Saturday, September 20, 2014

Moose with Ticks

Lately, environmentalists, residents, and tourists from New Hampshire to Minnesota have been distraught over the relatively sudden decline of their iconic lone herbivore, the moose. Theories were raised—have wolves killed off the population? Over-hunting? Disease?

The answer? Ticks.

Conservationists have repeatedly found moose who have chewed off chunks of fur, exposing pale skin, abraded and pocked with sometimes over 100,000 plump winter ticks. These “zombie-moose” are quite literally sucked dry of blood, only to fade away, anemic, weak, and manic from the thousands of parasites biting at their skin. Given that moose are solitary animals, they end up dying alone deep in the woods, making them difficult to find for scientific research.

Typically, along the southern fringe of American moose territory, long, snowy winters keep the moose population abundant and ticks in check. But with global warming, the balance is tipping. Deer, who can live in warmer climates, have evolved to constantly groom, a practice ridding them of excessive parasites.  Moose however, don't have this instinctual habit and have not been given the time to develop it.

I heard this story first on PBS Newshour, and was immediately hooked. I love the mystery of it—the allure of a silent killer—and resounding shock and disgust of a harmful species gluttonous and cheering at our warming planet. The threat to us is real.  Ticks spread disease, as do many other parasitic creatures.  As their numbers rise, the possibility of getting bit and infected by a virus or bacteria will surely increase. 

Perhaps it's time to shed the imagery of polar bears and icebergs and adopt a new poster-child for global warming: pests and parasites—the silent and stealthy vectors of disease.



"Moose with Ticks" 48x26 inch, oil on canvas



Hope you enjoy the painting!  I will post my preliminary drawings later...I left my sketchbook in Georgia...it's currently in the mail on its way back to me. 


Here is the PBS Newshour clip: 


Friday, August 15, 2014

Surfing Swans

A refreshing reminder that not everything has to be backed by concrete biological reasoning.  Fun is fun! 



Sunday, June 22, 2014

The Cave Goat

A few months ago, I got really interested in dinosaurs (see previous blog posts). 

 Specifically of interest to me, were all of the things we don't know about them, which, as it turns out, is a lot.  The facts of dinosaurs are so vague and debatable especially when compared to how casually willing we are to reproduce the long-necked, scaley, dumb beasts on tv and movies time after time. 

For Paleontologists, having a stagnant (regardless how false) dinosaur mascot could be a good marketing move.  But, is it that hard for us to accept unknowns?  Can't our brains resist categorizing and defining for the sake of accuracy? 

Thinking about this lead me to look for species that obstruct our assumptions of how we like to envision animals to be. That's how I stumbled across the Myotragus, or Cave Goat, a mammal, who is, or was, cold blooded.  Here's what the internet told me: 

The Myotragus lived about 5,000 years ago on the Balearic Islands, in the Mediterranean. The goat crossed over on a land bridge that later eroded leaving him on a hostile island with little food and no predators. So, it evolved.  First, it shrunk, which is a fairly normal for island mammal evolution.  Then it grew a huge jaw, two rat-like bottom teeth, forward facing eyes, and a fairly long life-span--some say around 30 years.  And finally, somewhere along the way, it also became cold blooded, meaning its' body heat, energy, and growth was totally dependent on the outside temperature.  Why?  No clue.  What effect did it have?  Well, it was slow, couldn't jump, couldn't really run, and we don't know how it managed to give birth given its lack of energy.  

This. is. bizarre.  

Cold blooded and warm blooded are things I've always thought is cut and dry--mammals versus reptiles, egg laying versus live birth, scaly less-human things versus fluffy and more-human things.  As it turns out, like with everything else, there is a knotted gray area the dichotomy.  

When an assumption is exposed as something porous and malleable, it begs for reflection.  If the Cave Goat was a cold-blooded mammal, living only 5,000 years ago, chances are it wasn't the only one.  Chances are words like mammal, reptile, cold-blooded, warm-blooded, feathers, fur, and even animal and plant, are not and have never been so excruciatingly separate.

