I could not believe my eyes yesterday when I spotted a tiny orange hairy caterpillar on the pavement! I felt really lucky to have seen it considering it was so small. There must be something in what people say, if you’re interested in a topic you somehow attract more of it; in this case caterpillars as that’s the second one (different species) I’ve spotted on a walk. As you’ve probably gathered I’m pretty into caterpillars at the moment not only as potential subjects for my sculptures and drawings but also for a really cool workshop idea for children.
I am photographing all these caterpillars and uploading them to a dedicated folder on the computer so I can reference whenever I need to. Not sure, yet what species they all are but as these were spotted in the UK maybe I’ll have more luck getting them identified. Still no news from the Lapworth twitter on my Brazilian caterpillar but my aunt may know someone who knows someone.
So much has happened in just one week! The highlight had to be Friday, when Jon Clatworthy the Director of the Lapworth took me on a tour of the store rooms. What a treasure trove of thousands of specimens hidden away safely tucked into, drawers, cabinets, boxes….I could and did get lost in this labyrinth.
As I mentioned previously, I’ve been looking at corals and they had some beautiful specimens which I was allowed to handle. I took plenty of photographs and spent the afternoon sketching them; I always feel drawing allows you to study things more acutely than observation alone.
I’m going back next time I’ll be taken to the bio store, obviously my idea of heaven! There I’ll be able to see lots of pickled specimens in jars, I think I’ll focus on snakes. After that, who knows maybe primates as I’m still keen to include a squirrel monkey and something Jon said has got me thinking about the connection between wood lice and trace fossils.
Buzzing after my trip to the Lapworth yesterday, I can see so many connections and feeling refueled and totally inspired! Very taken by the case of trilobites think they look like shoe prints although that does depend on the shoe. There were fossils too that looked like delicate, detailed drawings these may influence my zines. In my head, a correlation is emerging between forensics, imprints and carbon (I’ll quiz the scientists about that after the weekend).
Definitely going to be investigating coral more closely there is a type which strangely resembles the human brain and another that looks like veins. I wander if the museum has wax models of these that they may use for teaching, so I can get a sense of them in 3D.
It was great too, to see installations by artists from the ‘Black Arts Florum’, what they responded to in the collections and the space. My personal favorite was ‘Sangoma Colours’ by textile artist Pauline Bailey. I noticed her piece immediately upon entering the museum and think she’s perfectly emulated the vivid, rainbow coloured mineral Bornite.
My great aunt from Holland used to own a small haberdashery. I’ve inherited several reels of: cotton and embroidery thread, elastics, needles, ribbons…..; just what you would expect from a contemporary haberdashery minus the antique labels. Among the plethora of usual items I have the most magnificent array of bird feathers! These were used to adorn ladies hats and were sold alongside the tiniest tiniest delicate gloves (sadly most of these are too small for me to wear).
Naturally, I haven’t the faintest idea how to identify these bird feathers. So I have photographed them in order to show them to the UOB scientists. Perhaps I can find a way of using them in my sculptures and that will be my aunt’s remote contribution to the project.
I wonder how much of an identifier bones are hmm still trying to establish that and whether it matters. Obviously, I know they are significant in terms of Forensic Anthropology, revealing information such as race, gender, age even profession and cause of death and I guess if their are living relatives the extracted DNA could identify the individual.
I’ve been doing a bit of digging and in terms of human/animal skeletal comparisons. Many bird bones resemble that of humans and bear paws and fox paws can be mistaken for human finger bones.
That’s as far as I’ve got and I’m not quite sure where I’m going other than I’m determined to find out the exact chemical composition of bone.
