ART & ZOOLOGY / ZOOLOGY & ART
Fall 2019
ART 327: ART AND ZOOLOGY
Dr. Kelly Wacker wackerka@montevallo.edu
BIO 475: ZOOLOGY AND ART
Dr. Jill Wicknick wicknickja@montevallo.edu
For information about course requirements, please contact the appropriate instructor.
Click Here for prerequisite information for ART 327
Renowned Harvard biologist and Alabama native E.O. Wilson is concerned about the decline of insect population sizes in Alabama.1 Exacerbating his concern is a lack of educated biologists to study the declines, as we have experienced a discipline shift away from whole-organism biology, which includes training field biologists, and toward lab science with its emphasis on genetics, molecular, and cellular biology. To alleviate the problem created by a lack of field biology data, Wilson encourages citizens interested in the natural world to act as citizen scientists, photographing and reporting insects and other species on internet sites developed by scientists for this purpose. These websites allow scientists access to field data that they would not otherwise be able to collect. This effort is resulting in huge databases of urgently needed information about shifts in species distributions and population demographics in our rapidly changing world.
Artists have historically acted as observers of nature. As their own interest in the organisms they illustrate grows, many have self-educated to become knowledgeable in identification. Artists can act effectively as citizen scientists, and art students, as citizens and as artists, would benefit from training in biological identification and taxonomy.
Biologists can become adept at species identification but must learn to become good observers to do so. Observation skills can be enhanced and refined through the study of art and practice of drawing, thus biology students would benefit as scientists from learning foundational drawing techniques. Additionally, the large majority of biology majors do not become field biologists, but can still contribute to biological knowledge as citizen scientists throughout their lives as they cultivate their interest in the natural world.
Dr. Wacker and Dr. Wicknick will teach intersecting courses in Fall 2019 that unite art and biology while addressing the need for citizen scientists. Our interdisciplinary courses will focus on Alabama animal species to merge art history and observational drawing practice with zoological identification, taxonomy, and natural history. We intend to discuss the history of biologists as artists and artists as naturalists, the divergence of these disciplines that occurred in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century, and the re-emergent trend of art-science partnerships.
We aim to create a bridge between our disciplines and foster interdisciplinary collaboration among the students in the course. Biology students will be introduced to basic drawing techniques which they will use to enhance their identification skills and art students will be introduced to zoological techniques which will enhance their attention to detail when illustrating specimens and living organisms. All students will be introduced to citizen scientist projects and will contribute to them during the course.
In addition to study of the history of artist-naturalists and scientist-artists, students will do a series of projects in which art and biology students will be paired to create a work of art that emphasizes Alabama zoology. Students will bring their own strengths to these projects while learning new skills in another discipline from each other in the process. The biology students will become better at recording observations visually and the art students will become better naturalists; both will refine skills in observation, critical thinking, and communication. The students themselves will teach one another and learn from one another within the context of the larger course instruction.
Field trips to local art museums/art collections and to natural terrestrial and freshwater habitat throughout the semester are anticipated. A 2-day trip to Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL) is planned for early October. This trip will include trawl-netting for specimens in the Mobile Bay and the Gulf of Mexico on a DISL research vessel, along with a Sea Lab class in the salt marsh. The DISL trip will introduce students to Alabama marine life, allowing us to complete the presentation of the three basic habitat types in the state.
An exhibition showcasing the course will be designed, curated, and installed by students at the end of the semester. The exhibition will be held in Carmichael Library and then will travel to Harmon Hall and Bloch Hall.
1 Hayden Holmes, “Don’t Swat! Alabama’s Bugs May Be Disappearing,” Public Radio WBHM, Birmingham, AL: WBHM, August 21, 2018. https://news.wbhm.org/feature/2018/dont-swat-alabamas-bugs-may-disappearing/
Art and Natural History 