Knowingly or not, we've outlined fairly strict standards for animal biology based on a tiny slice of witnessed history and tireless research. Thank goodness for the Myotragus.  Findings like these remind us of the complexities of life, the lightness of evolutionary order, and have us reeling in humility toward the impenetrable secrets of time and biology. 



Side note--the woman who discovered the Cave Goat was amazing...Dorothea Bate, check her out.  Seriously. 

"Cave Goat", 23 x 30 inch, oil on canvas


Notes on Goats


Lil sketches

Original sketch


Friday, June 20, 2014

I like Amy Bennett's trees.


There's an artist who I have just loved lately and her name is Amy Bennett.

She paints from miniature scenes that she creates, stages, and lights.  It almost looks like paper or clay--everything has a soft, puffy quality.  So, it's hyper realistic, but in a weird fake way because of the miniature set that it's based off of.  Really awesome.  

I'm always struggling with how to simplify nature visually in a way that keeps the energy and organic qualities intact.  I'm finding more and more that the way I want my version of nature to feel is massive, empty, and deep, which for me seems to mean large spaces of solid color, heightened contrast, less line-work and more shapes.  With each painting I make, I'm starting to see the details that I want to include  and deciding to leave out other earlier.  My brush strokes are slowly becoming more intentional, but with the complexity of landscapes, it's a gradual and experimental process.


I love how Amy Bennett has done it.    They're incredible, simple without losing any detail, and not overworked.  Her topics range from architectural work, to people and group settings, to nature, but I'm specifically drawn to her trees and skies.

Taking a lesson from Amy's work, observation is incredibly important and, I'll admit, I'm horrible at taking the time to work from real life.

Goal: This week, I am going to sit outside and paint trees.  Thanks Amy.










Paper Sculptures

I'm a bit late on this, but am now officially obsessed with Li Hongbo's paper sculptures.  Sit back and enjoy:


Friday, April 4, 2014


 Thanks familyguiding.com!  Click here for the original page....




Arts – Earthly Iridium and my Creative Process

 | April 1, 2014 0 Comments
ArtsApr14
“K-Pg Boundary,” Jackie Dorage, oil on canvas.
Throughout the earth is a thin band of Iridium—an element denser than iron that’s only found in large quantities at our planet’s molten core. It rests among the dirt and rocks, accompanying them on their slow techtonic trip to form mountains and canyons, make earthquakes, and re-define oceans. Visible as a black line etched among the earth tones, the strip of Iridium, known as the K-Pg Boundary, sits as a relic of the asteroid that decimated the dinosaurs over 60 million years ago.
There it is, sliced and shuffled into our ground, bookmarking geologic time, reminding us of our blind kinship with the universe, and flippantly noting the irrepressible facets of life.
What do you do with information so large in scale and grim in outcome? How do you cope when you’re reminded of the magnitude everything? For people naturally inclined toward the sciences and math, the answer would be a life of testing questions, fixating on the rational, and inspecting the unknown with a meticulous eye.  They have it so lucky. As for the rest of us, we can turn away, look toward religion, or have incredible zen-power to accept the unknown and be OK with our limited mental capacity. For me though, I’ve attempted to deal with it creatively.
Here we are, in a world completely made up of elements that got spit out by an exploding star,  flung through space as an asteroid sling-shooting around on gravitational forces, colliding and tumbling until it crashes on an earth, exploding into stardust all over again, mimicking its creation and dusting a new land with space-made elements. They settled, reacted, heated, cooled, and connected to create cells, microorganisms, DNA, fins, sensory glands, antennae, eyeballs, stomachs, sex, bones, brains, societies, culture and technology. Through all of this, the building blocks have stayed the exact same—the same in  history, formation, and structure—but given a unique set of circumstances.  It’s somewhat common knowledge and a familiar pop-science narrative, but the simplicity and scale of it will forever be mind boggling.
All I ever need to inspire a creative mindset is to expand my thoughts outward and upward. I envision the earth as it is—a malleable space rock, pulled and tugged by the moon and sun, with a magnitude of diverse creatures fumbling around on its surface, relatively unaware of anything outside of them. With this macro way of thinking, the world is a spectacle to be explored, a pallet for the imagination. But whether your interest is in nature and science, like mine, or in society, politics, or the psyche, ask questions and find answers. Whatever your topic, research, learn, imagine, and create–be a scientist, and use your canvas as your lab.
The K-pg Boundary, quilting our planet in super-nova explosion dust, acts as a visible testament to the incredible complexity of life and death that space has given us.   To be creative is to not be disillusioned, and for me, space, earth, and nature give me more than enough intrigue to last a lifetime.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Friday, January 10, 2014

