Small World - wonder. wander. respect. protect.
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Emma Eckert
Small World
2021
Pencil and watercolor on paper; digital prints, vintage corners
This map is one of 30 maps created by visual, literary and performing artists who reside in the Greater Albuquerque area - Commissioned by the City of Albuquerque Public Art Program.
Explore further at Compass Roses: Maps by Artists
The summer of 2020, we stayed home. Our home was our sanctuary, our “Fortress of Solitude”, together – my husband (when he wasn’t away at work), our two sons, and myself. We used this time to tend to our garden every day. We documented each insect we came across, using digital images.
The map provided a nice place to consolidate all that information. From the insects, we moved on to the plants upon which the insects were found – to the connections between fauna and flora. Some of the plants were bustling metropolises, appealing to many different species; other plants were specific to only one or two visitors.
In identifying the types of insects we’d come across, our knowledge of taxonomic nomenclature grew, and from the classifications and facts gleaned, a phylogenic family album was born to accompany the map.
My hope is that this project will inspire further explorations and encourage a sense of wonder and connection to our shared lands and the natural world.
Small World
2021
Pencil and watercolor on paper; digital prints, vintage corners
This map is one of 30 maps created by visual, literary and performing artists who reside in the Greater Albuquerque area - Commissioned by the City of Albuquerque Public Art Program.
Explore further at Compass Roses: Maps by Artists
The summer of 2020, we stayed home. Our home was our sanctuary, our “Fortress of Solitude”, together – my husband (when he wasn’t away at work), our two sons, and myself. We used this time to tend to our garden every day. We documented each insect we came across, using digital images.
The map provided a nice place to consolidate all that information. From the insects, we moved on to the plants upon which the insects were found – to the connections between fauna and flora. Some of the plants were bustling metropolises, appealing to many different species; other plants were specific to only one or two visitors.
In identifying the types of insects we’d come across, our knowledge of taxonomic nomenclature grew, and from the classifications and facts gleaned, a phylogenic family album was born to accompany the map.
My hope is that this project will inspire further explorations and encourage a sense of wonder and connection to our shared lands and the natural world.
Click below to download and print out your own copy of the Small World map
| emma_eckert_compass_roses_map_accessible.pdf |
Links to exhibition reviews
From MuseumZero.Art
Watch KRQE's quick tour
View this and other NM events on ExpoArtist.org
Land Acknowledgement
This project has brought together a diversity of artists and artistic styles to demonstrate the multiplicity of voices and stories that are present within a community, but ultimately this is a project about place. This particular expression of the project represents a place that many recognize today as Albuquerque, New Mexico. Yet, this place has an identity that stretches far beyond this familiar name, and we recognize the importance of honoring and recognizing the land and the people who have cared for it for so many generations.
This is Tiwa land that continues to be stewarded by those that maintain vital ancestral connections to this place. This community (Albuquerque) is nestled between the surrounding Pueblos of Sandia, Isleta, Laguna and Santa Ana. Further beyond this community, you will find that this place (New Mexico) encompasses the landscapes of 19 different Pueblos, the Jicarilla, Mescalero, and Fort Sill Apache reservations, as well as Diné land (Navajo Nation).
One of the aims of this project is to demonstrate that maps are neither perfect nor unbiased. While map-making has been practiced by many Indigenous communities for years long before colonization, the maps that are widely presented in schools, museums, media, etc. often perpetuate a colonial interpretation of place. Indigenous place names, landmarks, boundaries or lack thereof have been overwritten by the maps that many of us take for granted on a daily basis. This erasure contributes to the on-going colonization of place and perpetuates harm against Indigenous peoples.
As you engage with this project, we ask that you join us in challenging that erasure, by honoring the ancestors of this place, paying respect to all of the Indigenous people who are very much still here, and recognizing that Indigenous people will still be here in the future stewarding the land, maintaining their cultures, and thriving.
