Hairy Museum of Natural History

Some quick notes and links summing up some of the paleoart I saw and artists I met at SVP this year:

Paleo-Art Poster Session

This event ran concurrent with the Opening Reception at the CMNH. As I recall about 10-12 artists had posters of their work on display. Between taking in the exhibits and talking to folks that stopped to look at my poster, I missed a couple of the artists that were there, but I did have some inspiring conversations with the following:

• William Stout, who is as friendly and approachable as he is talented, presented a poster on the importance of murals in museums. Keep an eye out a book on his Prehistoric Life Murals to be published this December.
• I had met Judy Peterson, of the Western Interior Paleontological Society, before, but this was the first time I had the opportunity to see her paintings of the Prehistoric West.
• Hirokazu Tokugawa had posters of his incredible sculptures (including a gorgeous Cotylorhynchus). He knew the HMNH and he referred to my Monkey-Lizard Gallery when sculpting a lovely little netsuke-style Drepanosaurus.
• I was happy to meet Takashi Oda, whose work I’ve admired for some time. His poster showing Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of North America is online at his excellent Studio d’Arte Corvo blog. He also introduced me to the work of Hayato Yokoyama, who makes lovely sterling silver pendants and rings based on the skulls of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals.
• Emma Schachner’s work was new to me. Her detailed renderings of fossil and osteological specimens are absolutely stunning.
• Also new to me was the work of Utako Kikutani, (who I did not get to meet).

Cleveland Museum of Natural History

• The Cleveland Museum of Natural History had just opened a show entitled A Passion for Nature: The Art of William E. Scheele, that highlighted dozens of drawings, paintings, and prints by the museum’s former director. I became familiar with Scheele’s work through his dynamic illustrations in his book entitled Prehistoric Animals, and I can see now that I’ll need to add some of Scheele’s other titles to my library.
• The CMNH had a table at the conference, and I picked up a print of Centrosaurus brinkmani featuring Mark Schultz’ elegant rendering of this “popcorn-frilled” ceratopsian. Michael Ryan of PALAEOBLOG has subsequently made these available online.

Merchandise

There was an exhibitors hall at the conference—it was small but packed with ample opportunities to empty one’s wallet:

• I met the Paleoartisans (Beverly Eschberger & Geoff Habiger), who are actually situated not far from me in Tijeras, New Mexico. I think they’ve been making paleo-themed t-shirts since the last time I went to SVP in 1995, and they remain the only place I’m aware of where you can still pick up a “Reunite Gondwanaland” bumper sticker.
• Triebold Paleontology was showing off a cast of the skull, neck, and shoulders of their Pachycephalosaurus, and the new Appalachiasaurus in their catalog caught my eye.
• CM Studio had a handful of impressively detailed sculptures on display, mostly Paleozoic fish (including some early tetrapods).

Pending

The big annual event for the paleoart-minded is the awarding of the Lanzendorf PaleoArt Prizes. It doesn’t look like the Society has updated their website to announce this year’s winners yet, but when it does I’ll pass the news along here as well.

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Paleo-Pop.