Room For Curiosity

HERBARIUM

2011-09-02T18:07:00.000-07:00

"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is imagination itself."

William Blake, 1799, The Letters

An HERBARIUM, sometimes described as a museum of plants, is composed of plants collected, pressed, dried and organized for study and record keeping. My concept of an herbarium expands this idea to include drawings, books and objects that deal with botanical matters.
The cabinet for my Herbarium was built by Oscar Hoff. The wood is maple and the design echos the Sky cabinet.

The exterior of the cabinet is faced with drawings of fruit. Featured in this post are the eleven drawings on the top door.

FRUIT, n. s. [fructus, Latin; frwys, Welsh; fruit, French.]
1. The product of a tree or plant in which seeds are contained.

The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best,
Neighbor'd by fruit of baser quality. Shakesp. Henry V.

2. That part of the plant that is taken for food.

See how the rising fruits the garden crown,
Imbibe the sun, and make his light their own. Blackmore

Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

FIGS: Despite the fact that fresh figs seem more available now than in the past, they retain a feeling of the exotic. Certainly the beautiful and complex interior is a surprise the first time one sees it revealed. They are among my favorite things too eat and to draw. They stand at the top of the cabinet, center stage, in a proud line.

PLUOT: Whereas the fig is notable for its antiquity, the pluot is a very modern fruit. It dates from 1989 and has an inventor, Floyd Zaiger. 70% plum and 30% apricot it is sweet and some varieties have an interesting dappled skin. My Dapple Dandy is sitting on a tile made by the Trent Tile Company of Trenton New Jersey before 1939.

LEMON: On a very hot day in Athens many years ago, after a thrilling wander around the Acropolis, I bought a glass of fresh unsweetened lemon juice from a well placed stand outside the Propylaea. I believe it was the most refreshing and delicious beverage I have ever tasted. The lemon is an amazingly useful fruit that can appear on any part of a menu.
The drawing references the importance of pollinators to the production of fruit. A bumble bee rests on the lemon and underneath is a Chinese plate with the pattern called 10,000 butterflies.

GRAPES: Our son, Arno, loves grapes most of all when they become raisins. His intake can be so impressive that when he was visiting cousin Gladyce in Santa Monica, California, she took to rationing him to one bowl a day, hiding the rest of her supply. When he returned from India for the first time he brought many varieties of raisins home for a "tasting" event. Some families celebrate with a nice bottle of wine. We get out the raisins.
The black grapes in the drawing are coupled with a beautiful maple leaf found on the day of purchase.

CHERRIES: Now that there are only short gaps in the availability of fruits and vegetables, cherries remain a brief luxury. Here in Michigan they arrive at the farmers' markets looking like baskets of jewels. Probably due to fragility, sour red cherries are rarely seen in the supermarkets. Or, perhaps, people are less willing than my husband to pit them with an eye to a beautiful pie.
Four of the rare cherries rest on a piece of Indian textile.

BLUEBERRIES: Warned against potential poisons, I was once reluctant to eat anything growing wild with the exception of blueberries. On Deer Isle in Maine I found enough of the tiny berries to make a pie using a recipe from the New York Times that included sour cream. The woman from whom we were renting a room asked me for the recipe. It may have been my greatest compliment as a cook.
As an artist I have used blueberries as dark, dusky blue punctuation marks in my drawings. Here on the cabinet they fill a ceramic cup which is covered with pop art comic book dots designed by Roy Lichtenstein and produced by the Durable Dish Company.

PEAR: The pear may be the most difficult fruit to get right. It seems to go from being hard to being over ripe in a matter of minutes. A perfect pear is rare and a true joy.
This pear is a Bartlett, a standard pear found in the supermarket. The wings that make it look capable of flight are those of a butterfly, Pieridae Pheobis philea. The moth in front is an Arctiidae.

POMEGRANATE: When I was still not a student in the art school at the University of Michigan I signed up for a design class. The first project required us to choose a fruit or vegetable and use it in as many ways as we could think of: line drawings, watercolors, abstractions using color patterns on the skin, cross sections that were printed, etc. I chose the pomegranate which seemed a very exotic fruit at the time. I loved the project so much it was one of the reasons that I switched my major from English to art.
This pomegranate sits on a mola from Panama that depicts a fly.

PLUM: Wrapping or containing things in a surprising way has always appealed to me. Here a black tulip acts as a cup which holds a black plum. The plum is hiding in plain sight.
There are so many wonderful ways to use plums but my favorite remains my grandmother's plum kuchen. When I bake the cake I can always feel her presence in my kitchen.

CRAB APPLE: Crab apples, often called "wild apples", are small, very sour and woody. As food for humans they are not very appealing except in their pickled form or turned into jelly. However, as ornamental trees they are dearly loved for their blossoms in spring and their fall crop of elegant looking fruit.
This specimen was harvested from a tree in our neighborhood. It sits on top of a stack of objects beginning at the bottom with leaves from a choke cherry tree, a tile sample and a small piece of rusted iron of unknown origin.

APPLE: Recent information no longer supports the idea that the modern apple had crab apple ancestors. There is evidence that it was a separate branch of the family which began in the Illi Valley in China and Kazakhstan, whose capital, Almaty, translates as "father of apples". I was delighted to learn that alma, my grandmother's name, is Hungarian for apple.
There are now thousands of species of apple. The one featured on the cabinet is a Gala which is backed by a design from the Grammar of Ornament and comes from the pages devoted to the Middle Ages.

CHAIR OF HERBS

2011-09-01T20:30:00.000-07:00

"It seems that we must be content to attribute the belated origin of herbaria, and their diffusion from a single centre, to the humiliating fact that amongst mankind the inventive spirit is rare, while the spirit of imitation is universal."

Agnes Arber

Finding a leaf or flower pressed in a book is like acquiring someone else's memory of the past - a souvenir of a place, an event, a discovery or the attraction to something beautiful. The earliest known specimen of a pressed plant is a set of leaves from an olive tree which were found in an Egyptian pyramid from the time of Ptolomy (305 BCE). They are now in the herbarium at Kew Gardens in London.

The organized collecting and storage of dried plants into an herbarium can be credited to Luca Ghini (1490-1556) who used them to instruct students of medicine at the University of Bologna where he was "Chair of Herbs".

