exhibit have never before been exhibited to the public. Some of these fossils are among the best in our entire paleontology collection! For example:

Hoplophoneus, an Oligocene-era saber-toothed cat

Entelodont, an omnivorous pig-like mammal, also from the Oligocene

Many ancient fish, like this one, millions of years old

I realize its not every job that requires you to set up a fossil photo shoot, but really, it was just another day at the natural history museum!

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications

Video of Preston Singletary creating glass sculpture for Burke collection

Back in November, glass artist Preston Singletary created a very beautiful killer whale sculpture for the Burke Museum's permanent collection. One of our curator's recorded some video footage at the Museum of Glass, where Preston worked on the piece. Take a look to get a sense of his process, then come see the final piece on view now in the Pacific Voices gallery.



Read more about the story behind the sculpture here.

Friday Limerick!

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications

Tomorrow, the Burke opens a new exhibition called A-Y-P: Indigenous Voices Reply as part of a city-wide commemoration of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition centennial. On Limerick Friday, I honor this new exhibit with a rhyme:

If you’re curious about AYPE
There’s a new Burke exhibit you should see
It’s called Indigenous Voices Reply
On Saturday, feel free to stop by
For the Opening Day jamboree!

Come join the festivities tomorrow (Saturday) from 10 am - 4 pm.

Burke Behind-the-Scenes, Training Future Museologists

Posted by: Nicole Robert, Communications

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that there are many exciting things that go on at the Burke, often behind the scenes. One of the great programs housed here is the Museology Masters of Arts program. Graduate students attend classes, work in the museum and produce their own museological contribution before graduating from this two year program.

Bring together a group of motivated students with a few key resources and you inevitably produce exciting results! Here are two upcoming opportunities organized and produced by our museology students:

Nina Simon, museum design consultant and author of Museums 2.0 Blog, is teaching a class on social technologies in the museum this quarter. With her guidance, students have been asked to create a physical exhibit using social technologies to facilitate interactions between strangers.

We gave these 14 students 7 weeks, $300 and a 72 hour display period. They decided they needed a lot of advice!

More...

They are pulling together a special exhibition all about advice. In this innovative exhibition, advice contributed online and in-person shapes a temporary installation in the Husky Union Building (HUB) at the University of Washington. Advice you love, advice you hate, advice that rocked your world— they want to hear from you! Visit http://adviceexhibit.tumblr.com/ to pass on your advice. Pictures, videos, voice recordings and texts are all welcome.

Or give your advice in person during the physical installation which is on display Saturday June 6 to Monday June 8 from 9 am to 6 pm. Admission is free.

Visit the UW campus on Saturday June 6 and you can also attend an exciting free workshop organized by museology students: Lessons from the Exciting World of Games! with Ken Eklund. Eklund is the designer of the groundbreaking alternate reality game WORLD WITHOUT OIL. This timely serious game challenged players to creatively and collaboratively solve a simulated global oil crisis.

The free lecture takes place at the Henry Art Gallery Auditorium. At 2 pm, Eklund will lecture about alternate reality games and the lessons they hold for museums that seek to become more participatory in a socially networked world. After the lecture, attend a workshop exploring how a game designer might approach exhibit design challenges. Registration forms are available at http://museum.washington.edu/museum/.