The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) boundary / The Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) boundary


All around us is a concentrated layer of iridium compacted deep in the earths soil.  It's seen as a dark line, twisted and crooked from the undulating magma beneath it.  Iridium, a non corrosive mental, is found at these high concentrations in three places: the earth's core, in space, and here--at the K-T boundary.

Running in homogeny with the tan, red, and brown compressed rocks and minerals, the dark K-T boundary (also the K-Pg boundary, but I don't think that sounds as nice) stands out as a lone ranger, the product of catastrophe and our universe.  Who is responsible for such an obtrusive scar in our geography?  Most likely an asteroid.  Who got the shit end of the deal?  The Dinosaurs.  But on the plus side, we exist.  

It's a fascinating marker of time and a reminder of our place in the universe.  In the same way astronauts look at our meager planet from outer space, observing our disposition against broader universe and maybe for the first time grasping time and distance with some universal perspective, the K-T boundary is our reminder the circumstances of our existence.  Where we are, who we are, and how we're here.  We see the passing of time--the 66 million year old event bluntly displayed along side the relative calm geology of the rest of our history.  We see the reality of our place among the stars, part of the stars, and admit our ignorance to the events of the past, future, and everything outside our planet.  Staring at us from our cliffs and valleys, it taunts us to examine our broader history and our acknowledgement of being inseparable from space and nature.

Mysterious, peaceful, and powerful--how nice that Time bookmarked a page for us, only to erase all the words.


Friday, January 3, 2014

Evolutionary time hurts my brain.



I found myself getting really frustrated while watching "nature" video's on Dinosaurs.  Imagine a CG animated Velociraptor bouncing around in the woods cocking his head like a cute puppy,  squeaking and grunting to display emotion.  The voice-over would say something like "The Velociraptor is a very curious dinosaur.  But don't get in the way when he's hungry!"

What?!  Stupid/annoying.  I wanted to learn some hard facts about new findings on dinosaurs but all I keep getting is catered toward ages 5+


I recently read Stephen Jay Gould's essay "Were Dinosaurs Dumb?" and it began an obsession with dinosaurs that I've really never ever had before.  When we take into account the 200 million years that dinosaurs existed, the image of a slow, lumbering beast just doesn't make sense for all that evolutionary time.

Yes, during those 200 million years some dinosaur species died out, some evolved, some stayed put, but what we're slowly finding out is how bizarre and diverse of a species they are.  Dinosaurs are closely related to birds (we all probably know that theory) but then there's this gem:  They were possibly warm blooded.  Plus, some might have had social structures more similar to that of large mammals like elephants and lions rather than birds or reptiles.  That could mean sophisticated hunting methods, mating rituals, and social structures, really changing the typical imagery from your elementary school science text book.


Of course, all of these theories are totally arguable, but it really makes one thing clear, we have no idea what dinosaurs were really like.

So, look at this scale that we've all seen in high school or college bio 101:



Now try and really grasp how many living species would clutter this list if we could write ever single one down--the approximate year of evolving and appearing, and the approximate year of extinction, throughout Earths entire history.  The number would be infinite.  And then there we are, the last thin slice of the graph.  What we see, know, and experience in a blink in evolutionary time.


