Episode 2: The Elegance of Erasure

Visit Peggy’s  show at the Field Museum: Peregrine Returns. It’s up until June 30, 2018. Buy her books, either at the Field Museum bookshop, the local book store of your choice, or on Amazon. You can also inquire about purchasing original artwork through her website.

Take Peggy’s one-week class at Ox-Bow, an artist’s residency affiliated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. While spending a week in July in Saugatuck, Michigan, you can take “Nature Illustration in Watercolor” with Peggy. If you’re a degree student at the School of the Art Institute, you can take other classes from her at the School’s downtown Chicago campus.

Or if you’re nowhere near Michigan, do what Peggy did and teach yourself by observing finely made things and drawing them. Try learning from a book Peggy co-authored, Painting Wildlife in Watercolor. You might also want to work your way through Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. Or sign up for a class at your local community art center. If you’re in Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center offers terrific classes.

Riddell: In every museum, there is a public area, the front of the house where the exhibits are, but there’s also a back of the house, a large part of the museum that we as the public don’t see.

At the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, the back of the house is where the science happens. These private working spaces and laboratories are everything you’d want in an old museum with wooden floors that creak underneath when you walk down the halls and warrens of small offices and winding staircases. Shelves are lined with handwritten notebooks that contain the observations of scientists from the past century. Relics from old exhibits sit in random places on top of filing cabinets in the lunchroom. But not everyone you meet there is a scientist. I’m Jill Riddell, and this is The Shape of the World.

Peggy Macnamera has the fabulous position of being the artist in residence at the Field Museum. In almost every way, her office is identical to the rest with big, dark wood cases, no natural light. But Peggy has remade her little third floor room into a studio for painting and making art. For almost 30 years, Peggy has been happily embedded in the zoology department, sandwiched between folks studying birds and insects. Their scientific subjects inspire her art.

Art and science, painting, and conservation, the link between these disciplines isn’t obvious. Most of our cultural conversation is around whether there even is a link. Are science and art too different to be able to communicate? For Peggy, there is no question because every day she works alongside both scientists and art students at a museum of natural history and at an art school. And every day, she embodies how the two disciplines are more connected than they seem.

Macnamera: I think when you study something really closely that’s perfectly made, that you, by osmosis, become a better designer. So much of art is instincts, like, “That doesn’t feel right. I think I have to do this or I have to do that.” Well, how do you hone instincts? My feeling is you look at only the finest made things in the world and a little skeleton is perfectly made.

Riddell: What do you say to a 19-year-old student in one of your classes who wants to know why it matters if they get something right if they’re painting, say, a saw-whet owl in the bird exhibit?

Macnamera: Right. Right.

Riddell: And why does it matter that they get it right into that it really look like a saw-whet owl?

Macnamera: They don’t initially see the value in Renaissance drawing. It’s basically what I’m teaching, they’re becoming a better artist by observing really well-made things. Some people think you go to galleries and observe art. I think you look at nature.

Riddell: So Peggy, I’ve heard that in your watercolors, you refrain from using what many of us would call earth tones.

Macnamera: Yes.

Riddell: So even though you’re drawing figures in nature, that you don’t often use brown or black or even green. Is that true?

Macnamera: Yeah. What I did after drawing for about 10 years is I went to colored pencil so I had control. And I layered colored pencils. And with colored pencil, like if you put green on red, you get a better brown than if you go straight into brown. And so one day I thought, “Well, I’ll just switch to watercolor.” So I took a year off and I went outside trying to find someone to teach me. How did the masters do it? Well, they drew from life outside. So I went to the same spot near my house every day for a year. That’s how I learned. I looked at how light landed on the green leaf. And it wasn’t green. It was blue and it was yellow and it was …

And when you have prolonged looking and you’re not working from photos and you have the real thing there with light, you’ll see more color than you do from a photo. A black bird isn’t black. It’s got a reflective surface. It’s picking up everything around it. It’s so much richer when you fill it with all the color.

Riddell: You take liberties with color. Do you take up liberties with other parts of the composition?

Macnamera: I have to have it 100% right on scale and relationship of parts. And here’s why. I respect the maker. Who am I? It’s like taking Shakespeare and changing the words. I don’t know. There’s something about a bird. I mean, it’s evolved to be efficient and survive. And the colors it’s … I respect that. So I put down the shape and form of the thing exactly right. I’m not trying to be fancy with color. I respect nature and I want to work with it and I don’t want to step on it. I’ve never done anything as good as a Scarlet Macaw from Costa Rica. I’ve never made a painting that compares to that bird flying through the sky and you’re just like, “Oh my God, it’s red, white, and blue. It’s right over my … