Surveyors7
This edition of linocuts is inspired by a 1918 photo of an all female survey crew in the American west (as part of the Minidoka Project in Idaho). Each print is burnished by hand on delicate Japanese kozo (or mulberry) paper, 14" by 11" (35.6 cm by 28 cm) and embellished with actual scientific field maps from western North America. These hard-working women would have produced the sorts of data fundamental to producing the maps like these geological, topographic and seismicity (or earthquake) maps. The history of science is not only a series of exploits of well-known genius experimentalists, famous for their eureka moments; nor is it simply a tale of paradigm shifts brought about by wiser theorists who suddenly saw the need to shift the entire underpinnings of a given field of science. The history of science is also a tale of hard work by countless unknowns; an all-female survey crew from the early twentieth century seem especially unknown. We have no record of their names and they do not fit our preconceived notions of who explored and mapped the west, or who did fundamental scientific grunt work.
The series came out of a custom order. The photo has been an inspiration for part of Mapping Meaning (www.mappingmeaning.org) a SciArt collaboration of artists, scientists and scholars to explore "questions of social, mental, and environmental ecology". I proposed portraying these women and incorporating vintage geological, topographic and seismicity maps of the western North America, so that each print would be unique. All of the vintage maps came from the Geological Survey of Canada and were actually used in the field - as a tip of the hat to these women.
Surveyors7
This edition of linocuts is inspired by a 1918 photo of an all female survey crew in the American west (as part of the Minidoka Project in Idaho). Each print is burnished by hand on delicate Japanese kozo (or mulberry) paper, 14" by 11" (35.6 cm by 28 cm) and embellished with actual scientific field maps from western North America. These hard-working women would have produced the sorts of data fundamental to producing the maps like these geological, topographic and seismicity (or earthquake) maps. The history of science is not only a series of exploits of well-known genius experimentalists, famous for their eureka moments; nor is it simply a tale of paradigm shifts brought about by wiser theorists who suddenly saw the need to shift the entire underpinnings of a given field of science. The history of science is also a tale of hard work by countless unknowns; an all-female survey crew from the early twentieth century seem especially unknown. We have no record of their names and they do not fit our preconceived notions of who explored and mapped the west, or who did fundamental scientific grunt work.
The series came out of a custom order. The photo has been an inspiration for part of Mapping Meaning (www.mappingmeaning.org) a SciArt collaboration of artists, scientists and scholars to explore "questions of social, mental, and environmental ecology". I proposed portraying these women and incorporating vintage geological, topographic and seismicity maps of the western North America, so that each print would be unique. All of the vintage maps came from the Geological Survey of Canada and were actually used in the field - as a tip of the hat to these women.