There is so much phenotypic (trait and characteristic) diversity within this one species that, at first, I thought I was seeing different species of banana slugs. It turns out that the Pacific banana slug is the only banana slug species in Washington. So, that helps with identification. As dogs differ in phenotype, Pacific banana slugs differ in color, texture, pattern and size. I later learned that their coloring relates to diet, light exposure, moisture levels, and sometimes, age.

On some trails, they’re everywhere, requiring careful attention to avoid stepping on them. Fortunately, because I want to photograph each unique individual, I’m not really moving too fast. It’s not a hike anymore; it’s more of a meander.

“Small, soft and vulnerable does not mean undervalued.”

– Chad Kirkpatrick, Hoyt Arboretum

I expected them to be slower-moving, what with all of the snail sayings (“a snail’s pace”, “slow as a snail,” “snail mail”). But when I see a banana slug through the window on a path, by the time I grab my camera and slip into my shoes, they’re off the path and almost disappeared under a plant!

I love the way their dorsal line becomes an artistic squiggle when they contract into their “I’m too big to eat” mode.

Fun Facts

• The Pacific Banana slug is the second-largest terrestrial slug in the world, growing up to nine and a half inches long!

• They live up to seven years – a surprisingly long time.

• They move at a pace of six and a half inches per minute. 

• They have four antennae: The top two are like eyes, sensing light and movement—the bottom two function as touch and smell sensors.

• The slime that covers and protects them is neither liquid nor solid, but rather a liquid crystal substance that can absorb one hundred times its volume in water!

  

The next time you’re out in the Pacific Northwest among the cedars, look closely at the edges of the trails and prepare to be impressed!

If you’re interested in purchasing or licensing any images you see here, please email me at SNewenham at exploringnaturephotos.com, and I’ll make it happen.

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The post Pacific Banana Slugs: The King of Snails appeared first on Exploring Nature by Sheila Newenham.

The Dramatic Ones

Mushrooms are everywhere, from large dryads like signposts on trees to almost microscopic, colorful specks. The dramatic gills and unnatural colors are the first to draw you in.

Once you start to pay attention to those, you’ll see more and more. Then there’s no turning back. You’re hooked. The more you look, the more you see.

But mushrooms are so much more than forest decor. They are the communication network of the forest. The part that we’re drawn to is the fruiting body (i.e., the flower) of the fungus, which appears briefly to spread spores like a flower spreads seeds. 

Astonishing Variety

The rest of the fungi is underground. It’s no wonder that we are just beginning to understand these peculiar organisms, which possess characteristics of both plants and animals, yet are neither one.

A Communication Network

Below the surface, expansive mycelial networks connect fungi, roots, trees, and other organisms across miles. Mycelia occasionally reveal themselves as delicate, white, hair-like mesh on decaying wood.

These mycelial networks seem to work like neurons, the cells that relay messages throughout animal bodies. Every square inch of forest soil is believed to contain three to four miles of mycelia. When it’s time to reproduce, the same structure that creates the mycelium coils together like a woven basket to form the mushroom we see. The film Fantastic Fungi features stunning time-lapse photography of this.

While we think of fungi as decomposers, that is not their most common role. Most fungi work in cooperation with plants to supply them with minerals and nutrients. In exchange, the fungi receive sugars from the plant. The fungi in this symbiotic relationship with plant roots are called mycorrhizae. Mycorrhizae have been identified on 92% of all known plant species! Sometimes, the relationship is even more profound. For example, Lady’s Slipper orchids cannot survive if removed from their fungal networks (they will not survive transplanting), and their seeds require these mycorrhizae to germinate.

There’s so much more to be amazed by. The forest is completely connected. Next time you’re out in nature, look closely.If you’re interested in purchasing or licensing any images you see here, please email me at SNewenham at exploringnaturephotos.com, and I’ll make it happen.

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The post The Fantastic World of Mushrooms appeared first on Exploring Nature by Sheila Newenham.

A photo essay

Have you ever seen a shadow in the distance and thought it was a person? Have you been tricked into thinking a tree stump is an animal? Today, I’m sharing some of my “misidentifications”.

Maybe it’s the hope of our hearts that makes what we want to see appear. Maybe nature beings are real.

Whatever your perspective, I think you’ll agree that there are amazing things to be found in nature.

The more you look, the more you see. Slow down, open your heart, let creativity flow. Nature will speak to you.

