Microbial Worlds Art Extra Credit

Art Piece #1: Mysterious Underground Collaboration: Mysterious Underground, Mycorrhizae.

Artists: Charlotte Bird and Ree Nancarrow

What drew me to this work was the fact that there is so much detail which keeps your attention because each time you look at it you notice something new. The purpose of this art was to promote awareness of what was beneath our feet that we can’t see. I love the cross sectional view point that this piece shows and I think that by doing it from that view point and putting most of the focus on whats under the ground as opposed to whats above it, really gets the point across. Even though the piece does focus pretty heavily on the fungi that are underground it also shows some fungi above ground that we are able to see when out in the woods. I think that it was great and really important that Bird consulted with Dr. Laursen to ensure that the art was accurate, that the fungi were placed in the proper environment and that the plants and fungi were interacting in the art as they would in the real world.

 

Art Piece #2: Toolick Chain of Lakes Collaboration

Artists: Ree Nancarrow and Charlotte Bird

What drew me to this art is the cool colors and its abstract nature, when I saw that the artists for these pieces were the same artists for  Mysterious Underground Collaboration: Mysterious Underground, Mycorrhizae I was surprised because the styles are so different, almost opposite in fact. This piece is based on the article Biogeorgraphy of Bacterioplankton in Lakes and Streams of an Arctic Tundra Catchmen  by Byron C. Crump Ree consulted with Jason Dobkowski to ensure that the art was accurate. The purpose of this piece was to make the microbial world that surrounds us visible. I think that this concept was really well conveyed in this piece because you can really see a flow and connections between the communities but if you look close you can also see that the art is like a collage of different pictures which I think is meant to represent the different microbial communities present.

 

Art Piece #3: Deceptive Beauty

Artists: Ree Nancarrow and Debbie Clarke Moderow (writer)

I really liked this art work because its a great depiction of what the lakes surrounding Fairbanks can look like in different seasons, I also really like how we can see the methane bubbles spreading everywhere. The purpose of this piece is to show how methane and carbon dioxide have affected the permafrost and release of methane in the northern lakes. This piece has a great connection to what we have learned in class about how the methane bubbles form and the carbon cycle and the activity that we did in class when we had to draw the carbon cycle.

If I were to participate in the Microbial Worlds art show I would most likely do a piece on how oil spills in the ocean can be cleaned up by microbes. I really found the in class lecture on the topic very interesting. I would most likely use blue and black water colors to simulate the spread of oil in the ocean and than use a white crayon to represent the microbes present that pop up in the black oil.