Scientist Plunges into Art

Sounds wonderful doesn’t it? If you look at my flickr site,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22887580@N06/sets/72157613714746682/

you can see it’s been more than a year since I’ve been practicing, struggling, and now and then succeeding with clay.

I’m starting this account because yesterday I got written approval of my sabbatical for academic year 2012-2013 and I want to keep track of my activities, my work, my schemes, and and my feelings around art—something I’ve wanted to pursue full time for a long long time.

This sabbatical was literally a dream deferred. It’s a big deal to me that I got sabbatical because three years ago when I applied I was turned down. It’s ironic because at the time I had a Fullbright in hand to go teach science in Thailand, but my dean wouldn’t let me go. It was the second sabbatical for me, and the results of the first sabbatical, during which I had grants from the National Science Foundation and National Geographic, were impressive. Over a dozen scientific articles written and published, many new species discovered and named, and a solid body of work behind and in front of me. You may be able to access some of my work through this link:

http://www.amjbot.org/content/88/5/788.full.pdf

If you were able to access my article in the American Journal of Botany you can see I was preoccupied with the development of form in nature, something that still makes me very excited. So perhaps it’s no wonder that form-making through ceramic sculpture is what I’m doing for my sabbatical.

So in these pages I’ll be sharing my ideas about form, form-making, sculpture, nature, and whatever else gets me going. There’s lots more to write but I’ll leave off for this morning and start up later for more.