In some of these images, it’s obvious what I’m looking at.  Others may not be so evident. So, here is your key to my imagination in order of appearance.

If you’re interested in purchasing or licensing any images you see here, please email me at SNewenham at exploringnaturephotos.com, and I’ll make it happen.

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The post What Am I Seeing? appeared first on Exploring Nature by Sheila Newenham.

On Wednesday, my friend Cat invited me to join her camping in northern Montana to watch the Aurora borealis on Thursday night. It was supposed to be a remarkable storm, like the one I had slept through on Monday. To say that she is passionate about Auroras is an understatement. I wasn’t so motivated to see the northern lights. I’d seen them once before. They were alluring, but I wasn’t so enthralled. An opportunity to watch Cat revel in her glory and spend a night in remote Montana seemed a solid reason to go.

It Begins

We arrived at Koocanusa Lake at 8 p.m. Thin, wispy, white streaks reveal the aurora borealis. I can see pillars of light on the horizon shining straight up into the night sky. My camera sees the dramatic colors. Behind me, where the crescent moon is rising, the sky is subtly pink. It’s nice. I lament that I’d like to watch it without a device, to see it with my own eyes.

Our eyes aren’t made to register faint colors in low light. To the naked eye, the northern lights usually appear as shades of gray with subtle coloration. Cameras don’t have the same limitations and let in more light, especially with longer exposures, capturing the dancing lights’ majesty.

A Historical Event

The Aurora chasers are very excited about tonight’s electromagnetic storm forecast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center issued a G4 watch. This is only the second G4 watch since 2003.

Satellites orbiting one million miles from Earth measured the speed and intensity of this storm 30 minutes before it arrived at our atmosphere. A class X solar flare coinciding with coronal mass ejections (CMEs) on the sun two days ago are heading towards us at almost three million miles per hour.

What Causes the Northern Lights?

CMEs are large clouds of electrified gas (plasma) that erupt from the sun. When these outbursts are directed toward Earth, they can penetrate our atmosphere. The force of that plasma shock wave results in geomagnetic storms appearing as the Northern Lights. These magnetic storms can impact infrastructure, as in the 1859 Carrington Event, the largest recorded geomagnetic storm in history. That Aurora was seen globally and caused sparking, electric shocks, and fires in US telegraph towers. Tonight’s storm has the potential to cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts, and damage due to extended cuts of the electrical power grid, which is why NOAA issued a G4 watch.

I Get What I Asked For

Wispy sheer streaks begin to rapidly fill the sky and subtle hues of green, yellow and red splatter the horizon. I can see it all with my own eyes.

The entire dome of the sky ripples with waves of light as if reflecting the lake’s surface. Then it shifts, taking the form of flames of a crackling, warm campfire licking the heavens. The sky mesmerizes just like the fire. Then it’s flashing in all directions like distant lightning that illuminates storm clouds.

A coronal eye appears above me, a point where the rays all seem to converge. It begins to pulse, swelling with light and then receding like a heartbeat. I’m watching the heartbeat of the Universe. I lie down on the beach to take it all in and marvel.

And then the eye begins to morph and shape-shift. It’s like it’s telling a story, not random, but a choreographed show. Birds, dragons, a bearded man, a Phoenix…

Is this even real? This must be a hallucination. I’m looking at the quantum physics of the Universe, where we are all connected; the edges of our bodies cease to exist, like in a near-death experience, an ayahuasca ritual, or a guided psilocybin revelation. More forms appear in the sky.

There is so much solar energy in this storm; how can there be anything left for daylight tomorrow?We’ve been watching for hours. Yet murmurs of “Oh my God,” “This is incredible!” and “Can you even believe this!?” continue to pepper the air.

I’d go to laser shows at the Adler Planetarium when I was young. Recline back and watch the dome show. It’s this. But who is the choreographer now?

At the 45-second mark in the above video, the space station records part of what we witnessed.

Pulses. Waves. Arcs. Bands. Streaks. Rays. Pillars. The WHOLE sky! And the Pleiades/Seven Sisters star cluster is part of the show, too.

After midnight, the show quiets, the light mutes, and I can’t see it very well with my naked eyes anymore. Everyone else has tucked into blankets and sleeping bags, driven in by the cold, to watch from bed. Now, after four hours of splendor, I do the same.