When he was not supported in an attempt to start a garden for teaching and medicinal purposes, he left for Pisa where he joined with Cosimo I de' Medici who funded the design and building of the oldest botanical garden in the world. Later they also built the botanical Garden of Florence.

Ghini is considered the father of botany in Italy and counted among his students the greatest names that followed.

In his honor I have placed a chair on the top of my herbarium.
I gave William Frcka a few measurements and a raw little sketch and, promptly, he brought me a charming wooden chair. I sprayed it green and adorned it with dried ferns and rosebuds, made a cushion for the seat, and placed a plaque with pertinent information on the back. It sits on a rug that is embroidered and covered with dried plant material.

The Astronomers

2011-06-12T15:20:00.001-07:00

"The Sun with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do."

Galileo Galilei

GALILEO GALILEI (1564 - 1642)

Like moons around the sky cabinet I have placed my tributes to astronomers. The most famous is Galileo. Brilliant and a notable egocentric, he was aided by the introduction of the telescope to greatly increase our knowledge of the universe. Unfortunately for him the publication of his "Dialogue," which promoted the Copernican concept of heliocentrism, ran him afoul of the Inquisition. After his trial in 1633 he was put under house arrest for the rest of his life. The Catholic church did not lessen his condemnation until 1992 and then only partially.

However, there were posthumous changes to Galileo's position promoted on a secular level. In 1737 the naturalist/historian Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti had Galileo's remains moved from an out of the way part of Santa Croce to a mausoleum in the main part of the church. According to the director of the Galileo Museum, it was accomplished "symmetrical to beatification."

During the transition Tozzetti removed two fingers, a thumb, a vertebra and a molar in the same way that relics were removed from the bodies of saints. The middle finger has been on display in the Instituto e Museo de Storia della Scienza (recently renovated and renamed the Museo Galileo) since its founding by the University of Florence in 1927.

In October 2010 the index finger, thumb and molar, which had disappeared in 1910, came up for auction as "unidentified human remains." They were identified by an astute person based on the reliquary containing them. Everything is reunited in the museum with the exception of the vertebra which is at the University of Padua.

For my drawing I used as a model a finger loaned to me by Dr. Felix Rogers from a hospital teaching collection. It is a cleaner, more attractive example than the original but still reminiscent.

The finger points to the sun, alluding to the issues of heliocentrism and Galileo's discovery of the existence of sunspots. Church doctrine stated the heavens were incorruptible. Only the space between Earth and the moon was subject to change. To say that the sun could change in any way was another heresy.

* * * * *

"Many a man's nose was broken by his mouth."

Irish proverb

TYCHO BRAHE (1546 - 1601)

Earlier than Galileo and less well known is Tycho Brahe. Considered to be Danish, he was born in Scandia which is now part of Sweden. His observations are described as the most accurate and comprehensive before the invention of the telescope. He was recognized early for his talents. The king gave him the Island of Hven where Brahe built Uraniborg, a renowned research institute. He conducted his business there till the king died and he had disagreements with the successor. He moved on to Prague where he worked with his assistant Johannes Kepler. Kepler based his theories on Brahe's work.

If you are looking for weird tales and scandal, Tycho Brahe's is a bizarre and riveting story. Just knowing that he had a pet elk (or moose) who supposedly died of a fall while drunk, or that he employed a psychic dwarf who always sat under the banquet table could be enough, but there are modern theories of how he was murdered by mercury poisoning. There is even speculation that it might have been Kepler. Or, it might have been one of his own relatives hired by King Christian the IV who may have believed Brahe to have had an affair with his mother Queen Sophie. Perhaps Brahe was his father? There are theories that Shakespeare was inspired to write Hamlet by the stories.

The work I have done to represent him is based on the loss of most of his nose in a duel when in his early twenties. For the remainder of his life he wore a prosthetic nose made of either gold, silver or copper or a combination of gold and silver. I was lucky to have in my possession a plaster cast of our son Arno's nose, made by his twin brother, Barrett. Since both of our sons are excellent scientists it seemed appropriate for them to work on Brahe's behalf. I applied gold leaf to this nose and mounted it on a background created with the help of Robert Edwards. Robert has developed his own method of creating stunningly beautiful paintings using layer upon layer of printer's inks and varnish, with inclusions of beads, glitter, butterfly wings, flower petals and so forth. The better the light the more amazing the painting becomes. Robert walked me through the steps that helped me create a feeling of the night sky where I could float the nose.

* * * * *

"However long I live, life is short, so I work.
And, however important man becomes he is nothing compared to the stars."

Caroline Herschel

CAROLINE LUCRETIA HERSCHEL (1750 - 1884)

Robert Mirek, a friend and excellent artist, literally put the book Age of Wonder into my hands and told me to read it. Despite its weight I carried it on a long trip that included a lot of time on an airplane - time to read consistently for hours. It was an exciting experience as the book pulled together so much fascinating information about the scientists I have only known about in bits and pieces. It made the Age of Enlightenment more cohesive for me and introduced me to many new ideas and people. Caroline Herschel was one of those compelling figures.

Tiny (4'3") Caroline was kept as a house servant by her parents until she was called from Germany to England by her brother William in 1772. He earned his living as a musician and was also a self-taught astronomer who worked through the night. He engaged Caroline to teach voice lessons. She could have been a professional singer but chose instead to work with her brother building telescopes and spending nights recording William's observations of the night sky.

William Herschel's work was so profound that he was recognized by the government and was made astronomer to King George III, with an excellent stipend.

Caroline was also recognized for her importance to astronomy and was the first woman to receive a salary from the government, albeit very small by comparison. She was awarded a gold medal by the Royal Astronomical Society in 1882. No woman received that honor again until 1996. An asteroid and a crater on the moon are among the things named for her.

I chose to represent Caroline, the great observer who identified nine comets, with the eye of Caroline Rogers, another remarkable soprano.

Sphingid moths

2010-08-20T20:35:00.001-07:00

"I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."

Galileo Galilei

I am very comfortable at night. It is my best working time. During the day it is hard to ignore the tasks that should be dealt with, but after seven or eight in the evening there seems less that is imperative and I am more at ease sitting down at my drawing table. Perhaps that is why I am more drawn toward moths than butterflies. Most of them fly at night.

