about my work

When naturalist Louis Aggasiz taught a new student, he would sit them down at a table with a preserved specimen of a fish and leave them for a few hours with this simple instruction:

LOOK AT YOUR FISH.

His students were often startled by this spare instruction, but by carefully looking they began to see details they had overlooked before. Similarly, I find that accurate drawings of nature require a kind of close study that leads to deeper understanding and new science questions.

I draw and paint nature's details in order to keep a record of the thing seen, but more importantly, to become better at seeing. These paintings and drawings are artifacts of my close observations - I hope you enjoy them, and I hope it inspires you to get out a hand lens and look more closely at the natural world in your own back yard.

Dwelling in the ecotones between art and science, I claim neither territory yet am at home in both. I constantly keep nature journals at home and in my travels, and sometimes create more formal and studied works of scientific illustration. In collaboration with other artists and scientists, I create interdisciplinary art and science projects.

My formal training is a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and some post-baccalaureate coursework in biology. For 20 years I have studied insects, plants and fungi as a serious avocation/ obsession and am certified by the neighborhood kids as the go-to person for strange bugs. My scientific illustrations have been exhibited in several galleries and museums both here and in Europe, and published in peer reviewed scientific journals and in an online field guide. Many are in private collections of professional biologists and of the National Park Service. While I am capable of producing scientifically accurate work with fine detail, lately I prefer to work in a looser, quicker style so that I can capture more of what I see and experience in the field. More and more I am interested in process over product, and in sharing nature journaling with others, as a way to help others experience nature's endless fascination.

To find out more about how you can set up a stand-alone workshop or classes at your institution, weave scientific illustration or nature journaling into your biology or ecology courses, or to commission scientific illustration work, please visit my classes page. I look forward to working with you!