We also request that you take this action beyond the scope of this project and think about some ways that you as an individual can work to address and dismantle these legacies of settler colonialism. Please take some time to learn about the communities that call the land you occupy home and think about tangible ways to support and celebrate those communities, not just today, but every day. One great place to start learning about the people who call this place home is the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. You can also consider donating to an Indigenous organization in your community. If you would like to support an organization that is based in Albuquerque, we suggest the following:
This statement was created by Compass Roses artists and organizers who were guided in conversation and process by Ms. Felicia Garcia. We are grateful to Ms. Garcia for working with us and developing our land acknowledgement. You can learn more about her work and the process she uses here.
This is Tiwa land that continues to be stewarded by those that maintain vital ancestral connections to this place. This community (Albuquerque) is nestled between the surrounding Pueblos of Sandia, Isleta, Laguna and Santa Ana. Further beyond this community, you will find that this place (New Mexico) encompasses the landscapes of 19 different Pueblos, the Jicarilla, Mescalero, and Fort Sill Apache reservations, as well as Diné land (Navajo Nation).
One of the aims of this project is to demonstrate that maps are neither perfect nor unbiased. While map-making has been practiced by many Indigenous communities for years long before colonization, the maps that are widely presented in schools, museums, media, etc. often perpetuate a colonial interpretation of place. Indigenous place names, landmarks, boundaries or lack thereof have been overwritten by the maps that many of us take for granted on a daily basis. This erasure contributes to the on-going colonization of place and perpetuates harm against Indigenous peoples.
As you engage with this project, we ask that you join us in challenging that erasure, by honoring the ancestors of this place, paying respect to all of the Indigenous people who are very much still here, and recognizing that Indigenous people will still be here in the future stewarding the land, maintaining their cultures, and thriving.
We also request that you take this action beyond the scope of this project and think about some ways that you as an individual can work to address and dismantle these legacies of settler colonialism. Please take some time to learn about the communities that call the land you occupy home and think about tangible ways to support and celebrate those communities, not just today, but every day. One great place to start learning about the people who call this place home is the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. You can also consider donating to an Indigenous organization in your community. If you would like to support an organization that is based in Albuquerque, we suggest the following:
- Indigenous Women Rising
- Indigenous Mutual Aid
- The Red Nation
- Albuquerque Indian Center
- Pueblo Action Alliance
- First Nations Community HealthSource
- Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women
- Native American Community Academy
- Indian Pueblo Cultural Center
- Native Community Health Network
This statement was created by Compass Roses artists and organizers who were guided in conversation and process by Ms. Felicia Garcia. We are grateful to Ms. Garcia for working with us and developing our land acknowledgement. You can learn more about her work and the process she uses here.
Phylogenic Family photo Album - map accompaniment
The map project accessed hundreds of photos that we took to document and identify the different insect species visiting our home during the summer of 2020. With those images I created a Family album, filled with names, interesting facts, and artwork.
In the slideshow below, you can view the individual images from the album.
Below the slideshow, you can download the PDF file to view and print out your own copy of the Family album.
In the slideshow below, you can view the individual images from the album.
Below the slideshow, you can download the PDF file to view and print out your own copy of the Family album.
Click below to download your own copy of the Insect Family Album - Small World map accompaniment
| insect_family_album_-_small_world_map_accompaniment_sm_accessible.pdf |
This project grew into something quite larger than I had initially anticipated. I am excited to see it grow in the years to come. I hope it inspires you to do some exploration in your own small worlds. Please share any projects you are making/have made with me - click here to contact Emma.
Below you will find the full text I've written to go along with our explorations for this project. The written portion is full of small details and meant to be explored further through the many links contained within.
Below you will find the full text I've written to go along with our explorations for this project. The written portion is full of small details and meant to be explored further through the many links contained within.