When I was young I thought I had to choose "my favorite color" or my "favorite song". Now I can say that I love all colors and don't find any of them offensive. I love yellow and I love green and I love red and blue. I have no favorite song and no favorite city....but I do have a favorite insect. Or, rather, a favorite family, the Sphingidae, commonly called hawk or sphinx moths. The first one I remember seeing in the "wild" was hovering around our lilac bush at dusk. I was sure it was a hummingbird. Then I was sure it was a huge bee.

The Sphingids have very streamlined shapes with more narrow wings and robust bodies. I have looked at all the drawers with specimens of hawk moths at the University of Michigan and marveled at the complex patterns and amazing colors. I can't imagine why they are so dressy when they fly at dusk and into the dark but I am thrilled that they exist.

In the drawing of Sphinx Moths and Star Map I chose sixteen of my favorite specimens and coupled them with my version of a 17th century Dutch star map.
I am not good at identifying constellations in the night sky and I can't keep straight all of their complicated and sometimes goofy stories, but I am immensely charmed by the early drawings and actually hopeful of remembering some of the information stored in them.

In the corners of my drawing are four phases of the moon. The new moon is replaced by a black hollyhock which is a reminder of the link between the changes in the sky and the changes in the earth.

This drawing now hangs over the Sky Cabinet.

SKY CABINET INTERIOR

2010-04-11T19:17:00.000-07:00

"Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel."

Samuel Johnson

The inside of the SKY cabinet's doors also have drawings - which will seldom be seen. I forget they are there and am usually surprised when I open the doors. The cabinet will function as a bookshelf like the piece of furniture it has replaced. I am starting a collection of things for the cabinet should there come a time when it no longer needs to hold books.

There is a small drawer which has begun to collect objects that relate to the night sky -
a small box of antique buttons that have images of the moon, a beautiful star ornament from India, a copper star-shaped cookie cutter and a rock with a natural image of a star.
Presently I am producing an artist's book that will reproduce images from the doors of the cabinet paired with poems and prose by writers I know.

The drawing in the top door is a combination of the Milky Way and a group of "migrating" birds. All the birds are from the collection of the Cranbrook Science Museum.

Several years ago while on a quest with my brother John to see the Tecumseh slab, a war stick in the museum collection, I had the pleasure of meeting Kevin Kelly who is in charge of the collections. In a bold moment I asked if I might be allowed to draw from specimens in the drawers of birds. Not only have I been allowed to draw but I have been allowed to check out birds the way one would check out books from a library. It is a unique opportunity for me to draw birds under the conditions that best suit me....at my own desk, with good light, an excellent pencil sharpener at my elbow and, most important, at the times that are good for me. My studio doesn't close and is often in operation until 1:30 am.

Migration is a fascinating concept and one I hope to learn more about. The few facts that I have learned are amazing. For instance, a bird can continue to fly while half of its brain is asleep. When that half wakes up the alternate side rests.

The bottom door of the cabinet features the Eastern Screech Owl, Strigidae Megascops asio.
The specimen I drew from is in the collection of the Cranbrook Science Museum.
This small owl is very common even in urban areas. One would, however, never see so many stars in the sky over the Detroit area where I live. I have been witness to that kind of display only when camping out west. Sleeping under the stars is one of the greatest pleasures I have experienced.

The comet is in honor of Caroline Herschel, a remarkable woman who assisted her more famous brother Sir William Herschel. On her own she discovered nine comets.

STARS

2010-04-11T09:12:00.001-07:00

"How lovely are the portals of the night, when stars come out to watch the daylight die."

Thomas Cole

Our planet, Earth, is represented here by a number of plants and animals named for stars. We seem to accept the shape of the star as having points when what we see in the heavens are just pin points of light - oblate spheroids of hot gas. The points are probably references to the emission of light and appear in very early images.

SUGAR STARFISH resting on top of a WHITE FINGER STARFISH; both are very common and belong to the family Asteriidae, with Supernova remnant, SN1987a

SUNFLOWER STARFISH, Asteriidae Pycnopodia helianthoides, with Star cluster Hodge 301.

STAR FRUIT, Averrhoa carambola, with reflection Nebula Chameleon complex.

The spice STAR ANISE, Illiceae Verium, with the Star forming region DR21.

LONG- SPINED STAR SHELL, Asteriidae Astraea phoebia, with Emission nebula NGC346

The wildflower SHOOTING STARS, Primulaceae Dadecatheon medadia , with Supermassive black hole Sagittarius A.

CONSTELLATIONS

2010-04-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

"In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true."

Buddha

The constellation HERCULES with the Hercules beetle, Scarabaeidae Dynastes Hercules and the starburst galaxy NGC 4214.

Hercules is one of the oldest of the sky figures. It has been of importance in so many cultures that no other constellation has so many different names. We know him in mythology as the Roman half god/half man who was so strong that he was able to perform the 12 labors set for him by King Eurystheus of Mycenea. In the sky he is depicted resting on one knee with his left foot on the head of Draco, the beast he has just slain as one of the labors.

Likewise, his namesake, the Hercules beetle, is immensely strong with the ability to carry 850 times its own body weight, making it the strongest animal for its size in the world. The specimen shown in the drawing is a male of the species. The female has no horn.

The constellation SCORPIO with the emperor scorpion, Scorpionidae Pandinus imperator, and the Starburst galaxy NGC 1569.

The specimen in the drawing was given many years ago to our son Barrett by Bill Peck who found it in Egypt while excavating. Despite the large size and ominous appearance, the sting of this species is mild, so this scorpion is actually not much of a threat.

One of the odd attributes of all scorpions is their ability to fluoresce under black light. They turn greenish yellow and glow like stars.

PLANETS

2010-04-11T09:05:00.000-07:00

"Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns..."

Alexander Pope

MARS with the Elephant beetle, Scarabaeidae Megasoma mars, and the globular cluster Omega Centauri.

Red and rocky, named for the Roman god of war, Mars looms large in our imagination so it is surprising to note that it is only half the size of our own planet.
Interest in the planet is augmented by the vast number of movies and books about life there and particularly about that "life" coming here. The first movie was actually made by Thomas Edison in 1910. It lasted 4 minutes and included a scientist and a giant. It was not a documentary. Just reading the names of the movies on the list of the Mars Society of San Diego is a treat.

