The Art of Conservation and the Butterfly

Pipevine Swallowtail by Bob Moul

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I’m living in Austin, Texas and was invited on a road

trip to see the gulf coast by my friend Deb. I had read

that south Texas has approximately 600 species of

butterflies. A trip south for me meant not only a

chance to see the coast, but a chance to see butterfly

country. Mission, Texas is home to the North

American Butterfly Association’s (NABA) Inter-

national Butterfly Park. Seeing that I was close to

Mission, I took a day trip from South Padre Island

to the Butterfly Park. The drive was a little over an

hour.

After arriving in Mission, I stepped out of the car and

noticed the sweet smells mingling in the air, and the

play of light on the bushes, trees and grasses. Butter-

flies fluttered amongst the growth. I stepped into the

house that serves as the center’s hub and paid my

minimal $5.00 entrance fee. I walked amongst the

flowering trees and bushes that lined the paths and

read the ID tags for the flora and fauna as butterflies

touched down on flowers, then flew away. I walked

the breadth of the park and then along the wooded

edge.

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It was a windy day in late March. The best time to

see butterflies is when there is little to no wind. I

ran into a man with binoculars and we compared

notes on what butterflies we had seen so far despite

the wind. We had both spotted a couple of Pipevine

Swallowtails and Red Bordered Pixies. Of the four

people meandering in the park, it turned out that I

had run into Jeffery Glassberg the founder and

president of NABA.

Jeffrey, an adjunct professor at Rice University,

claimed that Mission is the best location in North

America for butterfly watching. He was a

molecular biologist before becoming an ecology

and evolutionary biologist.

His goal for the Butterfly Park is to make it a field

station for Rice University. It will also serve as an

educational outreach center. People come from

Canada, England, Australia, France, and Germany

specifically for NABA. These very same people

travel to South America and Cuba as well to pursue

butterfly watching or 'butterflying' as it is known.

“You can see more varieties of butterflies here in a

day than anywhere else,” Jeffrey tells me.

Red Bordered Pixie by Richard Crook

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Although the butterfly is a model system for cellular

development from egg to adult, known as metamor-

phosis, the butterfly's importance for the environment

is pollination. For instance the native Verbana plant’s

pollination is done through the butterfly. Thus the

butterfly is linked to the habitat through specific

plants. It is his belief that an area needs “native things,

otherwise there is no reality in the area.”

One of the ongoing, long term projects for NABA is

revegetation. The health of the environment can be

monitored through revegetation. The diversity of an

area can be measured through the butterfly, since the

butterfly population will tell you how successful the

revegetation process has been.

Jeffrey sees butterflying as a way to bring people

into the environmental movement. “If you conserve

a habitat for a butterfly, you are conserving it for

everything. You can save a piece of the world.”

Conserving and revegetation is a growing move-

ment that is building momentum.

Jeffrey Glassberg by Susan Doheny


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Butterflying is growing in popularity also. Birding,

which preceded the popularity of butterflying,

used to be the domain of collectors and taxono-

mists. For instance, before 1900 birds were

categorized by Audubon. Gradually birding became

a popular past time that could be done with

binoculars and cameras. These methods of observa-

tion have opened up to butterflying as well.

The future plans for Mission’s Butterfly Park is to

conduct some earthwork in order to build

different topography. The future gardens will be more

formal. An open building will also be added to the

site. The controversial wall between the US and

Mexico will not be on their property, rather, it will

be three quarters of a mile away.

How is it that a professor has come to be the steward

of property that he revegetates, reshapes, opens up to

field study for all to enjoy and observe the majestic

butterfly? Aside from authoring prominent field

guides to butterflies he’s patented a DNA finger-

printing method for Lifeco in an earlier career.

Humans are attracted to creatures of exquisite

beauty, and the butterfly is such a creature.

The process of conserving land, revegetating to

attract butterflies will in turn lure people into nature

to observe the wondrous butterfly.

Jeffrey Glassberg is the author of the Butterflies through

Binoculars field guide series.

Butterflies through Binoculars: The East,

Butterflies through Binoculars: The West, and

A Swift Guide to the Butterflies of Mexico and

Central America

The Art of the Butterfly #5 -- Rob Craigie

Below are Rob Craigie's Butterflies from
A Painting Collection, 2007 and 2008
Volume 1, 2008. All images are oil
paint on sized paper.


Butterfly #11



Butterfly #37


Butterfly #16

The Sign of the Butterfly in Art

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

When physical movement is lost, the imagination

takes flight traversing the past and the present.

Jean Dominique Bauby, the editor-in-chief of Elle, had

a cardio vascular stroke which left him paralyzed from

head to toe. His diagnosis was “locked in syndrome.”