Richard Louv, in Last Child in the Woods, writes of an old native saying: “It’s better to know one mountain than to climb many.” In this case, my well-known mountain is my home and surrounding land, a city plot less than two-tenths of an acre, yet full of mystery and tiny, unexplored worlds. When I moved in to this place with my husband ten years ago, we were greeted with a handwritten card from the children of the previous owners – the only others to live in this house. Juan and Juanita bought the house when it was built in 1954. They raised their three children there, and all but one of the family members was deaf. Contrary to the inspector’s decree that our doorbell did not work, instead it was hooked up to a set of lights that would flash when the doorbell was pressed. We kept the lights, and to this day, my keen eyesight (I thought, anyway) still very rarely picks up on the flashing of the lights. My hearing mutes my other senses.
We moved in during the month of March, when the dormant yard was just beginning to reawaken. For the first few years, we watered and tended the grounds, just seeing what was already there and identifying the new plants that would spring up, and finding some surprises in the animal kingdom, as well. A few box turtles crept up from their winter slumber to stroll around the back yard, and we named the two large goldfish in the pond Juan and Juanita. Sometime around the third or fourth spring, we decided we’d like to plant an edible landscape so any new plant additions would need to serve that purpose (though upon one spontaneous plant buying spree I was lamenting the restrictions as I eyed some showy bulbs, and a kind woman approached me and said something about loving her garden because it feeds her soul, and from then on it was fully acceptable to plant something of which the ‘only’ sustenance it provides is food for the soul). Over the years we became quite proficient at identifying all of the ‘weeds’ that would also come up in the yard, and I was surprised at first to learn that many of the volunteers that readily sprouted up in the yard were either edible or useful medicinal plants, and so they, too, became part of the seasonal march of growth. Along with the growing jungle in our yard, our family grew, too, and two sweet boys arrived earthside on summer days, five years apart. As they’ve grown, so has their knowledge of the plants and other inhabitants of our yard. We frequent the outside in just about any weather, almost every day of the year, building small creations and tending to the plants.
Most years we would purchase new plants to add to our collection, however one year we didn’t buy any new plants. Twenty-nineteen was a year where we made do with what we had at home. In lieu of new, we re-homed several volunteer trees, either to new locations within our yard, or as gifts to our family and neighbors. We dug up dozens of mulberries, a few pink silk saplings, and a couple desert bird of paradise bushes and rearranged or gifted them all to new homes. Making do with what we had was good practice for the year to come.
In spring of twenty-twenty, just as my older son was going on spring break, we prepared ourselves for a two-week stay at home. I usually would shop for a month’s worth of food, and we had plenty of dried foods to last even longer, so two weeks of supplies was not an unusual shopping trip for me. I remember the novelty, or embarrassment, of wearing my mask to the grocery store for the first time. Those two weeks stretched into months and months, and not wearing a mask became more of a discomfort. In the past year, we have, primarily, stayed home. There have been a few trips out in the car, which the boys now view as a wonderful adventure. We’ve gone hiking, or more recently, we went to some outdoor nurseries to search for some additions to our grounds. We planted some token memorials, for those we lost this past year. Over the years, so many memories have been buried in the ground along with new plants. Our yard is full of ghosts, living amongst the roots, intertwined with so many others who have gone before us. And though I cannot see them, I know they are there, hidden away in the folds of the earth.
I know this is a map about insects… so why am I talking so much about plants? The more time I spend here – in the yard, on this Earth - the more the interconnections of nature become apparent, as well as bring out more questions and mystery. The first thing I had to decide upon when creating my map (well, the second thing, after what I wanted my map to feature) was the scale. Because of the fractal nature of cartography, the scale can be immense or minute, and, in theory, you can always move infinitely farther in either direction. With a scale large enough, my map could encompass all of the other maps made in Albuquerque – indeed, all of the other maps of the world, and even out into the farthest reaches of space. Likewise, within any given space, there are tiny worlds to be explored, further and further. There are eddies and surprising twists and turns that are taken when exploring the beautiful complexities when one grows smaller and smaller (or larger and larger), and yet there is even more detail to behold. It is simultaneously mind-boggling and enlightening. The details that emerge along the perceived boundaries can be the most interesting and intricate. If you look closely enough at a tree, all the way out to the tips of its branches or roots, the boundaries between the tree and the surroundings become ever more blurred and complex. The surface of the leaves are exchanging gasses; the roots are taking in moisture and nutrients. The air, water, nutrients – they enter the tree. They become part of the tree, so where do you say the tree ends and the ‘not-tree’ begins?