The panic caused by Orson Welles' radio broadcast of War of the Worlds on October 30, 1938 and the continuing belief in the events at Roswell NM in June or July of 1947 point out the deepseated fears that many people harbor regarding the possibilities of invasion from outer space.

Invasion by the Megasoma beetle that is pictured with the planet is unlikely in most neighborhoods, although it is fairly common in South America.

URANUS with the Madagascar sunset moth, Uraniidae Chrysiridia riphearia, and local universal map 2 Mass.

Uranus is a modern planet, unknown to the ancient astronomers. Using a telescope, Sir William Herschel discovered the dim, distant planet in 1781. It was eventually named for the ancient Greek god of the sky.
It is almost featureless, primarily made up of helium & hydrogen gas, a blue-green "ice-giant" with 20 known moons.

While the planet may be featureless, the day flying Uraniid moths are spectacularly beautiful and often mistaken for butterflies.

SATURN with the moth Saturniidae Eacles imperialis and the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A.

The famed rings of Saturn were first seen by Galileo through the new invention of the telescope, but they were originally misinterpreted as moons.
The image of Saturn is so beautiful that it is hard to reconcile its relation to the unrelentingly dreary reputation of the Roman god it is named for.

The Saturniidae moths have eye spots that are reminiscent of Saturn's concentric rings.

SKY CABINET

2010-04-11T09:03:00.000-07:00

"I often think the night is more active and alive than the day."

Vincent van Gogh

The idea for the second cabinet in the Room of Curiosities was triggered by the theme year at the University of Michigan in 2009 which honored the 400th anniversary of the invention of the telescope. One of the main organizers of the exhibitions and lectures was Amy Harris, director of the Exhibit Museum where I go to draw. I met Amy when I had a show of my drawings in the building's rotunda in 2001 and am honored to call her a friend. Her enthusiasm for the year of astronomy project was infectious. It made me want to do something of my own to honor the sky.

I decided to do drawings for the doors of a cabinet using objects on earth named for something in the sky, then couple them with their astral partners. The background of each drawing, with the exception of the sun, is based on photos from the Hubble telescope.

The cabinet on which the drawings are mounted was built by Oscar Hoff, a carpenter and photographer who came highly recommended by several other artists. He suggested using ebonized walnut for a beautiful dark effect and he inlaid the many little abalone beads in the door frames that I wanted to emulate stars. When the cabinet was delivered it was one of the only times that I have not had to get accustomed to something before I liked it. I was thrilled immediately.

The following posts will document the individual drawings in the project.

SUN AND MOON

2010-04-10T21:43:00.000-07:00

"If the sun & moon should doubt,
they'd immediately Go out."

William Blake

In ancient Egypt the sun, or solar ball, was thought to be rolled across the sky by Khepri, a self-created deity, the god of the rising sun. It did its course from east to west ending in darkness and then being recreated by the deity each morning.

The scarab beetle, while performing the very useful task of getting rid of dung, seemed to emulate Khepri when it would roll the excrement, preferably from herbivores, into balls and move it with great determination, regardless of obstacles in its path. The beetle is capable of moving 50 times its own weight, so the size of the ball compared with the beetle can be impressive.

Another connection for the beetle with Khepri and the sun is the idea of resurrection. The beetle lays her eggs in the dung balls she creates and when her eggs hatch they appear to be born spontaneously. Plutarch declared there was no female and after the male injected his semen into the dung the new beetle created itself. The hieroglyphic image of the scarab beetle translates as "to come into being" or "to transform".

The scarab beetles I have drawn are all dung-rollers in the collection of the University of Michigan. The large central black beetle is Scarabaeus sacer, the sacred scarab. The others show how wonderfully colorful and beautiful these insects can be.

The moon is portrayed with a galactic star cluster, four of its phases, American elm leaves, my hand and one of the beautiful wild silk moths, Actias luna. The luna moth lives in deciduous hardwood forests and is one of the largest moths in North America, with a wing span of about 4 1/2 ". Its name may come from the moon-like eye spots on its wings.

There is a story that goes with this image:

When I was out west acting as a cook for a field biology group, I would try to absorb as much science as I could when I wasn't chopping vegetables. I followed students and the instructor when they went out collecting and observing. At night mist-nets (which resemble badminton nets) would be set up over available water sources which lured bats. The bats would become tangled in the nets. Late at night the nets would be checked and bats would be gently removed, identified, examined and released.

One night at the Lytel Ranch in southwest corner of Utah a magnificent moth also got caught. I insisted that it be removed carefully or I might just cut it lose. Dr. Tom Tomasi of Missouri State University spent a very long time extricating the moth. When it was free he put it in my hand and told me now it was my problem.

The moth sat very still.
It was sitting still while all of the bat work was accomplished.
It remained still while we made our journey back to the campsite.

It was clear that I was not going to be able to put on my pajamas or brush my teeth while it remained in my hand. I struggled into my sleeping bag and the two of us lay there for a long time under the beautiful stars, surrounded by desert willows. Eventually I felt the most wonderful sensation. It was as if someone had breathed gently on my hand. The moth had lifted into the night air.

SMALL SURROUNDINGS

2010-03-06T20:26:00.000-08:00

I have sold my drawings over the years but I have never wanted to make my living trying to please people with my work. Instead I have earned my way by doing framing. It has given me a chance to see on a very intimate basis many amazing works of art brought in by collectors and artists. I consider it a serious business, showing respect for the work in terms of the presentation which you see and in terms of preservation which you don't see - the work behind the mat and inside the frame.

In my own project I have chosen to go in the opposite aesthetic direction. I have been hunting for handmade frames that are a statement in themselves. My most satisfying finds have been longer in the area of being eccentric than classically constructed. Even the art is going backwards. I have been drawing to suit the frames.

The vine frame was a present from Wanda Miller. It was just a flat construction with no possible way to install anything in it. She said "I knew you would figure out what to do with it." 20 years later it occurred to me to have a normal frame constructed and attach the vine frame to it. The beetle, Scarabaeidea Propomacrus jansoni, from the "Insect Range" at the University of Michigan, with its twig- like appendages, suited the frame perfectly.

I have been very lucky in my relationship with the University of Michigan Exhibit Museum and with their entomology department which is housed in the same building. Mark O'Brien, who maintains their great collection, has allowed me space to draw in and has been more than generous in his help. Days spent in that building in Ann Arbor have been among the most fruitful and happiest that I have known in my professional life.

The folded leather frame was found on E-Bay. The seller dated it from the late 1800's. It was set up to hold a picture by sliding it in between the leather and a small flap of cloth. This was another case of impossible installation so I had a black frame built to act as a base. The beetle, Scarabaeidae Dynastes titus, has a background that emulates old wallpaper, true to finding a bug crawling up your wall.

The tramp art frame is German and was made by either a less talented tramp or one that had inadequate materials. It is the classic chip carved style but it is put together in bits and pieces, not long strips. The beetle it holds is a Cerambycidae Batocera.

I went over my budget to get this shaped wooden frame covered with tooled copper. It was irresistible. No one would ever confuse it with something mass produced. I bid. I won. I waited. Then I forgot it was even out there until it arrived in the mail and I found out that it was sent from Peru. It was a challenge to find something suitable for the shape and the feel of the frame. The winning insect is the beetle Cerambycidae Petrognatha gigas with its strange wavy legs and antennae. The flower it is sitting on is a delicate poppy that came in a bouquet from Mary Alice Benkert.

The butterfly enclosed in this little frame is a Nymphalidae Hamadrys feronia. It was part of a series of drawings of butterflies that are camouflaged but not in the way that they were designed to blend into their natural surroundings. Each background is specific to the insect and each one is quite different. This one is the pattern on a piece of textile that echos the weight and design of the wings. The frame is an Ebay purchase, handmade and irregular with a leaf in each corner. It is a common ornament but more charming than usual do to the hand of the person who made it.

I have a little supply of frames that are awaiting the perfect subject. One is another tramp art frame that was made out of a tin can! I have very high standards for my frames.

THE GEOLOGY DRAWER

2010-03-06T19:50:00.000-08:00

"Rocks are records of events that took place when they were formed. They are books. They have a different vocabulary, a different alphabet, but you learn to read them."

John McPhee

Every fall my husband would take our three children to the gem and mineralogical fair then held at the Light Guard Armory. I would stay home, placing value on a couple of hours of quiet when I could get something accomplished. They would return with small brown bags filled with piles of precious polished stones and boxed samples of identified minerals. Everything would be revealed with awe at the kitchen table. One year I went too and became addicted immediately. Since then I have rarely missed the event.

Two of my husband's great prizes are his pieces of crazy lace agate, Cryptocrystalline quartz,
from Mexico. In ancient times they were worn to placate the gods and sharpen sight. We find them amazing for their brilliant colors and intricate patterns.

In the drawing they are coupled with birds, an indigo bunting on the left and a bobolink on the right. Behind are pieces of coral.

That completes the review of the drawings that face the first cabinet.

Recently my second cabinet was completed by Oscar Hoff, a fine carpenter and photographer.
I was lucky to have him work with my project as he could take my basic design, refine it and construct it so that it worked. It is one of the only occasions in my life when someone else completed something for me and I did not have to acclimate to it for a couple of weeks before liking it. I was happy immediately.
The theme of this cabinet is the SKY and its interior will act as a bookshelf. I will be introducing this work to the blog soon but first I am going to take a break and cover a couple of small framed works that have been completed for the room.

THE SHELL DRAWER

2010-03-04T14:30:00.000-08:00

"I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it on the beaches of the world...perhaps you have seen it."
Stephen Wright

I live in Michigan where we are famous for our mitten of land surrounded by the beautiful Great Lakes which can be seen from outer space. The state is filled with hundreds of bodies of water from tiny ponds to sizable inland lakes. Fresh water is a fabulous resource but it is not home to the creatures and plants that I gathered together for this drawing. For me they are wonderfully exotic and mysterious.

The preserved fish in the center of the drawing is a puffer fish from the family Tetradontidae. When alive it was one of the second most poisonous animals in the world. Despite that, when prepared properly, the meat of the fish is considered a great delicacy in Japan and Korea.

The fan coral belongs to the order Gorgonacea. It is a colony of many individual polyps that began with a single founder. They anchor themselves with a long root in sand or mud, at right angles to strong currents that bring them the plankton they consume during the night.
Both the coral and the puffer fish are from the collections at the University of Michigan Exhibit Museum.

The sea urchin, in the class Echinoidea, sits in front of the puffer fish. Its name comes from an old name for the spiny hedgehog. It is a spherical invertebrate with 5 part symmetry, covered with spines that act as protection and help with locomotion. The skin is a hard shell called a "test". The mouth, known as Aristotle's lantern, is on the underside and has 5 teeth.
Its main diet is algae and it is eaten by sea otters and wolf eels, among others, and the ovaries are considered a delicacy by humans.

The coral and the sea urchin might be confused with plants but they are animals. The only plant in the drawing is a piece of kelp I found on the beach in Massachusetts.

The many armed sunflower starfish, Pycnopodia helianthoides, on the far left, is a fast moving predator. The juveniles begin with 5 arms and keep adding more as they grow until as an adult they might have as many as 24 arms. The specimen I own was given to me as a present by Bill Close, another person in love with the world and its contents.

The objects that are less natural but still belong with the sea are 3 spoons and a cameo.

The largest spoon and the cameo came from my favorite antique store, Balcony Row in Holly, Michigan. Jim Hilty and Evelyn Raskin have created a combination store / museum that certainly speaks to cabinets of curiosities. Their interest in their inventory has the quality of genuine intellectual excitement. They have rescued so many architectural artifacts that even the structure of their building abounds in stories. Knowing people with such energy and integrity has been a pleasure.

The spoon has no markings but it feels to me like Florida with its carved wooden alligator handle and the bowl made from a shell carved simply and elegantly into the head of a native American. It might well have been made as a tourist item but it has for me enormous charm that lifts it above the trinket level.

The little shell spoon was made of 2 shells in 1907. I "repaired" it for the drawing. In real life there is a bit missing from the bowl of the spoon. Regardless of its condition it delights me to think of someone creating this souvenir. The tiny spoon is part of a pair of salt servers that were given to me by Henrietta Slote. Now that so many kinds of salt are available that you would not want to put into shakers, these little spoons are once again truly useful. My favorite is a salt made from pink Himalayan fossils. What could be more appropriate to serve with dinner in a room of curiosities?