Now think about the labels we use to define living things.  Cold blooded, warm blooded; mammal, reptile; live birth, laying eggs; plant, animal.  With all of the millions and billions of animals that have walked, slithered, or swam on earth, are these groupings forcing extinct species into a present-day mold we've set up for them?  Are we pigeonholing our extinct or alive-but-weird creatures?  I've looked around and found some animals that muddle our understanding of traditional species categorization.  So, now I present, ROGUE SPECIES OF 2014!



Startin' off simple with the popular Platypus!  Underwater, furry, warm-blooded, egg-laying, with poisonous talons and excreting milk-pores instead of nipples??  Yup!  Un-categorisable.  I wonder though, given all of the many bizarre creatures in the world, how the Platypus got to be the one that got turned into mascots and stuffed animals?  I suppose duck-bills are pretty funny.




Ok, I admit, the Platypus is an obvious one.  Then I find the Echidna, which just looks like a mini Anteater at first.  Like the Platapus, they're warm-blooded, egg-laying, duck-billed critters that milk their young out of milk-patches.  Then I read this nugget from a BBC article:

"Half of an echidna's brain is made up of neocortex - the so-called grey matter that allows mammals to reason, learn and remember. A human brain is about one third neocortex."



Wait, what?!  Are they brilliant?  Is that the reason that they are the longest surviving mammal, "existing for over 120 million years"?  Or is it because they're the only land mammal that can sense the electromagnetic signals emitted by all living things?  Sharks can also sense elecromagnetic signals, but they're totally lacking a neocortex (Echidna - 1; Sharks - 0).  These little guys could hunt you down, outwit you, then lick your face with their long anteater tongue.
Endangered, incredibly rare, and only surviving in Papau New Guinea (and maybe Australia?), the Echidna has proved difficult for scientists to study.

Side note: Read the Wikipedia article if you want to hear about its terrifying penis. 

So far, we've seen the pairing of mammal, furry, and warm-blooded.  Then we meet the extinct Cave Goat.

Looks normal, right?  Wrong!  Cold-blooded!  Yup, a cold-blooded "mammal".  At a foot and a half tall, the cave goat grew super slowly, moved super slowly, and would have pretty much been extinct in a second (rather than living for 5 million years) had it lived on an island with any major predators.  The particular island in the Mediterranean where the goat lived was super barren.  So, with little food and no predators, apparently the cave goat adjusted a super slow and flexible metabolism, like a reptile.  So slow, in fact, that rather than growing at a consistent pace, like warm-blooded animals, it grew in spurts based around food availability, as cold-blooded animals do.

Other things the Cave Goat had to save energy:

  • super small eyes
  • tiny brain
  • inability to run, jump, or move fast
  • super, super small babies that take a really long time to reach maturity
Obviously, the lil fella was killed off pretty easily when humans arrived. 


What else lived around the Cave Goat?  Just a giant doormouse, no big deal!   Oh, the evolutionary beauty that is a predator-less island...


Next we have the Adactylidium, a mite with strange birthing habits.  So...um...in lieu of shock and a loss of words, here is the Wikipedia article:

"The pregnant female mite feeds upon a single egg of a thrips, growing five to eight female offspring and one male in her body. The offspring devour their mother from the inside out,[2] and the single male mite mates with all the daughters when they are still in the mother. The females, now impregnated, cut holes in their mother's body so that they can emerge to find new thrips eggs. The male emerges as well, but does not look for food or new mates, and dies after a few hours. The females die at the age of 4 days, when their own offspring eat them alive from the inside."


And there you have it! Would you even consider this "birthing"?  I just...I just have no words.  But, what all of this--Platapus, Echnida, Cave Goat, Adactylidium--says to me, is that I don't think I've ever grasped the massive life span of the earth clearly enough.  And I don't know if I ever will be able to.  I can't expand my mind enough to imagine what other animals could have lived, what earth could have been.  It's really beyond my comprehension and imagination.  What if there were tons of tiny cold-blooded, furry, live birthing critters running around for millions of years?  Small animal fossils are quite hard to find due to their fragility and size, so we easily wouldn't know.  If we know electromagnetism is the way the Echnida and sharks find prey, what other chemical or physical senses have animals had in the past?  Rather than the past, what about now?  And my god, what other methods of birthing have there been?!?