The insects visiting or living in our yard are there primarily because of the plants, and the plants are there because of the insects, in most cases. The vast majority of our contemporary plant species are pollinated by insects or other animals. For this reason, it felt strange to have an empty space for my map, a rectangle populated by little blips showing where the insects were relative to… well, relative to what, exactly? I looked back over the insect images taken over the summer documenting all the bugs we could locate while tending to the garden. In looking at the hundreds of photos I realized that I relied on the background for the location of the insect. The stationary plant or wall or pathway – those were the guiding features for locating a mobile target at that point in time. Of course, because the location points were taken at a very specific point in time, it is unlikely, should I go back to look at that same spot this next summer, that the same insect will be there in that same spot… However, in many instances, the offspring of the same insects will be there. For example, a flame skimmer dragonfly has visited our pond for the last half-decade or so, and considering the lifespan of an adult, it is reasonable to assume that the visitors each year are different individuals, but perhaps are offspring that have hatched from our pond (we routinely find nymphs in the pond, and shed exoskeletons hanging onto the cattails left by the young as they transition to their adult form). The insects form a particular relationship with, sometimes, very specific plants. In creating the data points for my map, it was interesting to see upon which plants certain types of insects were found, or which plants drew the greatest variety of visitors (hollyhock). Two years ago, when my older son was in kindergarten, he made a project exploring what plants in our yard were ‘bee’s favorites’ – most visited by honey bees. (He concluded that the budding apple tree, the creeping myrtle spurge, and dandelions were the bee’s favorites, and the reason for the project was to help people know what types of plants they could grow to help bees.) This project also involved hiding under blankets with a camera and blacklight flashlight to take photos of flowers like bees might see them with their UV light sense. It was fascinating and fun, and I highly encourage any involvement kids want to have playing outside and exploring the natural world. Currently, our classroom is our home, and we quite often have several different outdoor projects running at once.
As our stay-at-home ‘two weeks’ stretched and grew into something much longer, we experienced the ‘smallening’ of our world. Our entire existence, save the strolls in the neighborhood to visit the dogs we’d come to know on our walk to school – when we went to school – or the hikes into the foothills or extinct volcanoes around our fair city, or my solo trips to the grocery store, our entire existence was in and around our home and yard. We began to use what we had rather than unnecessarily venturing out or further taxing the overloaded postal service. Halfway through the summer, I wrote the following words regarding this subject:
“Using what we have has become a motto, or sort of mantra, around our house. In the ‘before time’, it was easy for me to start on a random project and realize I didn’t have that something, that one thing that I just can’t make the project work without, and so would have to run out and purchase (or order) said thing. There are still projects like that. For example, we were going to repaint the trim on the house, but don’t have paint for it, so that is a project that we can’t do right now. I can think of silly substitutes for house paint, like, say, we could use some muck from the pond to stain the trim a new color… but realistically, that is a project for another day, when restrictions on staying home have been lifted, or loosened, or… reimagined. I know that the home improvement stores are still open right now, but I can’t say that paint is a necessary purchase. If our plumbing goes out and I need to go get replacement pipes, or whatever, sure, but some things can wait. So now, if I’m working on something and run into a block and immediately start thinking, ‘What do I need to get to finish this?’ I try to reframe my question into, ‘What do I already have that would work for this?’ or, ‘Do I need to have this done right now?’”