THE EGG DRAWER

2009-11-17T19:55:00.000-08:00

"If it thunder while she is broody the eggs will be addle, yea and if the hen chance to heare an hawk cry they will be marred. The remedie against thunder is to put an iron nail under the straw of the hen's nest, or els some earth newly turned up with the plow."
C. Plinius Secundus

It is startling to find that you have missed an obvious connection between things you have created. It had to be pointed out to me that an egg drawer next to a bone drawer was a clear alpha and omega - a beginning and an end. Eventually it would have occurred to me but what I was concentrating on was the beauty of shapes. I remember being taught in 7th grade, in a home economics cooking class, that the egg was a perfect food in a perfect container - spare and elegant. Much later when I did a series of drawings concerning food I chose the egg as the most appropriate lunch for a poet for just those reasons.

The background for the eggs is my version of the Milky Way in Sagittarius as seen in a photo taken by the Anglo Australian telescope. It was chosen both for its mystery and for the speckled quality that is so often found on eggshells.

The 2 paper boxes of eggs are in the ornithology collection of the University of Michigan. The larger green and blue eggs are those of the American crow, Corvus brachrhynchos. The smaller box contains those of the wood thrush, Turdus mustelinus.
The very large egg is that of an emu, Dromaius movaehollandiae. For a very brief period a man set up a booth at the Royal Oak Farmers Market where he sold all manner of Emu products - pain relievers, oils, lotions, soaps and some eggs. It was an unusual opportunity.
To the right of the emu egg is that of a domestic turkey, Meleagris gallopavo, and 2 killdeer, Charadrius vociferus, eggs that were given to me by a friend who determined, after watching them for a long while, that they had been abandoned by the mother.
To the left of the boxes are 3 impostors: a glass egg, an agate egg sitting on a granite tile sample that echos the egg shapes and the speckles, and a jasper egg. The little group of leaves is made of clay and serves only as a reminder of the trees.
The 2 actual eggs on the left side of the drawing are quail eggs purchased from a local Japanese grocery store. When I investigated the sale of quail eggs on line, the kind of quail that seems to be used for this purpose is the bobwhite quail, Colinus virginianus.
The 3 little turquoise colored eggs were laid by my Uncle John's finch. The poor bird was trying very hard but since it lived alone there was no hope of raising a little family.

THE BONE DRAWER

2009-11-15T13:54:00.000-08:00

BONES
Bones do seem to last forever
But they remind you of mortality;
They are severed from reality
As they dally with our fears;
They are solid ghosts, the hosts
Of our pallid faults and frailty.
But we also need our bones
To support our ambition,
Free us from imperfect vision.

Arnold Klein

I have a friend who wears bones as jewelry and others who are nervous about even the thought of what lies beneath the skin. For me the shapes of bones are visually elegant and mechanically fascinating. One of my favorite artists, Eugene von Bruenchenhein, built tiny thrones and small towers out of chicken bones. The finished sculptures were painted with a very delicate and beautiful sense of color or they might be simply painted gold. He was capable of rethinking the use of bones so that each piece is unique. I have drawn 2 of these chairs at the Milwaukee Museum which will be part of the Bird Cabinet I am working on.

Set in the center of the drawing for the bone drawer are 2 pieces of sculpture by Peter Hackett, a gentle soul who recycles parts of animals he finds, who have died by violence or natural process. His work avoids disrespect even when it is humorous.

The cat's skull has a covering of avocado skin held in place by a carefully worked piece of wire.

The mythical beast is actually the skull of a woodchuck with mandibles attached as horns.

The drawing contains bones on loan to me from Missouri State University, Springfield. Some have I.D. tags attached. There are bird, mouse, shrew, muskrat, and rabbit skulls that look as you might expect. But then there is the armadillo skull, surprising for its lumpiness and almost duck-like shape. The spinal column might well be that of a sheep. It was found beside the road in New Mexico when I was traveling to Tucson with our son Barrett and the car broke down. When you are traveling with a naturalist you are never bored when you are outdoors. There are a number of chicken wing bones, vertebrae, an opossum femur and various ribs all lying on a marvelous patchwork piece of metallic embroidered Indian fabrics with mirror inclusions which we bought in Mumbai.

2 RECTANGULAR PIGEON HOLES

2009-11-04T17:23:00.000-08:00

The beautiful metallic wood boring beetles of the family Buprestidae are among my favorite insects. Their iridescent colors come not from pigments but from minute grooves in the surface of the cuticle which, like a diffraction grating or pool of oil on the surface of water, breaks up the light into its component parts. As a result, they don't fade with time. Jan Fabre created an amazing metallic green ceiling in the Royal Palace in Brussels composed of a million elytra from these beetles. It is titled Heaven of Delight and even viewing it in photographs is thrilling.

The species in the drawing belong to the genus Chrysochroa. They are from Thailand and should feel at home as they are sitting on a piece of Thai marbled paper.

The shell in the center of the second drawing has been made into a charming container with hinges and a clasp. The background is a piece of Italian paper used in bookbinding, from the estate of Francis Robinson, an all-encompassing curator at the Detroit Institute of Arts, a man of many interests and talents and a prodigious collector of books and everything else. The objects that have spilled around the shell are hyacinth beans, castor beans, yellow Steuben beans, pinto beans, calypso beans and antique clay marbles.

4 SQUARES

2009-10-12T14:33:00.000-07:00

One of my drawing students, many years ago, announced to the class that she knew about background colors. She had learned that there were 3 possible choices. I was stunned and expressed my belief that there are no rules in art.

We are all victims of misinformation. I was told in my formative years that the square was a bad format, static and boring. Since I thought that Josef Albers proved the rule I never investigated it. When I did little square drawings for the pigeonholes in my cabinet I was very surprised to find I enjoyed working inside the shape. The drawings were fun to construct and I liked the outcome very much. I found it so appealing I did several single drawings and a series of 24 for the Insect Cabinet, all in the square format.

I suppose if I had really kept my eyes open it would not have taken me so long to figure out that I had been mistaken. Recently, when I talked about my revelation to another artist I admire, Karin Klue, she immediately made reference to the landscapes of Gustav Klimt. Almost all of those perfect and astonishingly interesting paintings are square.