The next morning, Cat says she was out again around 3:30 a.m., and it was even more impressive. I don’t know how that can be true. It does not compute. How could it be more amazing!?! And how does this go on all night!?

We are approaching a solar maximum, the time of greatest solar activity during the Sun’s eleven-year cycle. This winter, there will likely be more opportunities to see the Northern Lights. I recommend getting out of bed to take a peek.

I will never look at the sky the same again. I watched the heartbeat of the Universe.All of my images in this blog were taken with my iPhone 15, handheld and unedited, to demonstrate that anyone can photograph the aurora borealis, so long as you’re out there.

If you’re interested in purchasing or licensing any images you see here, please email me at SNewenham at exploringnaturephotos.com, and I’ll make it happen.

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The post The Northern Lights appeared first on Exploring Nature by Sheila Newenham.

A guest post by Steve Ornberg

If you live in the United States, you are probably aware of the total solar eclipse on April 8^th, 2024. The eclipse was visible in various degrees in the entire United States, as the official 2024 eclipse map shows. However, only those within the Totality Zone will see 100% totality, where the moon completely covers the Sun. This zone is 122 miles wide, stretching from Mazatlan, Mexico, to Maine. Millions of people were within 2 hours of the eclipse Totality Zone.

I missed the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse even though I was only a few hours from the totality zone. This 2024 eclipse would be the last time a total solar eclipse passed through the United States until 2044. So, this was truly a once-in-a-lifetime event for me, and I was determined to photograph and experience totality for the first (and last time).

Preparation

I planned months ahead of time. After researching several areas, I decided to go to Salem, Illinois. A friend who would join me has a relative who lives in Salem and offered their backyard for our eclipse viewing. This was preferred since it was less than 2 hours from St. Louis, where I would be driving from, and because most locations in southern Illinois had weekend-long events, packed camping sites, and thousands of eclipse watchers. Estimates predicted over 500,000 people would descend on southern Illinois, so traffic, especially going north towards Chicago after the eclipse, was forecasted to be heavy.

I researched how to photograph the eclipse. The best advice I found was from Steven Trainor, the developer of “The Photographers Ephemeris,” a website and mobile phone app for predicting the path of the Sun and moon used primarily for landscape photography. Trainor modified the app specifically to include eclipse data and timing. Information in his YouTube videos “Photographing the April 8 Solar Eclipse” and “Photographer’s Countdown to the April 8 Total Eclipse” were extremely helpful. I learned about the phases of the eclipse, the timing, and suggested camera settings. Rehearsing the steps of changing settings for each phase and when to remove the solar filter (necessary whenever the Sun is visible) would be necessary. The conditions will change rapidly when totality nears, your heart rate increasing with the oncoming darkness. Prior practice will help me focus at the time of greatest emotional and visual impact.

Fortunately, Trainor included a rehearsal mode in the app update with a countdown and notifications for each eclipse phase. (Note the times for C1 (First contact), C2, Max Totality, C3, C4). The app sends notifications 60 seconds and 30 seconds before and after each phase. This was beneficial for changing exposures and removing/adding solar filters.

The Day Arrives

I left St. Louis early in the morning to avoid commuter and eclipse traffic. The first phase would begin at 12:44 pm in Salem. I drove east about 90 miles and arrived in Salem mid-morning, thankfully not delayed by traffic. The Sun seemed brighter than normal, with only wispy high-level clouds. It was as if it, too, was getting ready for the epic event.

My friend and I set our equipment up in the backyard and took some test shots to confirm our base settings. The base settings were impacted by the solar filter, the effect of clouds, and local haze. I used ISO 100, f/8, and 1/400 seconds with my 200-600mm lens at 500mm.  I needed to have enough space in the viewfinder to capture the Sun’s corona during totality, which was expected to be several diameters wider than the Sun.

I chose a nine-bracket sequence. Every time I pressed the shutter, I would capture nine images: one at my base setting, four each one speed faster than the base, and the final four each one speed slower than the base. I stored these settings for the eclipse phase C1 as custom Mode 1, adjusted the base for phases C2 and C3 and assigned it to custom Mode 2, and finally adjusted the base for maximum totality when the filter would be removed and assigned it to custom Mode 3. This would allow rapid changing of the exposure based on the phases without having to fiddle with multiple dials.

We then sat back and waited anxiously for 12:44 pm to arrive. We discussed our settings, techniques, and processes, knowing that after phase C1, time would move quickly even with three minutes and 30 seconds of totality at our location. This sounds like a long time, but would it be? Since I have not photographed a total solar eclipse, I did not really know.

