Wikimedia Wunderkammer

Not that I need anything to occupy my time, since there seems to be so little of it these days, but I've been meaning to sing the praises of Wikimedia Commons ever since I started using it on a regular basis. Today's post will, I hope, be the first on the many wonders I've encountered there, and perhaps encourage my small coterie of readers to see what the Commons has to offer.

I have to admit that I was a reluctant convert to Wikipedia, because my students insist on using it as their first (and often last) source when conducting research. It's not that I have anything against Wikipedia itself, but it's an encyclopedia--a terrific instrument for school-age kids, but limited in actual content (my rule is: use primary sources first, whenever possible). But Wikipedia also lists multitudes of auxiliary sources, both in print and online, that can lead a student in productive directions, so although I still won't let them include it in a bibliography, I don't mind their consulting it for further information.

Yesterday, while engaging in one of my seemingly random web searches--this one on the nineteenth-century evolutionary biologist and artist, Ernst Haeckel--I discovered that the Commons contains the plates from the 1904 edition of his Kunstformen der Natur (Artforms of nature). The Wikipedia article on Haeckel had linked this collection, as well as some other really interesting web pages devoted to his work. Beloved Spouse was busy using a drum sander in our soon-to-be study, so I had time on my hands and went exploring.

In addition to an animated film about Haeckel's work, called Proteus, which I'll be ordering for our college library, the Wikipedia "external links" list included one to some gorgeous alpha channel transparencies of images from Kunstformen, by media artist Scott Draves, who links an online copy of the book, in German, with an index to all of the plates and a large-format .pdf version.

Inspired by what happened yesterday, today I went to the Commons home page and clicked on "Nature: Animalia" and then on "Mollusca: Gastropoda" and then on "Fossil Gastropods." Since I'm interested in natural forms and human design motifs, I figured that this would be a good place to look for spiral forms in nature for use in a new lecture in History of Art and Design I. Sure enough, there were scads of lovely photos--all available as public domain images or contributed under sharing licenses by a variety of good-hearted folk who, like me, might think that "intellectual" and "property" are mutually problematic ideas. I love the idea of the Creative Commons licenses, under one of which I published More News From Nowhere; I figure that anybody who might be even remotely interested in it shouldn't have to pay for it, especially given the novel's philosophical focus. Not that I don't think people should be paid for their work, but when ideas are floating around all over the place it seems absurd to start copyrighting and patenting stuff that's been out there for eons.

At any rate, I recommend meandering through the Wikimedia Commons at your leisure. I have found lovely photos to use on my blogs, such as those featured in today's post, and am happy to attribute them whenever possible. I'll probably start uploading some of my stuff, rather than trying to make a buck out of a lucky shot by putting it up on a stock photo sharing company site (even though it's the next best thing to the Commons, and one of my favorite former students works for one such outfit--so here's a plug, Lesa: istockphoto.com).

But now I have to get back to rehabbing our old house, and the business of sanding corners on my hands and knees. It's a lot more fun to go messing about among quaint and/or interesting topics and pictures, though, so I'll undoubtedly be doing so again soon.

Addendum, 24 July 2008: While making my weekly pilgrimage to the "new" section of the Kelley Library yesterday, I noticed--prominently displayed among the "check this out" selections--an absolutely gorgeous volume of Haeckel's work: Visions of Nature: The Art and Science of Ernst Haeckel (Munich: Prestel, 2006). This is a terrific addition to our collection, and one that (once they can get their hands on it) should inspire a whole new generation of students. But I'm not giving it up until after the weekend, when I'll have a chance to drool over the magnificent photos of Haeckel's study and his own private collection of interesting oddities--as well as the wealth of beautifully reproduced prints. Oh, and there's actual information included in here, too!

Photo credits: Ernst Haeckel, Ammonitida (Ammonite), Wikimedia Commons. Thalamophora, from Kunstformen der Natur by Ernst Haeckel, .png file by Scott Draves. Viviparus glacialis; Borehole Rosmalen, Netherlands; Pleistocene: Late Tiglian, taken by Tom Meijer (PaleoMal), Wikimedia Commons.

Esopus, the Magazine

This morning I received an e-mail from a former student, announcing that her first issue of Esopus had arrived, and that she was "smelling it right now." I had introduced my Art and Design Since 1945 class to it last quarter, and they all responded enthusiastically-- and a couple of them subscribed.

It's difficult to describe Esopus, which is published by a non-profit foundation and comes out only twice a year. It's an amazing bargain (well below its actual cost) at $10 US a pop on the newsstand (if you can find it), or $9 each by subscription. The production quality is superb, and the variety of topics covered and materials used provide a visual and tactile experience unlike any other print medium I can think of. On top of that, they commission a music CD based on a particular theme, and some of the tunes are so witty and intelligent that even a cranky old classical and jazz purist like I am can enjoy them.