A Chinese bowl, filled with anemone spikes and carnelians found on the ground in Egypt by Elsie and Bill Peck, who dig there annually with the Brooklyn Museum excavation team at the Temple of the Goddess Mut.

The small, mirrored bag was a present I received many years ago and I have no idea who produced it. I have believed that it is from Central America but could be convinced otherwise. For the drawing I filled the bag with Native American pipestone beads.

A stack composed of a Native American arrowhead and 2 ax heads is supported by a rusted, cast iron tripod I found lying in a vacant lot. For contrast these rugged items are sitting on top of a piece of silk by Schiaparelli.

At some point I hope to identify the shells in this drawing. Right now it remains an area where I am woefully unskilled. The fabric underneath is a piece of silk brought home as a present for me by our son Arno after his university studies in Japan.

SMALL STORAGE UNITS

2009-09-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

Small drawers and boxes for sorting and storing are not only a great aid to the collector but can also have immense charm. My personal favorites are the pigeonholes that are found in desks. I have a line of 8 drawings across the center of my cabinet that emulate these storage units. Each one addresses some aspect of an encyclopedic collection.

The small vase in the shape of a frog, a present from my daughter, not only introduces amphibians but also contains a flower that has hidden significance unless you know the Latin name and its reference. It is a spiderwort or Tradescantia which was named for the great gardener and cabinet of curiosities creator John Tradescant, 1570 - 1638.

He and his son assembled a collection known as The Ark. It was the first museum open to the public for an admission fee of 6d. It eventually became the basis for the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. (That story is fraught with intrigue and is fascinating on its own.) John Tradescant the younger documented their collection in a 178 page book, published in 1656, called Museum Tradescantianum: or, A Collection of Rarities Preserved at South Lambeth near London by John Tradescant.

Sir William Flower wrote in 1898, "The wonderful variety and incongruous juxtaposition of objects make the catalogue very amusing reading".

By doing this blog I am writing my own "Rarities" in a modern form before the information gets lost. It is amazing how fast facts fade from one's memory as the mind fills with the next exciting project

The other flower represented in a pigeonhole is the violet which is held by a tiny silver cup, part of a pair that was given to us as a wedding present. They are the only things we own that came from Tiffany's and I have never been sure what to do with them, other than to draw them. In this case the cup adds precious metal to the Rarities list.

THE PLATYPUS DOOR

2009-09-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

The platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus, is a worthy curiosity. When in 1799 the first preserved specimen was brought to England, the naturalist George Shaw wondered if "there might have been practiced some art of deception in its structure." It still looks like a hoax with its bill like a duck and tail like a beaver and body covered with fur like a mole.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck thought it was the missing link between mammals and birds. The platypus lays 2 or 3 eggs which hatch into blind, hairless creatures the size of a lima bean. These babies are held between the abdomen and the tail, feeding not on nipples but milk secreted from patches on the abdomen.

Other strange revelations:
The males are venomous, injecting toxins by way of spurs on their hind feet.
The females have 2 ovaries but only the left one works.
The bill is a sensory organ used in hunting worms, larvae and other invertebrates that live underwater. It detects the electrical impulses given off as its prey moves.
The webbing on their feet retracts when they return to land, revealing toenails that help them run.

All of the specimens in the drawing are from the collection at the Exhibit Museum of Natural History at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The squirrel in the group has USSR marked on its base. The long tailed weasels and juvenile woodchuck are native to Michigan. They are standing on a piece of marbleized paper that I made at the Center for the Book Arts in New York.

The other collection present in the drawing is that of fossilized plants and invertebrates. My favorite examples are those where I have both sides of the rock that was split. They open like little books exposing twin images on the pages. I adore these ferns but the person who loves them and also understands them is Carl Mehling, Collections Manager of Fossil Reptiles, Amphibians, and Birds at the American Museum of Natural History. He has edited a book called Fossils, published by Thunder Bay Press. Many of the specimens in the book are from his private collection. I count myself lucky to know Carl.

I had my drawing with me in New York 3 summers ago and Carl was able to identify the specimens in the drawing.

"When I say 'are the leaves of' I am spotlighting a peculiarity of paleobotany: plants are rarely found whole and it is the norm to assign different 'form genera' to different parts of the plants when they can not be confidently associated. For instance, Pecopteris is a form genus of leaves that grew on Psaronius which is named for the stem/trunk".

Neuropteris sp., Carboniferous are the leaves of a seed fern. Seed ferns are not ferns - they only look like them. They are long extinct.

Pecopteris sp., Carboniferous are leaves of true ferns, in fact, a tree fern.

Alethopteris sp., Carboniferous are the leaves of a seed fern.

Annularia sp., Carboniferous are leaves of a huge relative of horsetails.

Cyclopteris sp., Carboniferous are the leaves of a seed fern.

Sphenophyllum sp., Carboniferous are the leaves of a relative of horsetails.

Araucaria-like conifer cone, Jurassic, Argentina. The genus is still around today and it is know as the monkey-puzzle or Norfolk Island Pine.

Elrathia kingii, Cambrian, Wheeler Fm., Utah. A trilobite.

Ammonite, Devonian, Morocco. Although highly reminiscent of modern Nautilus are actually more closely related to octopi.

EXAMINING THE CABINET: CROW'S DOOR

2009-09-13T14:14:00.000-07:00

"(The crow) is a great thief and hoarder of curiosities, hiding in holes, corners and crevices, every loose article he can carry off..." A.B. Strong, M.D. 1853

"He does not confine himself to petty depredations on the pantry or larder; he soars at more magnificent plunder; at spoils that he can neither exhibit nor enjoy; but which, like a miser, he rests satisfied with having the satisfaction of sometimes visiting and contemplating in secret. A piece of money, a teaspoon, or a ring, are always tempting and if not watched, will carry to his favorite hole." George Louis leClerc, count of Buffon

Before I knew that the drawing with the crow was to be a cabinet it was an homage to the collecting instinct of these remarkable birds. For the purposes of stories and drawings it is not a problem if that proclivity might only be a myth. It is a wonderful idea which conjures up all sorts of images and plots. In this case I have stolen many little objects from my own collection and given them to my bird. They are laid out for viewing; they range from bones and fossils to brass objects from India and Africa and contemporary buttons made by Windsor, Ontario artist Susan Gold.