It Begins

At 12:43 pm, my app notified me one minute to C1, first contact. My heart rate went up a little. I clutched my remote trigger tighter. At 12:44:44.6 pm, I pressed my remote button and fired off a nine-bracket sequence. I quickly checked the screen to see if the exposure was correct. It looked pretty good, even with a slight haze in the sky. I proceeded to shoot every five minutes for the next hour and fifteen minutes. I had to reposition the Sun on the camera screen as it moved across the screen from top left to bottom right every five to seven minutes. The twenty-minute sequences are shown below. We remarked on how the Sun resembled a Pac-man icon.

Every person in the United States could observe some level of this partial eclipse. As the eclipse progressed from C1 to C2, the backyard grew darker and darker. I put on my solar glasses in between shots to see what the Sun looked like, but I had a better view on my camera screen. I could look at that safely without solar glasses since the camera is mirrorless.

Totality is Imminent

The app pinged “one minute to C2.” My heart rate sped up. I got ready to remove the solar filter. Twenty seconds before C2, I removed the filter, switched from custom Mode 1 to 2, and fired off a few nine-bracket sequences. And WOW! The view on the back of the camera was amazing!

The “Diamond Ring” – when one bright spot of sunlight remains resembling a giant diamond in the sky, with the Sun’s atmosphere forming the ring’s band. Seeing the Diamond Ring is a sign that totality is imminent. This one was a little hazy due to high-level wisps of clouds.

Here, you can see solar prominences. Prominences are anchored to the Sun’s surface in the photosphere and extend outwards into the corona. A solar prominence is a large plasma and magnetic field structure extending outward from the Sun’s surface. Baily’s Beads, named after British astronomer Francis Baily who discovered the eclipse phenomenon, appear as beads of light poking out around the Moon’s shadow. This light passes through valleys in the moon’s rugged terrain just before totality. 

Total Eclipse

Max totality is here! I switched the exposure to custom Mode 3, fired off a few sequences of bracketed shots to ensure I captured it, and then looked skyward toward the Sun—or where the Sun usually would be. I saw a black hole with bright light surrounding the sun/moon like a crown.

It was a stunning scene, and all I can say is WOW! Stunning! Oh My Gosh! At this time, about ten people surrounded us, expressing their amazement. One started singing. We could only imagine what our ancestors thought about this event. Did the cave dwellers think that the world was ending? I could understand why early humans worshipped the Sun.

The backyard was dark. Lights at nearby buildings and streetlights automatically came on. It was hard to see the others in the yard. I snapped a few iPhone photos of the sun/moon and of the backyard. It was darker than what these photos show.

The Sun Returns

And before you knew it, my app began notifying me of one minute to C3. That came too fast, I complained. I did not want totality to end. I began looking for my solar filter, but it was so dark that I could not find where I put it. I had to grab my iPhone and use its light to look for my filter. I could not see the camera dials to return the exposure to Mode 2. Using the iPhone again, I finally found the camera dial, switched back to Mode 2, put the filter back on, and fired off a bracketed sequence again at twenty seconds after C3. It was frenetic, and all the rehearsing did not really prepare me for how fast I must react.

I missed getting the second diamond ring as C3 began, but I got a few photos of Baily’s beads. At C3, I switched back to Mode 1 and got ready for the partial eclipse again as the moon started exiting from in front of the Sun. It seemed to exit faster than when it first started, and I shot about every three minutes.

So, after two hours and almost thirty minutes, it was all over, and the backyard was again basking in full sunlight. Everyone felt a little drained from all the excitement of this once-in-a-lifetime experience. A three-year-old child was present, so perhaps when she is in her 20s, she will experience it again.

After sitting in the sunshine for almost four hours, we sat back and had some snacks and drinks. I slowly packed up my car and began thinking about the drive back to St. Louis, dreading the predicted backups as half a million people returned home. I said thank you and goodbye to my hosts and turned my car towards St. Louis. Thankfully, there were only a few slowdowns as I headed west, but every northbound road was bumper-to-bumper. I felt grateful for the entire experience – one I will never forget.

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The post 2024 Total Solar Eclipse appeared first on Exploring Nature by Sheila Newenham.

Wabi-Sabi: a Japanese aesthetic that finds beauty and serenity in objects, landscapes, and designs that are simple, imperfect, and impermanent.

