Spencer Museum of Art Blog
Peru 2011
For the second summer in a row, KU entomologist Caroline Chaboo is conducting a collections and research expedition with several graduate students in the Amazon rainforest of Peru. This June, SMA Associate Director/Senior Curator, Prints & Drawings Stephen Goddard is accompanying the group as its "artistic mentor"—a furthering of the Spencer's ongoing interest in connecting art with scientific inquiry. Expedition members are keeping a blog documenting their experiences.
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Otherworldly
June 26, 2011When asked, “how was the trip?” I have been answering, “great!” but it has been difficult to go beyond that because it was not so much a trip as a re-alignment of assumptions. I realized this on my first morning at CICRA while getting dressed, at the moment of loading up my pockets. Wallet? No need. Keys? Nope. Passport? Won’t need that either.
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Peru Day 20 – Heading Home
June 19, 2011On our twentieth day, and our third day waiting to get on a plane home in the wake of the electronic snafu that has crippled our airline carrier, I thought it would be a good moment to post some images of our time together in Peru – What a super-popped group of individuals we assembled from across the University of Kansas!
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Peru Day 17 – Looking Forward & Looking Back
June 17, 2011So far the creative components of our trip have included assigned readings, blogging, and some “looking exercizes” involving drawing (thanks to Bethany for offering some practical pointers), watercolor, relief printing, and “sun printing”
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Peru Day 16 – Gold Mining
June 17, 2011Looking back over the past two weeks there are several topics that our group has discussed often but that we have not shared in our blog. One of these concerns our awareness of a bristling tension between ecologists, loggers and gold miners — all of whom have strong opinions about the natural resources of the Madre de Dios region.
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Peru Day 15 – Catching Insects
June 17, 2011Several days ago I came across two primate specialists in the forest. One was wearing a loudspeaker on her head that was emitting monkey calls [calls of the saddle-backed tamarin, I believe]. This got me to thinking about the ways we stretch to get our data, to study animal and plant behavior, to collect specimens, and to document the comings and goings of species.