Behind the crow is a yellow background, a color that I have been told will attract bees. This seems to be the case as the insects are there. They have arranged themselves in a regular pattern, like wallpaper.

Surrounding the central picture space are more birds that are common to Michigan. All of the specimens were drawn at the Exhibit Museum of Natural History, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

The drawing is all about collections. The one belonging to the crow, the Michigan birds from a collection at the University, and finally bees and a few other insects drawn from the insect boxes that, to my advantage, remain at home while our son Barrett, the entomologist, is away furthering his education.

When I finished this drawing I had the inspiration for a series of drawings that would be hung together and emulate a cabinet. The second drawing for that group has to do with mammals and will be described in my next post.

The following documents the contents of the Crow's door.

CROW'S COLLECTION:
2 starfish
cast aluminum starfish (from a tic tac toe set)
cast aluminum sand dollar (from the same set)
Ashanti bronze gold weight in the form of an alligator
Brass turtle, scorpion and fly from India
2 buttons made by Susan Gold
3 contemporary glass beads and 2 African trading beads
2 Woodland Indian arrowheads and a drill point
Frosted blue glass canning lid
Granite sample and tile sample from a kitchen renovator
2 pieces of frosted sea glass and 3 smooth glass bits
shell with blue interior
crynoid stem
bird bone and fish bone
fossilized shark's vertebrae
sea anemone spine
2 pieces of Chinese jade

BIRDS:
center
Eastern crow Corvus brachrynchos
Common grackle Quiscalus quiscula
Downy woodpecker Picoides pubescens
clockwise starting at bottom left
Spotted sandpiper Actitis macularia
Oven bird Seiurus aurocapillus
Grey crested flycatcher Empidonax wrightii
Red breasted nuthatch Sitta canadensis
Yellow bellied sapsucker Sphyrapicus varius
Red winged blackbird Agelarius phoeniceus
Hairy woodpecker Picoides villosus
Northern mockingbird Mimus polyglottos
Yellow billed cuckoo Coccyzus americanus
Black bellied plover Pluvialis squatarola

DEFINING THE SPACE

2009-09-06T21:11:00.000-07:00

We are all limited by something, but I am not sure that is always a bad thing. When the options are endless it can be difficult to make a decision. My decisions will be made in a room that is 11'3" x 13', with 5 windows and 2 doorways and a dining room table that will still need to function.

The east wall is the focal point, as it is what you see when you enter the house and are standing in the living room. Presently the first cabinet of curiosities is placed there between 2 windows. Since the drawings are done in watercolor and color pencil and the room can be very bright in winter, I try to keep a drape over the cabinet when we are not at home. I plan to either find or make a covering that will be of interest in itself.

When you enter the room from the kitchen you look south, over the table and out the window toward the street we live on. There is a little space on the walls either side of the windows that can be used but essentially the useful aspect of that side of the room is a bench that was de-accessioned by the Detroit Institute of Arts and wound up at a salvage operation where I found it many years ago. When I bought it it was painted flat black and the underside was thick with chewed and abandoned gum. Underneath the paint was a beautiful piece of walnut. The provenance alone makes this piece of furniture interesting to me. It will serve as a display area for curiosities.

Our china closet is backed up to the west wall. I like the old oak cabinet that is there now and intend to move it, eventually, to my studio when the new piece of furniture I am designing for that space has been built. The 1st cabinet is encyclopedic. This one will have a specific theme: Birds.

The doors to the kitchen are in the middle of the north wall. Bookcases for cookbooks have been on either side. One bookcase has already been removed and the empty space will soon be filled by a new cabinet devoted to the sky. This cabinet will have 2 doors behind which are shelves. It will function as a bookcase but I will be making alternate contents that deal with sky issues. The space that is presently filled by a bookcase will eventually have a new cabinet devoted to fruit. It will be the site of my herbarium.

Much of the room will change but some things will remain as they live up to the high standards I am setting for being curious.

Introduction to my Museum

2009-08-31T20:27:00.000-07:00

I have hit a point in my life where most of the disparate things I do seem to be coming together in one room. Literally.

It began innocently with a set of 14 drawings that were to emulate a cabinet: 2 large drawings on top acting as doors, 8 small drawings underneath looking like pigeonholes and 4 horizontal images pretending to be drawers. I explained to everyone that it was not going to be a real piece of furniture. It was to hang as a cluster on a wall. Then my friend Dennis said "It must be a cabinet". That changed everything. He built the cabinet and I found myself dealing with 3 dimensions. The cabinet had a huge presence and an interior space that needed filling. My collections made their way onto the shelves and into the drawers. Drawings and books were created specifically for inclusion. It is a project that could take the rest of my life to complete.

One thing leads to another. A second "cabinet" was built honoring insects. It is a triptych with 2 doors that open onto a jewel box of 24 drawings of insects. The reverse side, which is often unseen when the work is backed against a wall, is devoted to camouflaged insects. When I had an idea for a third cabinet, storage became an issue.

The first cabinet of curiosities found a home in our dining room. If I were going to continue making furniture it was going to have to go somewhere. Why not replace everything in the dining room except the table? I have room there for 3 more cabinets before I start investigating the living room.

This project grows in my head every day. I have been acquiring handmade, unusual frames and doing drawings to fill them. They are destined for the walls as well as the shelves in the cabinet. I can see new curtains, a tablecloth and drapes for the cabinets when they are not being viewed. What about hanging things from the ceiling? There are books to be made. Certainly there should be an herbarium. There are so many things to learn and do.

All of this is in the tradition of cabinets of curiosities.

I find very appealing the early ideas of collecting a vast range of objects intermingled and displayed together, rather than being segregated into specific categories. The pursuit was private and often very eccentric, combining objects from the natural sciences, exotic artifacts, historical remnants, works of art, and whatever else might be of interest to the collector in his/her pursuit of knowledge.

http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/pozzo/intro.html

Cassiano dal Pozzo, in the 1600's, assembled what he called his "Paper Museum". He commissioned many hundreds of exceptional drawings of natural history subjects that were bound into 23 volumes. When I first heard about this man I felt an immediate connection. I am creating a collection of objects drawn from the Exhibit Museum of Natural History in Ann Arbor and the Cranbrook Institute of Science. This blog is an introduction to my Paper Museum.