The only movement he had was the ability to blink his

left eye. Through the process of blinking to the letters

recited by a transcriber, he was able to narrate his book

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Bauby’s book was made into a film in 2007 by director

Julian Schnabel. The film considers the limitations of

the boundary of our skin and the impulse to

communicate beyond those limitations. Sophocles

notion of the butterfly as Psyche or soul is rendered

nearly tangible in this film. Bauby, and then Schnabel,

address the strength of the mind and the

power of the imagination.

We see images of fluttering butterflies only once in the

film. Yet time and again we feel the essence of the

creature through representation of weightlessness,

freedom and hope. These sensations succinctly

counteract being pulled under water, sinking while

confined within the physical limitations of the diving bell.

Bauby, whose story had become popular in Europe, had

turned a negative event into something positive. It has

come to personify a transcendence and power of

consciousness, all of which is a challenge to depict in

film, yet has been successfully accomplished.

Schnabel won best director of the year at the Cannes Film

Festival. The film was nominated in several categories at

the 80^th Academy Awards. Ronald Harwood won the Adapted

Screenplay category at the British Academy of Film &

Television Arts in 2007. The film garnered two Golden Globe

awards.

The Art of the Butterfly #4 -- Binh Danh: Part 2

Check out the video on Binh Danh's creation of
chlorophyll prints.

http://kqed02.streamguys.us/anon.kqed/spark/binhdanh.
m4v

If this link does not work, try the link below or plug it into
Google. It will take you to the SPARK page and an article
on him. Click on the video.

Binh Danh: Spark | KQED Public Media for Northern CA

Posted using ShareThis

The Art of the Butterfly #4 -- Binh Danh

The Leaf Effect: Study for Metamorphosis #6,
Binh Danh, 2006. Chlorophyll print, butterfly
specimen and resin.


The Leaf Effect: Study for Metamorphosis #5,
Binh Danh, 2006. Chlorophyll print, butterfly
specimen and resin.


The Leaf Effect: Study for Metamorphosis #1,
Binh Danh, 2006. Chlorophyll print, butterfly
specimen and resin.


Ancestral Altar #20, Binh Danh, 2006.
Chlorophyll print, butterfly specimen and resin.


Iridescence of life #7, Binh Danh, 2008.
Chlorophyll print, butterfly specimen & resin.


Iridescence of life #9, Binh Danh, 2008.
Chlorophyll print, butterfly specimen & resin.

Binh Danh’s imagery addresses the continuum of the Vietnamese-American War

and how the residue of the

war still resides within the

Vietnamese landscape.

The images are reminiscent of early photography and the photogenic botanicals of

William Henry Fox Talbot.

"It's almost my religious practice when I make my own

artwork because I'm coming up with my own concept

about what is life, what is death, what is consciousness,

what is history."
--Binh Danh

The Art of the Butterfly #3

Cithaerias pyropina (Pyropine Ghost Satyr),
Linda Broadfoot, 2002, Hand manipulated
20x24 Polaroid image transfer on Fabriano
paper 30" x 22."

For more info on Linda Broadfoot
go to: http://www.florida-arts.org/
grants/fellowship/displayfellow.cfm?
id=176

The Art of the Butterfly #2

Black Winged Butterfly Lady, Jayne Hinds Bidaut, 1999. Tintype.

The Art of the Butterfly

Untitled, Adam Fuss, 2009. Dageurrotype

Light Emitting Butterflies

Photos by Paul Caparatta

It was once said that photographers are “writers

of light” and that a daguerreotype is “a mirror with

a memory.” My interest in the wonders of light

extend beyond photography. It is through such

wonder that the bejeweled butterfly captured my

imagination all over again. A few things

happened to arouse my curiosity. I moved to

Texas where they are extremely abundant. I came

across an article about their connection to light.

(I will include a link to it at the end of this post.)

While looking into their influence on artists, I read

that Vladimir Nabokov thought of them as

creatures of exile. Exile interests me also, but I will

leave that topic for another time.

Clearly I’m not the only one that has been

enchanted by the butterfly. The allure of the

creature has captivated the minds of scientists

and artists alike since Aristotle’s time. The ancient

philosopher referred to the butterfly as "psyches”

or the breath and soul of anima. The magical

image of a fluttering butterfly drifting with the

wind is one that we’ve all witnessed. I commonly

associate the marvels of the butterfly with meta-

morphosis, transformation or migration. I now

associate it with the structure of light.

Butterflies are not only of interest to entomologist,

but are vastly interesting to physicists as well. In

physics, the butterfly has become synonymous

with photonics, the study of light. This is the

scientific detail that got me hooked more intensely

on the winged creature. What else can I learn

about light? The core of photonics has revolution-

ized our everyday existence in that it is the field

responsible for the scientific advancement of the

Light Emitting Diode (LED) used for computer

screens, traffic lights and car tail lights.