Wabi is about recognizing beauty in simplicity.

Sabi is concerned with the passage of time, the way all things grow, age, and decay, and how it manifests itself beautifully in objects.

Old Car City

Old Car City is well-known among photographers, a self-proclaimed “photogaphers paradise”. For many, it’s a regular Mecca. I was superficially familiar with it. I referenced it after wandering around Palmer, Alaska, and coming upon the Eklutna Tail Race with its old, rusted cars being reclaimed by nature.

There’s not much accessible local wildlife in February in northwest Georgia. So I left Dalton (the AstroTurf capital of the world) and took a short trip down I-75 to White to wander the “world’s oldest knowd junkyard.”

It’s unseasonably warm, 60 degrees, and sunny. There are 4000 automobiles in the woods surrounded by and being reclaimed by the pine forest. There’s a pond somewhere on these 34 acres among the seven miles of trails. There’s no map. Just an upside-down satellite image of the compound in the former general store. It’s just a wander.

The Entrance

Delightfully, there is all manner of junk collected here. I immediately understood why people return time and time again. It’d be hard to ever really explore it all.

The entrance is an artfully arranged series of collections: hubcaps, bicycles, box springs, mufflers, signs, and more before I pass through an old barn and emerge in the forest of cars.

The purveyor’s mom “parked the first car here in the ’30s.” There are older car sections, truck sections, and “newer” car sections. New is relative, the newest cars here are early 70’s models.

The rust, wires, pine needles, vines, squirrel nests, and patterns of lichens are enthralling. It’s slow going.

I wonder why we ever got away from these glorious hood ornaments.

I arrived a little before noon and spent three hours fully immersed in the exploration, and the art, only joined by birds and squirrels. It was the best thing I’ve done for my mental health all year.  Enjoy some of what I captured.

Keyholes

Emblems

Door Handles

Windows

Reclaimed by Nature

Lights

Nature’s Art

Wonderful Old Cars

If you’re interested in purchasing or licensing any of the images you see here, please email me: SNewenham at exploringnaturephotos.com, and I’ll make it happen.

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Yesterday, I ventured out to run an errand and begin to rejoin the world. I became light-headed in the store. I came home and cried, disheartened that I can’t just power through. The rest of the day was tough, and I had a bit of a pity party (we’ll all entitled to that from time to time, right?).

Today, although I can’t take a deep, full breath, I went out again for another short walk. This time I headed into the woods. It’s the most normal I’ve felt in weeks. I wasn’t thinking about my breathing or if I’d be able to function well enough to go back to work.  I was only in the moment. I ambled. I investigated new beaver sign.

They are regular inhabitants of this pond but don’t tell the neighbors they’re back! People’s preconceived notions about what it’s like to live with beavers nearby – despite the reality of not even knowing they were here – will result in the beavers’ demise.

I collected some beaver art for my curio cabinet and tucked it into my coat pocket.

This time of year is prime for mushrooms, and I wasn’t disappointed.

Oftentimes the underside (the gills) are where the dramatic beauty lies. That’s true of a lot of things when you take the time to look deeper.

I lingered at a frozen puddle mid-trail. The swirls in the ice created as air was trapped under freezing water is captivating.

Fallen leaves peek out of the ice—the perfect clash of seasons.

The ground’s surface softly frozen preserves deer and coyote prints in the mud and crunches quietly under my footsteps.

A fallen tree had been the refuge of some small creature.  I marvel at how dried leaves are draped across branches as if artfully placed with intention. Natures tree trimming?

A muskrat pushing through a thin set of ice near open water caught my ear. I watched him for a few seconds before he noticed my 85-pound dog and me standing just a couple of yards away. He froze. I guess he’s not used to anyone else being here. I grabbed a quick iPhone photo and left him to his task.

The thin sheet of ice across my pond barely supports the geese, and it sings as they waddle across it. These are migrating geese, not local geese.  They don’t know me or the coexistence philosophy of the dog at my side, so they keep a wide distance. It’s nice to have geese back in the yard after the coyote incident last summer drove my regular geese away for the season.

I fill my feeders and return to the house. Tomorrow, I will take a short walk in the opposite direction to the creek, where I know the edges will have beautiful scrolls where the water will have frozen in layers at the edge of the slow current.  Nature’s art. Who knows what else I will find.

Nature got me out of my head, helped me to feel  “normal,” and restored my optimism.  What heals you?

Addendum: In the time since I wrote this, I’ve made a full recovery.

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The post What Heals You appeared first on Exploring Nature by Sheila Newenham.

Most collections start innocently enough.  A person finds something that brings them joy, and then they want more of it. In this day and age of minimalism and decluttering, don’t discount the happiness that a carefully curated collection can bring.  I sat down for a conversation with Brian King, the Curator of Ohio’s Largest Sand Collection, to find out what got him started and what brings him joy from his collection.

The first sample came from Oak Island, North Carolina, in 2011.  It was Brian’s first family vacation to a beach as a parent. He noticed the tiny grains on the beach and was reminded of his pottery class.  If you melt sand, you get glass.  Silica, which is part of the glazes used in pottery, melts clear and shiny.  He looked at the sand under his feet and thought, “There’s no way you melt this, and it becomes clear because it has shells and stuff in it.”  His curiosity was sparked.  If this is sand and it is not silica, then where does silica sand come from? And if sand is not silica, then what qualifies as sand. He put a small sand sample in a bag and took it home, intending to fire it in the kiln to see how it melts. 

The Collection

Brian’s sand collection has grown since then.  He currently has 120 samples, exclusively from the western hemisphere. His assortment spans from the Rio Negro in Brazil’s Amazon basin, both the southernmost (-3.1 latitude) and easternmost (-54 longitude) sample, to Molokai, Hawaii to the west (-157.25 longitude) and Amalik Bay, Alaska (58.12 latitude) to the north.

The vials are artfully contained in a flannel gray box in three rows and three layers of 15ml clear glass vials. The sands range in color from black to white, with “lots of earth tones,” he says, but he has a couple of pink samples, too, and there is a green sand beach in Hawaii that he covets. Each vial is filled with sand and labeled with the location name, who collected it and the GPS coordinates. In addition, each vial has its own identifying number handwritten on the bottom. This number corresponds to information cataloged in a spreadsheet that allows Brian to quickly sort the data from his collection.  “How can he have 120 samples using two only digit numbers?” you may wonder.  Realizing his ambition could result in an extensive collection and knowing the space on the bottom of the vials is limited, Brian chose a hexadecimal numbering system that affords 255 unique numbers using only two characters (numbers 0-9 and letters A-F).

What is Sand?

One of Brian’s favorite samples is from the northeastern shore of Lake Michigan just outside of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.  Growing up in suburban Chicago, Brian was struck by how shockingly different the northeast coast of Lake Michigan is from his familiar southwestern shore.  The fine beige sand of this Michigan beach had black streaks running through it.  It turns out to be magnetite. “This brought me back to the question, ‘What is sand?’  Can it be anything?”  It turns out that it is defined by particle size (larger than silt and smaller than gravel).  Magnetite is a lot denser than other sand, so it was easy to filter out with a magnet.  The magnetite vial is noticeably heavier than any of the other samples.

Some of the most remarkable samples are those from the southeastern coast of the United States.  “They are full of tiny intact shells.  It’s like exploring a whole beach under the microscope.” 

The youngest sand in Brian’s collection comes from Spearfish Canyon in South Dakota along a moving fault line.  “It’s like a river delta along the rock face of the canyon funneling out sand like an hourglass.  Right from the rock, it’s still jaggedy and raw.”

Lessons from Sand Collecting

One of the greatest benefits of sand collecting is that it has given Brian the ability to recognize the geology of a place. Sand and rocks look different in different places, and he notices that now in ways that he didn’t before.  That is an unexpected skill that he really enjoys.  He shared this story to illustrate the point. “There’s that story about somebody with the CIA tracking somebody down, and they have a video.  Some geologist was able to recognize the location based on the rocks in the background. I thought at the time, ‘Wow. That’s amazing. How could you do that?’ and now I can kinda do that. So I’m watching a movie with my kids. It’s The Martian, and at the end, there’s a scene that starts with the camera zoomed in on some gravel. I was just walking into the room at that point, and I said, ‘That looks like the gravel in the National Mall,’ and the boys looked at me and kind of rolled their eyes a little.  I go sit back down, and then the camera pulls back, and there’s a guy standing on the National Mall!” He laughs heartily at the retelling of it.