The vast lengths of time spent at home were a blessing in many ways. Life slowed down. I no longer worried about plans outside the home, but rather in planning (finishing!) projects and activities for us to do throughout the day. I realize that our situation was one of the best-case scenarios, and acknowledge that the struggle of many others was far greater than our dilemma of ‘what to do while we stay home’. In saying that, I feel that the past year has provide me with an opportunity to push myself to new heights in understanding myself and my family, to creating new bonds, and to pushing myself to a level of learning and patience that I quite possibly would never have had to do otherwise. Not every day was magical and fulfilling, but even the hard days are good to learn from.
My kids, like most other children growing up in this digital age, are fascinated by screens. They have shows they like to watch and games they like to play. The draw of the electric lights dancing on the screen is great. I’m not opposed to technology. I rely on my computer for a great deal of my work, and I enjoy relaxing movie nights, too. Growing up in this world, it would be a disservice to my children to prevent them from learning how to comfortably navigate, and possibly, at a later date, help improve this digital, mechanical world they have come into. They know no other world, and yet, the electronic aspect of this world is not the only realm that they will explore.
The importance of building a respect for our natural environment and recognizing the relationships between plants and animals I cannot stress enough. I was fortunate to grow up in wild, rural environments, and knew the joys of exploring the high desert woods, hillsides and meadows. This experience was formative in my development, and has defined my path both as an educator and scientist, but also as an artist, and maybe most importantly, in my role as a mother. I want my children to wander and explore and ask questions.
This map, I hope, will be a stepping stone, or a starting point, for your own exploration – either alone or with the loved ones in your life. This adventure is multi-faceted, and can lead off down many divergent, yet connected, paths. I hope to spark a new question, or plant the seed of an idea for a project of your own.
-Emma
We moved in during the month of March, when the dormant yard was just beginning to reawaken. For the first few years, we watered and tended the grounds, just seeing what was already there and identifying the new plants that would spring up, and finding some surprises in the animal kingdom, as well. A few box turtles crept up from their winter slumber to stroll around the back yard, and we named the two large goldfish in the pond Juan and Juanita. Sometime around the third or fourth spring, we decided we’d like to plant an edible landscape so any new plant additions would need to serve that purpose (though upon one spontaneous plant buying spree I was lamenting the restrictions as I eyed some showy bulbs, and a kind woman approached me and said something about loving her garden because it feeds her soul, and from then on it was fully acceptable to plant something of which the ‘only’ sustenance it provides is food for the soul). Over the years we became quite proficient at identifying all of the ‘weeds’ that would also come up in the yard, and I was surprised at first to learn that many of the volunteers that readily sprouted up in the yard were either edible or useful medicinal plants, and so they, too, became part of the seasonal march of growth. Along with the growing jungle in our yard, our family grew, too, and two sweet boys arrived earthside on summer days, five years apart. As they’ve grown, so has their knowledge of the plants and other inhabitants of our yard. We frequent the outside in just about any weather, almost every day of the year, building small creations and tending to the plants.
Most years we would purchase new plants to add to our collection, however one year we didn’t buy any new plants. Twenty-nineteen was a year where we made do with what we had at home. In lieu of new, we re-homed several volunteer trees, either to new locations within our yard, or as gifts to our family and neighbors. We dug up dozens of mulberries, a few pink silk saplings, and a couple desert bird of paradise bushes and rearranged or gifted them all to new homes. Making do with what we had was good practice for the year to come.