The "smelling" part comes from the fact that the papers and inks used for the art works and articles evoke an almost pheromonic response from lovers of paper. I wouldn't exactly call the experience erotic, but it's certainly enticing.

This issue contains a couple of things that have stirred the little section of my brain devoted to wonder: a segment called "Drawing Comparisons," which includes facsimiles of sketches by former MoMA director, René D'Harnoncourt, comparing art works from various island cultures in Melanesia. The drawings are part of regular file-folder feature drawn from the museum's archives; in the past these have included the evolution of a flow-chart describing the influence of Cubism, and sketches by Lewis Mumford of an exhibit that was never mounted. Both Cubism and Mumford are among my abiding interests.

Some of what's included is surprisingly intimate, like the notes to his children by Robert Guest, an exhibition designer. Guest has written lunch-box notes to his kids for many years, and his wife has retrieved thousands of them (an artful arrangement of these notes graces the issue's cover). A few of them are included as "Daily Reminders." One feels privileged to be allowed to read them, even though they're fairly simple: "Take time to relax and think about life." They're illustrated with sweet drawings, and make me wish I'd done this with my children.

The most amazing section this time is well within the realm of the traditional Wunderkammer: Doug McNamara's "Biodiversions," a series (mostly on vellum) of scientific illustrations of organisms that don't actually exist. The drawings are astonishing, amusing, delicate, beautiful, fanciful, and poetic all at the same time. And the paper makes you want to fondle it. I'm not kidding.

The CD will accompany me down the road to work tomorrow. This one's called "Good News," and was inspired by a quotation from Confucius: "The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large." One of the songs celebrates the tax rebate--which hasn't shown up in my bank account yet, but a part of it will go to support the Esopus Foundation because I get such sheer pleasure from what it brings me--even if it is only twice a year.

Now I'll be looking forward to the newest issue of the quarterly Cabinet Magazine, named after cabinets of wonder, and usually filled with provocative and beautifully written and illustrated stuff on a particular theme (bones, mountains, insects, electricity). It's due any day now.

Photo credit: since this post is almost an ad for the magazine, I hope it's ok to use the cover photo. I know I should ask, but I'm shy.

Constructing the Cabinet

The idea for this blog actually came to me in a dream. I was contemplating the fact that many of the topics I wanted to consider on the Farm had nothing really to do with utopia or William Morris--as much as both occupy my intellectual life. I realized that it might be a good idea to find somewhere else to build a sort of salon: a place to explore and discuss ideas, events, or objects not necessarily related to anything else, or even to one another.

I'm fond of telling my students that I've never been bored in my life. But the reason I've never been bored is that I've been introduced to so many different ideas, places, ways of life, and things worth paying attention to that I've never had time to be bored. There's almost always something interesting going on, and by far the largest repository of wonder is the natural world.

Hence this new blog. I've had so much fun on the Farm, that another, supplementary venue seems only natural. Here there be dragons: and museums and collections and assemblages and all manner of gatherings. It took me a while to come up with a title, because all my initial choices were already in use (I guess I'm not quite as original a thinker as I fancy myself to be). But this is a Wunderkammer of sorts, and so I thought it fitting that I join the ranks of my favorite bloggers with my own contributions to the genre, stamping it with my own "name."

My father discovered many years ago, and much to the family's amusement, that our surname had once been spelled "Ohlemeyer," which, in German, means "Owl Farmer." I immediately adopted it for an avatar, and have gleefully used it ever since for my course pages, and now the two blogs. The fact that owls catch and digest small critters and then spit them out in the form of fuzzy pellets filled with tiny bones is strangely apt. Feel free to think of this blog as being a series of fuzzy pellets filled with tiny gems of interesting (I hope) materials.

North Texas, where I live, is home to large numbers of raptors, including owls. In fact, a murder of barred owls (I know, crows come in "murders," but I couldn't resist) lives in our neighborhood, and during the spring we are regaled most nights by the hoots and screeches of sex-crazed males vying for territory. At times, one can walk out the back door at dusk and be swooped over by large, heavy birds who've been roosting on the house-eaves. One evening earlier this year, we listened as our dog Arlo, a basset-border collie mix, accomplished an astoundingly accurate imitation of the barred owl who sat twenty feet above him, hooting away in a pecan tree.

So it does seem appropriate to use this blog as a way of focusing on the idea of collection, of hunting and gathering (for which we are clearly genetically programmed, although not always in a productive way), and the human tendency to conduct archaeological explorations of everything from lost civilizations to ideas. The possibilities at this point seem endless.

Photo credit: A Barred Owl Rescued after an Accident, T. J. Peterson, Wikimedia Commons.