I'll end with an awesome quote from Stephen Jay Gould comparing our small glimpse of live on earth to the day-long life of a Mayfly in April:

Human consciousness arose but a minute before midnight on the geological clock.  Yet we mayflies try to bend an ancient world to our purposes, ignorant perhaps of the messages burried in its long history. Let us hope that we are still in the early morning of our April day.  


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I'm totally going to paint a cave goat:

These are normal warm blooded goats.

Possible Cave Goat painting.  Lil odd-one-out cutie...


Walrus....


Ew, I wish they didn't have stupid music playing, but I think this is pretty incredible.  Look at that walrus bod!!



Family Guiding and New Years!


Here's my January article for familyguiding.com!


A Toast to Being Human

New Year’s Eve was always my favorite holiday. No presents to worry about, no high-pressured feasts to prepare—just champagne and good company.  Of course, the one thing that always seemed to impede on my fun was the question of the new years resolution.
Bringing that kind of pressure into my favorite flippant holiday really bummed me out.  To me, resolutions seemed fake and the timing, forced.  How do you contemplate a new beginning when nothing “new” has actually happened?  How do you declare a new principle on one day out of the year when life’s events aren’t timed by the calendar?  Do we make resolutions just as a way to kill time until spring?  Or, to help with small-talk at New Years Eve parties?  Does anyone actually follow through with this?
I sit here with the clock ticking behind me and facts about mammals looping in my head.
The length of a mammal’s life corresponds almost equally to its size and heart rate.   All mammals live for about the same biological length of time.  All mammals breathe about 200 million times in their lifetime.   The year is almost over, I have so many things to do, there’s not enough time.
A mouse, with its heart pumping fast to keep its little body replenished with blood, only lives for around two human years.   A humpback whale (massive body, slow heart) can live 50-100 years.   Both breath about 200 million times throughout their life, just one breathes fast, the other slow.   But, two years or eighty, we can assume that both animals live very full lives on their own biological time.  The slow, aching, 30 minute song of a humpback whale could equate to our memorization of a minute long commercial jingle, or a mouse’s memorization of a very quick set of squeaks.  The lifespan of a creature is only accurately measurable by that creature alone.
Humans are different, though.  Considering our size, we take more breaths, develop much slower, and experience far more throughout our lives than most other mammals.  We stretch our breath to fill almost a century, small bodies living at our own tempo, constructing our lives at the pace of our own personalized biological clock.
The tension of life compresses me until I feel half my size, a portion of my age.  As my mind skims through the unfinished paintings, unconnected facts, and patchy ideas of animal imagery in my head, I squeeze my eyelids in effort to slow my thoughts.  Like the shifting prisms of a kaleidoscope, my brain shuffles through ideas and imagery, colors and composition.
I hear the clock again, and think of all the things I didn’t accomplish this year–not painting fast enough, not writing fast enough, not calling friends often enough, not eating healthy enough.  The New Years resolution, in all its oversimplified, whimsical glory, may be exactly what I need to shake off some of the negative, burdening thoughts and clear my mind to be at peace with the past.
So, this year, I’m giving myself the selfish privilege of developing on my own clock and letting others do the same.  We can run, jump, and play, contemplate, create, and stress−we’re blessed with these little agile bodies that endure lives the length of whales. Molding and bending through phases, we have the time and mental capacity to explore our brains and souls as our lives gracefully tick on.  Feeling off track?  That’s ok, there’s actually time to get back on.  Seems like college was just yesterday?  You lucky human and your incredibly memory, chill out.
The pressure’s off.  It’s time to take advantage of the amazing, slow, long, and malleable lives that we were born with. Pour some champagne and make a toast−we’re all human.