In spring of twenty-twenty, just as my older son was going on spring break, we prepared ourselves for a two-week stay at home. I usually would shop for a month’s worth of food, and we had plenty of dried foods to last even longer, so two weeks of supplies was not an unusual shopping trip for me. I remember the novelty, or embarrassment, of wearing my mask to the grocery store for the first time. Those two weeks stretched into months and months, and not wearing a mask became more of a discomfort. In the past year, we have, primarily, stayed home. There have been a few trips out in the car, which the boys now view as a wonderful adventure. We’ve gone hiking, or more recently, we went to some outdoor nurseries to search for some additions to our grounds. We planted some token memorials, for those we lost this past year. Over the years, so many memories have been buried in the ground along with new plants. Our yard is full of ghosts, living amongst the roots, intertwined with so many others who have gone before us. And though I cannot see them, I know they are there, hidden away in the folds of the earth.
I know this is a map about insects… so why am I talking so much about plants? The more time I spend here – in the yard, on this Earth - the more the interconnections of nature become apparent, as well as bring out more questions and mystery. The first thing I had to decide upon when creating my map (well, the second thing, after what I wanted my map to feature) was the scale. Because of the fractal nature of cartography, the scale can be immense or minute, and, in theory, you can always move infinitely farther in either direction. With a scale large enough, my map could encompass all of the other maps made in Albuquerque – indeed, all of the other maps of the world, and even out into the farthest reaches of space. Likewise, within any given space, there are tiny worlds to be explored, further and further. There are eddies and surprising twists and turns that are taken when exploring the beautiful complexities when one grows smaller and smaller (or larger and larger), and yet there is even more detail to behold. It is simultaneously mind-boggling and enlightening. The details that emerge along the perceived boundaries can be the most interesting and intricate. If you look closely enough at a tree, all the way out to the tips of its branches or roots, the boundaries between the tree and the surroundings become ever more blurred and complex. The surface of the leaves are exchanging gasses; the roots are taking in moisture and nutrients. The air, water, nutrients – they enter the tree. They become part of the tree, so where do you say the tree ends and the ‘not-tree’ begins?
The insects visiting or living in our yard are there primarily because of the plants, and the plants are there because of the insects, in most cases. The vast majority of our contemporary plant species are pollinated by insects or other animals. For this reason, it felt strange to have an empty space for my map, a rectangle populated by little blips showing where the insects were relative to… well, relative to what, exactly? I looked back over the insect images taken over the summer documenting all the bugs we could locate while tending to the garden. In looking at the hundreds of photos I realized that I relied on the background for the location of the insect. The stationary plant or wall or pathway – those were the guiding features for locating a mobile target at that point in time. Of course, because the location points were taken at a very specific point in time, it is unlikely, should I go back to look at that same spot this next summer, that the same insect will be there in that same spot… However, in many instances, the offspring of the same insects will be there. For example, a flame skimmer dragonfly has visited our pond for the last half-decade or so, and considering the lifespan of an adult, it is reasonable to assume that the visitors each year are different individuals, but perhaps are offspring that have hatched from our pond (we routinely find nymphs in the pond, and shed exoskeletons hanging onto the cattails left by the young as they transition to their adult form). The insects form a particular relationship with, sometimes, very specific plants. In creating the data points for my map, it was interesting to see upon which plants certain types of insects were found, or which plants drew the greatest variety of visitors (hollyhock). Two years ago, when my older son was in kindergarten, he made a project exploring what plants in our yard were ‘bee’s favorites’ – most visited by honey bees. (He concluded that the budding apple tree, the creeping myrtle spurge, and dandelions were the bee’s favorites, and the reason for the project was to help people know what types of plants they could grow to help bees.) This project also involved hiding under blankets with a camera and blacklight flashlight to take photos of flowers like bees might see them with their UV light sense. It was fascinating and fun, and I highly encourage any involvement kids want to have playing outside and exploring the natural world. Currently, our classroom is our home, and we quite often have several different outdoor projects running at once.
