Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service's Blog

In Search of Giant Squid

Since its initial splash in 2004, In Search of Giant Squid has been one of our most popular exhibitions. Why shouldn't it be? It's a fascinating topic that gets to the very core of your inner explorer--a veritable needle-in-the-haystack search for a real-life sea monster.

Surrounded by the kind of lore usually reserved for the Lochness Monster, Big Foot, and the Tasmanian Tiger, the giant squid is one of the last great mysteries in the natural world. In fact, nobody had ever filmed a live giant squid in the wild until September 2004, when a crew off the coast of the Ogasawara Islands near Japan shot some unbelievable footage of a squid trying to escape a carefully baited jig.

Since then, we've asked exhibition visitors, "How would you catch a giant squid?" And we've received some fairly erudite ideas from kids across the country, especially in Seattle (exhibited at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture). Here are few clever theories:

• "I think you should grow a baby squid, and when I grow up I’ll raise baby squid too."
• "You need to catch a whole bunch of shrimp and put them in a giant net. Then put it in the ocean and put a water camera above the net."
• "Have you considered looking the giant squids with a REALLY big magnifying glass? I think it might help."
• "I think you should try cloning some squid so that you don’t have to try to find them out in the ocean."
• "We could create a sonar machine powerful enough to divide the ocean into segments. Then using a machine we could project sonar waves over the segments to find animals and objects within the sonar area."

Of course, there were many kids who thought that cookies and chocolate cake were the way to go--sure to work for the sugar-addicted giant squid. Others simply wrote adoring letters to the exhibition curator, Dr. Clyde Roper, who according to many is the closest thing out there to an oceanic Indiana Jones.

Keep those ideas coming! With your help, Dr. Roper might just find his own squid to travel with the exhibition.

So Long, Farewell Shannon

We were excited, and of course a bit cranky, when our colleague Shannon Perry announced that she had accepted a position at the Smithsonian's American Art Museum last week. Shannon has been one of our aces in the Scheduling and Exhibitor Relations Department since 2004. She was a serious asset from the start, working with hundreds of potential and existing exhibitors to ensure that Smithsonian collections and research were shared with communities both large and small, all across the country. Her background in curatorial work with the Dixon Gallery and Gardens (TN), the Fire Museum of Memphis, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts really helped Shannon understand the nuts-and-bolts of the museum world (as well as its challenges), allowing her to make successful matches between SITES exhibits and host venues.

That being said, we've recently learned that Shannon was hiding many things from us during her tenure with SITES--even as she quietly and effectively performed her duties right down the hall. For example, we didn't know that she recently finished assembling a cook book featuring recipes from her family and friends. Her colleagues might also be surprised to learn that she served as the art director for four plays featured in New York drama festivals. I, for one, certainly didn't know that Shannon loved all types of puppies and is an avid golfer, who like the rest of us, has a tendency to use "very, very poor language when she is upset with her game." (This is a direct quote from her husband!)

All joking aside, we will all miss Shannon immensely, and we're sure that many of you will miss her too! We wish her luck, and I will be thinking about her the first time I hit the links this spring.

Iowa Up Close

Albert Einstein once said, "After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in aesthetics, plasticity, and form.” Indeed, rippled lines of vibrant yellow sand dunes (recorded by the SPOT I and Landsat 4 space satellites over Yemen) are not so distinct from the bold swathes of color rendered by Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky in the 1910s. Nor are the geometric squares captured by Landsat 7 of Brazilian rainforests so different from early 20th-century forms of cubism--all about color and the manipulation or breakdown of complex elements into forms and structures.

This is really what satellite imagery can do--give us a big-picture view while, at the same time, providing us with the nitty-gritty details. Didn't realize that satellites had such artistic "eyes"? Well, it helps that their subject is the most flawless and fascinating model in the universe. Resplendent in rich greens, blues, yellows and reds, Planet Earth is the star of our Earth from Space (EFS) exhibition, touring the country through March 2010.

The University of Northern Iowa's museum doesn't host the exhibit until next month, but Cedar Falls residents have already been inspired by this marriage of art and science, technology and creativity. A precursor to the SITES exhibition, "Iowa Up Close" features 100 photographs of the state, from its lakes to rivers to farms to fauna.

Earth from Space "really shows you a unique perspective of the world," said Romney Hall, spokesperson for the museum. "So with 'Iowa Up Close' we wanted to do the same thing for our state." Photographers could submit works in several divisions--the same thematic categories in EFS: Water and Air, Living Planet, Structure of the Land, and the Human Presence. Many participants entered more than one shot in more than one category. Marnell Lyle, for one, entered a picture of mist rising off a lake in George Wyth State Park as well as images of recently cultivated farmlands and cattle farmers. "Part of the fun of doing it," she noted "was doing an intellectual analysis of what each particular photo represented and how it could symbolize the themes." Lyle and her fellow participants seemed particularly interested in capturing the here-and-now. "If development comes through," said one teacher "we'll be able to have these photos to remember what the land looked like."

Top honors in the contest (for each category, including adult and youth) were awarded yesterday. Check out the photo album in the left column! Want to know more?

See the satellite images with your own eyes. Go to the EFS website and take a virtual tour!

More Than Words

Ever get cramps in your hand when you're doing something called "writing"? It's an old-fashioned concept really, putting a pencil or pen (otherwise known as a writing instrument) to the surface of paper and moving it around to form symbols. The once odious task has become totally foreign to most of us as we typity-type on our computers, laptops, and blackberries. I'm proud to say that I know how to write with a pen, but it doesn't come easy. My third-grade teacher would die if she saw how my penmanship has dissolved over the years.

Those of us immersed in the e-world can take heart that actual, hand-written letters still exist. And better still, that some of the most fabulously creative examples of letters from the 19th- and 20th centuries are touring the country. More Than Words: Illustrated Letters from the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art celebrates this vanishing art form with missives from famous artists like Frida Kahlo, Alexander Calder, Andy Warhol, Winslow Homer, and many others. It's a look into the deepest, most surprising recesses of their minds (and their times).

Recently on view at the Georgia Museum of Art, the exhibition obviously inspired a number of visitors who took a shot at creating their own letters, however painful it may have been to their aching hands.

Check out more expressive letters in the More Than Words photo album.