Un/Natural Disasters

This edition of Booklights honors Mitchell College’s commemoration of Earth Day in this 75^th anniversary year of the institution’s founding, showcasing titles that challenge us to reflect on the impact of human activity on the Earth and its climate.  These and additional titles are on display in the Library.

On April 22, 2013, the Library will host a number of Earth Day events following outdoor opening ceremonies centered on the preservation of Mitchell Woods and Mitchell Beach.  View full press release.

Library programming will include student presentations and poster sessions, the dedication of an art work created for the Library by artist Diane Barcelo, and the opening of the Library’s Earth Day exhibit, Un/Natural Disasters, curated by Nadesha Mijoba of the Provenance Center in New London, CT.

 

Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art

Recommended by Stephanie Johnson

By Lewis Hyde

Format: print

Author’s Website

Read Chapter 1 from nytimes.com

TED Blog entry and related TED Talk on Trickster

Publisher Description
In Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde brings to life the playful and disruptive side of human imagination as it is embodied in trickster mythology. He first visits the old stories—Hermes in Greece, Eshu in West Africa, Krishna in India, Coyote in North America, among others—and then holds them up against the lives and work of more recent creators… Read more…

 

Stickwork

By Patrick Dougherty

Format: print

View in the Library Catalog

Preview the Book at Amazon.com

Building with Sticks and Stones (The New York Times)

Big Sticks, Speaking Softly (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Artist Bio (from Sculptor Website)
Combining his carpentry skills with his love of nature, Patrick Dougherty began to learn about primitive techniques of building and to experiment with tree saplings as construction material. Beginning about 1980 with small works, fashioned in his backyard, he quickly moved from single pieces on conventional pedestals to monumental site-specific installations that require sticks by the truckload. To date he has built over two hundred such massive sculptures all over the world. Read more…

 

Artscience: Creativity in the Post-Google Generation

By David Edwards

Format: print

View in the Library Catalog

Artscience Labs Homepage

Author’s Website

Le Laboratoire Interview on NPR’s Weekend Edition

Publisher’s Description
Scientists are famous for believing in the proven and peer-accepted, the very ground that pioneering artists often subvert; they recognize correct and incorrect where artists see only true and false. And yet in some individuals, crossover learning provides a remarkable kind of catalyst to innovation that sparks the passion, curiosity, and freedom to pursue–and to realize–challenging ideas in culture, industry, society, and research. This book is an attempt to show how innovation in the “post-Google generation” is often catalyzed by those who cross a conventional line so firmly drawn between the arts and the sciences. Read more…

 

Art Forms in Nature: The Prints of Ernst Haeckel

By Ernst Haeckel

Format: print

View in the Library Catalog

Brief Author Bio

New York Times Interview with Eddie Borgo about the artist and book

Publisher’s Description
The geometric shapes and natural forms, captured with exceptional precision in Ernst Haeckel’s prints, continue to influence artists and designers to this day. This attractive volume highlights the research and findings of this outstanding natural scientist (1834–1919). Powerful modern microscopes have confirmed the accuracy of Haeckel’s prints which, even in their day, rightly became world famous. Read more…

 

Passage

By Andy Goldsworthy

Format: print

View in the Library Catalog

Andy Goldsworthy Digital Catalog

Time Magazine Interview with the Artist

Publisher’s Description
Andy Goldsworthy’s Passage focuses on the journeys that people, rivers, landscapes, and even stones take through space and time…this beautiful book is an eloquent testament to Goldsworthy’s determination to deepen his understanding of the world around him, and his relationship with it, through his art. Read more…

More on Andy Goldsworthy in the Library’s Collection:

The Art of Andy Goldsworthy: Complete Works / William Malpas

Rivers and Tides: Working with Time (DVD)

 

Visualizations: The Nature Book of Art and Science

By Martin Kemp

Format: print

View in the Library Catalog

Author’s Website

The Da Vinci Detective (includes an interview with Martin Kemp)

Description (from Amazon.com)
Martin Kemp’s provocative essays on the interplay between art and science have been entertaining readers of Nature, the world’s leading journal for the announcement of scientific discoveries, since 1997. These short, illustrated, highly regarded essays generally focus on one visual image from art or science and provide an evocative and erudite investigation into shared motifs in the two disciplines. Gathered together here with a delightfully rich introduction by the author, the essays take our understanding to an exciting new level as they transgress the traditional boundaries between art and science.
Read more…

Also in the Mitchell College Library:

Seen/unseen : art, science, and intuition from Leonardo to the Hubble telescope by Martin Kemp

 

Nature’s Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts

A trilogy composed of Shapes, Flow, and Branches

By Philip Ball

Format: print

View in the Library Catalog

Author’s Website

The Paisley Leopard: a book review in American Scientist

Publisher’s Description
Patterns are everywhere in nature – in the ranks of clouds in the sky, the stripes of an angelfish, the arrangement of petals in flowers. Where does this order and regularity come from? It creates itself. The patterns we see come from self-organization. Whether living or non-living, scientists have found that there is a pattern-forming tendency inherent in the basic structure and processes of nature, so that from a few simple themes, and the repetition of simple rules, endless beautiful variations can arise. Part of a trilogy of books exploring the science of patterns in nature, acclaimed science writer Philip Ball here looks at how shapes form. Read more…