Seeing the long-term weathering effects in the sand from different places along a river – from high in a mountain to the river mouth – is remarkable. It’s the same composition, but as you would expect, the grains are smaller near the ocean.  “To see it for real makes geology more tangible than before.”

The complexity and variety of sand are surprising.  Brian no longer thinks of it as just silica anymore.

Creating the collection has given Brian a goal or a purpose when visiting a new place to go on a little adventure and take pictures. He is more aware of his surroundings, and he has a more immersive experience than before he started collecting sand.  It’s a way of being more mindful.  It’s also an escape. It’s something Brian does just because he enjoys it.  “There’s no other reason, no external benefit.  I enjoy and learn from it, and it’s completely separate from my other responsibilities in life,” he revealed. We could all benefit from a hobby like that.

Advice for Aspiring Sand Collectors

Be aware of where you’re collecting the sand from.  “Some places have historical significance or are protected for wildlife or sensitive ecosystems.  You don’t want to be part of the damage to those things.”  Also, many places, like inland public beaches, have trucked in the sand.  If it’s not naturally occurring, then it’s not going to be reflective of the local geology.

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The post Searching for Silica: An Interview with the Curator of Ohio’s Largest Sand Collection appeared first on Exploring Nature by Sheila Newenham.

How I got here  

A friend encouraged me to look into Artist in Residency (AIR) programs after her husband, a composer and percussionist, completed his first residency in Key West, Florida.  I’d looked into AIR opportunities briefly once before. The US Forest Service has its Voices of the Wilderness program and some of the National Parks have Artists in Residence programs.  Although they seem like a perfect opportunity on the surface, most of these provide a campsite or a camper’s cabin for housing.

I am not prepared to live like that for a month.  So I did a little more research.  I found a handful of residencies within driving distance that had indoor plumbing and electricity.  It was mid-summer.  The majority of AIR programs open for submissions in January.  Except for the Waubonsie State Park program in Iowa, whose application period is mid-August to mid-September.  The program is only in its second year.  I could have a chance.

I was on break at work when I clicked on the “Submit Application” button.  It brought me to a five-page Google document.  Each page must be filled out before accessing the next, and the whole thing needs to be completed before I can save it.  I’d have preferred to have read it over, mulled it over, and then decided to proceed or not.  In hindsight, this format is among the things that prompted me to submit the application.

It started simple enough – name, preferred dates, artist statement, and what I intend to do during the residency.  The public engagement part gave me pause. I can lead a photo walk/hike.  I’ve been tagging along on those for years now.  So I pitched a “teaching people to see with new eyes” photo walk.  Then it got real.  “Why is this Residency important at this point in your career?”  My career. Wow.  “Professional History: Education”  There were a lot of fields I left blank here after I wrote “Self-taught” on the top line.  At this point, I thought, “I am so not qualified for this.” But, I’ve come this far, I might as well complete the application.  “Publications/Exhibits.”  I’ve exhibited fairly widely in the Chicago suburbs, so I felt confident about this.  “Grants and Awards,” “Experience engaging the public in relation to your art practice,” and finally, “Two professional references.” 

I’d heard the statistic on a TED talk that men apply for jobs when they meet 60% of the qualifications, but women apply only if they meet 100% of the qualifications.  I thought to myself, “Today, I’m going to behave like a man.”  I contacted two fellow photographers that I admire, told them I didn’t think they’d be called, but just in case, here’s what I was up to.  And clicked, “submit.”

The day of the scheduled announcement of the 2019-2020 chosen artists came and went.  The next week, I emailed inquiring about the status of the decision. “Are you around this afternoon for a phone call?” was the response.  Well, they probably don’t call the rejected applicants.  On September 25, 2019, I accepted the Residency position for two weeks in November.  I was asked not to share the news publicly until the formal announcement was made.  It turned out that I had to sit on this exciting news until November 13 when the press release was issued, and I appeared on the Golden Hills RC&D website as one of the 2019-2020 Artists in Residence.

So here I am in this beautiful state park among bluffs and ravines, in a hardwood forest flush with oaks and acorns, chattering red-headed woodpeckers and calling owls.  I’m exploring in solitude, sharing my passion for nature with the dedicated park staff, and connecting the public to the beauty and value of this park.  I’m learning about the geology of this glacier-carved landscape and the force of the Missouri River that still shapes the land against the will of the people.  I am thriving.  I am an artist.

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The post How I Began to Think of Myself as an Artist appeared first on Exploring Nature by Sheila Newenham.