The loss of land due to urban development has detrimental effects on the natural world. It has resulted in biodiversity loss, which continuously threatens the survival of wildlife.
Placing an importance on preserving natural ecosystems will minimize the loss of magical plants like the T. americana.
The original Indiana Jones lived 300 years ago and took the form of an incredible German artist, Maria Sibylla Merian. Her life is fascinating and a rebel even by today's standards. Her body of work is immense, engaging and beautiful.
Several years ago, I attended a talk by William Dalrymple and discovered the remarkable works of Indian naturalist painters from the East India Company. I felt an immediate kinsmenship with these South Asian artists who lived over 200 years ago. They had names that were familiar to me… Ram Das, Manu Lall (Manu was also my grandfather’s name) and Shaikh Zain Ud-Din.
This episode of The Indian Edit goes into great detail of two Indian natural history paintings acquired by Museum of Fine Arts in Boston: the Malabar Giant Squirrel and the Crimson Horned Pheasant along with the historical context in which these paintings were created (late 1700’s).
For anyone interested in starting the practice of nature journaling, the best resources that I have found (and keep coming back to) are by John Muir Laws.
Cobalt violet is a shimmery yet soft lilac purple. It is one of my favorite colors, PV14 CV cannot be mixed from any primary colors and it is one of the few (maybe only) colors that I use straight out the tube in its pure form. I serendipitously discovered that this color shows up in many of Claude Monet’s iconic works! Painting where I have spent much time studying his use of his colors. Cobalt violet was a game changer when it was first introduced in the 19th century.
Seeds are these incredible tiny packages that sustain the world; there is beauty and brilliance in their structures while so many wonders and mysteries hidden inside. This episode from In Defense of Plants discusses the fascinating role of mRNA and germination while asking questions that I never really thought about before.
In a simplified and elegant manner, this video explains how dandelion seeds travel. The structure of the “seed fluff” or pappus allows it to create a vortex when the air moves through it.
For those who would like to get into the weeds of it…
A seed bank is a place where seeds are stored. It is a hopeful insurance for the future, to lessen the impact of biodiversity loss by maintaining genetic diversity of these valuable seeds.
Something I learned when I was reading about seeds is that seeds used for crops are “owned” by a handful of large corporations.
