Guild of Natural Science Illustrators

Earlier on in the second Science and Art Day on Wednesday, I heard back from someone at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, the organization that Bob recommended to me. The monthly meeting was that night and I had to make a quick decision whether I was going to leave my drawing class early to get there or not. Thankfully, my instructor also felt that it would be a great networking opportunity for me and allowed me to go, and off I went! Rolling hills of Piedmont in the morning, concrete jungle of DC in the evening.

Overview of the Organization and Meeting Purpose
The Guild of Natural Science Illustrators is a group of scientific illustrators with the mission to ". . . meet, share ideas, and spread the knowledge of visual science techniques" according to their website. There are a number of branches around the nation including DC and NYC chapters. They have a meeting every one to two months and most of the time is used to listen to guest speakers and talk among other members. It's a wonderful way for people in the field to connect and network by sharing ideas and projects.

The meeting I attended was titled "Archiving Original Scientific Art at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History". There were fiver speakers from different departments within the NMNH, each discussing how they manage their art archives both electronically and physically. Each department organizes collections a bit differently and had solutions to issues that people in other departments seemed to be having. Archiving is currently a significant topic at the NMNH; so significant that even the director, Kirk Johnson, was there for the meeting! He discussed how glad he was to see people collaborating, because organizing archives is of paramount importance as the museum moves into an increasingly digital age. How do we make thousands of antique prints available to the public online? How do we create archives that will stand the test of time?

What is Archiving Exactly?
According to one of the speakers, Alice Tangerini, Scientific Illustrator in the Department of Botany at NMNH, archiving is the system of organizing records and database with archival material (material that will last the test of time such as certain kinds of inks, papers, tape, etc.). Other speakers included Lisa Palmer, Collections Manager Specialist in the Department of Fishes, Molly Kelly Ryan, Scientific Illustrator in the Department of Invertebrate Zoology (retired), and Mary Parrish, Scientific Illustrator in the Department of Paleobiology.

It seemed that most of the speakers were scientific illustrators for their departments and just so happened to pick up the task of archiving on the side. There isn't one person hired specifically for working on arching material that needs organizing. These illustrators archive because they feel it is important for scientific study but also because there are a number of beautiful pieces of work dating back to the 1800s and 1900s that need to be preserved.

After the meeting, there were a number of beautiful original artworks laying out, some dating back to early discoveries in the 1800s. It was a treat to be able to study these pieces so close up and notice the fine detailing. Some of the species drawn or painted were done before cameras were even widely used!

Illustrators looking through artworks on display after the meeting

Mary Eaton's cactus watercolors

Drawing dating back to the 1800s of a Triceratops serratus from one of the earliest discoveries of the bones

Watercolor of a trout species by Charles Bradford Hudson in 1904

Illustration of Platycarpha glomerata, Asteraceae, by Alice Tangerini in 2010. I like how you can see her process between these two: the first sketches, right, cut out and arranged on paper and the final print, to the left

Advice from Illustrator Mary Parrish
After the speaker talks, I met the illustrator Mary Parrish from the Paleobiology department. Mary studied fine art in school but had always been interested in scientific illustration, specifically working at the Smithsonian. She began working at the Smithsonian as something very unrelated to art (a typist I believe) and did freelance work on the side. She worked her way into becoming an illustrator there, which she does now as well as archiving.

Looking up her website, I found some advice from her on how to become a scientific illustrator:
1. Study other illustrations and draw from life in the field often 2. Master a few mediums
3. Work on drawing accurately
4. Learn the trade of scientific illustration
5. Learn how to prepare scientific graphic materials and master it
6. Know how to print and reproduce work
7. Keep a portfolio
8. Join professional organizations (like GNSI)
9. Take and teach classes

Although their next meeting is on May 18th, the night before I leave to move into my place in NY, I think it will be a very important networking opportunity for me to meet everyone again. I think I will be more memorable to people if they see and talk to me twice, but also the wealth of information I have learned from one meeting is so valuable. In the words of Jocelyn Slayden, "The world is run by those who show up"!