By Rebecca Militello
Staff Writer

The slide show began with a mysterious door, and etched on top: “WELLCOME.”

One would normally expect it to be a simple misspelling. But at her lecture on Tuesday, Rosamond Purcell said some believe the word may very well have been someone’s last name.  And that’s what intrigues the viewer.

“The point is there is mystery to anything you look at,” said Purcell.

Bryn Mawr was introduced on Tuesday to artist Purcell and her unique collection of work, “Vegetable Lambs and Elephant Birds: Classifying the In-Between." Purcell, who works to find patterns and meaning behind art in the natural world, presented a slide show with a series of photographs and images from scholars and artists of the past.
 

The strange title of the lecture represents fears of the past which included animals, humans, and the in-between, said Purcell. Images of these supposed monsters were created to caution people to stay close to home in order to avoid them. Many of these creatures, however, may have created irrational fears simply because they were mysterious.

The elephant bird was first seen in 1670 and at the time was thought to be a “winged dragon” with fire-like eyes. Scientists later discovered that it was essentially a gigantic ostrich whose large size was due to its isolation on islands; its eyes turned bright red when it was in estrus. What is surprisingly curious about the creature is that after one sighting it was never seen again.

There are many examples of creatures like the elephant bird. Although Purcell has worked to uncover their ambiguity, she has also has learned to appreciate the unknown, as well as the fascinating images that have been created throughout history in order to understand these unusual beings. 

Purcell has created several art books in cooperation with Steven Jay Gould. Her most recent work, "Egg and Nest," (Harvard University Press, 2008) was inspired by the different patterns birds produce on their eggs. She showed her audience that every egg is different; when photos of these eggs are projected and enlarged, they suddenly become modern art.

Purcell’s talents as an artist range from photographing the ostensibly unappreciated aspects of life to reconstructing rooms of the past. Her most recent reconstruction is of Ole Worm’s 17th century cabinet of curiosities. Images of this reconstruction can be viewed on her website or in the Rare Book Room in Canaday Library.

Purcell’s artwork, specifically her photographs, show us that anything in nature–even things as simple as a tree stump or as unusual as piece of dendrite–can become masterpieces in and of themselves, without having to be recreated on canvas. She believes she reintroduces the world to what it has overlooked.

“I always wanted to be in the back rooms of museums and not photographing things on display, because that is where you find stuff,” said Purcell. 

Ultimately, she knows that not everything great is where we expect it to be.
 

Related articles

• The Word
• The Word
• Faculty-Curated Exhibit Opens in Magill Library
• A home for the birds
• New Exhibit Opens at Cantor-Fitzgerald Gallery
• ‘On the Horizon’ with Art Sinsabaugh
• More Consistent—If Slightly Flat—Work from Andrew Bird
• Ryan Cameron’s Nudes
• Straight to you from Kenya
• Silent Films and Gypsy Jazz