As our stay-at-home ‘two weeks’ stretched and grew into something much longer, we experienced the ‘smallening’ of our world. Our entire existence, save the strolls in the neighborhood to visit the dogs we’d come to know on our walk to school – when we went to school – or the hikes into the foothills or extinct volcanoes around our fair city, or my solo trips to the grocery store, our entire existence was in and around our home and yard. We began to use what we had rather than unnecessarily venturing out or further taxing the overloaded postal service. Halfway through the summer, I wrote the following words regarding this subject:
“Using what we have has become a motto, or sort of mantra, around our house. In the ‘before time’, it was easy for me to start on a random project and realize I didn’t have that something, that one thing that I just can’t make the project work without, and so would have to run out and purchase (or order) said thing. There are still projects like that. For example, we were going to repaint the trim on the house, but don’t have paint for it, so that is a project that we can’t do right now. I can think of silly substitutes for house paint, like, say, we could use some muck from the pond to stain the trim a new color… but realistically, that is a project for another day, when restrictions on staying home have been lifted, or loosened, or… reimagined. I know that the home improvement stores are still open right now, but I can’t say that paint is a necessary purchase. If our plumbing goes out and I need to go get replacement pipes, or whatever, sure, but some things can wait. So now, if I’m working on something and run into a block and immediately start thinking, ‘What do I need to get to finish this?’ I try to reframe my question into, ‘What do I already have that would work for this?’ or, ‘Do I need to have this done right now?’”
The vast lengths of time spent at home were a blessing in many ways. Life slowed down. I no longer worried about plans outside the home, but rather in planning (finishing!) projects and activities for us to do throughout the day. I realize that our situation was one of the best-case scenarios, and acknowledge that the struggle of many others was far greater than our dilemma of ‘what to do while we stay home’. In saying that, I feel that the past year has provide me with an opportunity to push myself to new heights in understanding myself and my family, to creating new bonds, and to pushing myself to a level of learning and patience that I quite possibly would never have had to do otherwise. Not every day was magical and fulfilling, but even the hard days are good to learn from.
My kids, like most other children growing up in this digital age, are fascinated by screens. They have shows they like to watch and games they like to play. The draw of the electric lights dancing on the screen is great. I’m not opposed to technology. I rely on my computer for a great deal of my work, and I enjoy relaxing movie nights, too. Growing up in this world, it would be a disservice to my children to prevent them from learning how to comfortably navigate, and possibly, at a later date, help improve this digital, mechanical world they have come into. They know no other world, and yet, the electronic aspect of this world is not the only realm that they will explore.
The importance of building a respect for our natural environment and recognizing the relationships between plants and animals I cannot stress enough. I was fortunate to grow up in wild, rural environments, and knew the joys of exploring the high desert woods, hillsides and meadows. This experience was formative in my development, and has defined my path both as an educator and scientist, but also as an artist, and maybe most importantly, in my role as a mother. I want my children to wander and explore and ask questions.
This map, I hope, will be a stepping stone, or a starting point, for your own exploration – either alone or with the loved ones in your life. This adventure is multi-faceted, and can lead off down many divergent, yet connected, paths. I hope to spark a new question, or plant the seed of an idea for a project of your own.
-Emma
My continued explorations: I'll add links to related content here as I encounter it.
Tomomichi Nakamura - Like Ants
Keeper of the Sacred Mayan Bees
Bees in Argentina making homes from plastic waste
Inspiring floral/insect art
Super detailed Bug Macro Photography!
Check out this amazing Nat Geo ant story with fantastic macro ant portraits!
Flowers can hear buzzing bees—and it makes their nectar sweeter
Close-Up Portraits of Bees Reveal How Different They Actually Look
Incredible Nature Journal by Jo Brown
Tomomichi Nakamura - Like Ants
Keeper of the Sacred Mayan Bees
Bees in Argentina making homes from plastic waste
Inspiring floral/insect art
Super detailed Bug Macro Photography!
Check out this amazing Nat Geo ant story with fantastic macro ant portraits!
Flowers can hear buzzing bees—and it makes their nectar sweeter
Close-Up Portraits of Bees Reveal How Different They Actually Look
Incredible Nature Journal by Jo Brown