When physicists put the wing of a butterfly under

intense microscopes, they see scales with

photonic crystals and mirrors. It turns out that the

applications of the study of photonic crystals has

been integral to continual advancements in our

world of communications. The study of these

crystals has helped to advance physicists

understanding of how to funnel light more

efficiently through semiconductors such as fiber

optics, which are at the core of our über modern

day living. This includes the laser that reads

information on CDs and DVDs. Think of life

without them! Think of both as brought to you

via photonics.

As creatures of mimicry, humans have been

mimicking the butterflies capacity to signal one

another through the shimmering light of their

wings, via our fiber optics and LED laden equip-

ment. Can we think of our showcases

of communications as akin to the elegant

butterfly wing?

Here is a minor scientific explanation of how the

light reflecting butterfly wing works. When high-

energy ultraviolet radiation is absorbed, it is

reemitted as a lower-energy visible radiation,

which is known as fluorescence. The butterfly

wing, and the photonic crystals within the scales

of the wing, absorbs the ultraviolet radiation. The

light is then reemitted, via the crystals and mirrors

in the scales of the wing as fluorescence. On

some butterflies, this reemitted sunlight is seen

as blue or green light.

The dazzling color in butterfly wings has been a

mode of their signaling for millions of years, in

fact for the 30 to 130 million years butterflies

have existed. I think of the butterfly as prehistoric.

However, they possess an ultra sophisticated

system of communication through relays and

transmissions of light. In this regard, they were

light-years ahead us.

Through the study of butterfly signaling, scientists

have advanced our own communications.

Somehow the notion of being “writers of light”

has a greater relevance to the scale of a butterfly

wing. Our very modernity surrounds us with a

wide array of “mirrors with a memory” to write

on. We absorb and transmit light with every twist,

turn, invention or discovery down the road.

To see the National Geographic article that

sparked my imagination, follow this link:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1117_

051117_butterflies.html

Newseum Showcases Newspaper Headlines

So you would like to browse the headlines around
the globe. You can check them out at Newseum
online at:
http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/flash/

Drag your cursor across a country and see the front
page show up to the right.

European Southern Observatory

Astrophotographer, Stéphane Guisard, created this
image of the Milky Way using a simple digital
camera attached to a 10-centimeter telescope in
Atacama Desert, Chile. The starscape is an
assemblage of 1,200 images comprised of 52 fields
of view.

The sky portrait is part of the GigaGalaxy Zoom
project created by the European Southern
Observatory to celebrate the 400th anniversary of
Galileo's first viewing of the night sky through a
telescope. This is part of the International Year of
Astronomy.

For more info and images in regards to the project,
go to:
http://www.gigagalaxyzoom.org/G.html
or
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/slideshows/
milky-way.html
and
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/
47320/title/Stellar_panorama

The Fall, 2008

I like obscure films that aren't box office
hits, or get a lot of critical acclaim.

Everyone has a story, and the methods
of story telling vary.

The Fall has a unique story
line in that Roy, a stuntman, is confined
to an LA hospital circa 1915 while
recuperating from a broken heart and a
broken leg. He befriends a young girl,
Alexandria, who is mending a broken arm.
Alexandria becomes Roy's audience as he
weaves an epic tale of bandits and
tyrants, and gradually pulls her into his
dark scheme.

Aside from being visually stunning in the
real and surreal dream-like, unconscious
sequences, it is a touching story in that
youthful innocence, grand story telling
and love can bring both patients back
from the edge.

Aside from there being one too many
fights in the worldly bandit scenes, the
additional cure for brokenness, is the story
created within a story and the bond these
two patients forge around it.

Much like Eugene Atget, photographer Michael Padnos

continues the tradition of being a photographic chronicler

of social and cultural phenomenon by capturing transient

scenes in the shop windows of Europe. He also follows in

the steps of the Surrealists who reveled in Atget’s

photographs of the windows due to the reflections that

gave a double view of the world: inside and outside. This

view also emphasized the Surrealist fascination with

objects, chance, and juxtapositions.

Eugene Atget chronicled the exterior social and cultural life

of Paris in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Prior to and

during the city undergoing a major transformation, Atget

was able to capture the small interwoven medieval streets

before some gave way to grand boulevards. This change in

city streets was dubbed the Haussmannisation of Paris, after

the urban planner, Baron Haussmann who led the

urbanization projects.

Atget photographed continuously throughout the city and

the outer lying areas creating a prolific taxonomy of the city.

Amongst his vast collection are images of shop windows.

To see more of Michael Padnos photographs visit:

http://www.michaelpadnosphotography.com/index.php

or his work at the Panopticon Gallery:

http://www.panopt.com/images-new.php?a=40&all#.

To see images by Atget visit George Eastman Collection:

http://www.geh.org/fm/atget/htmlsrc/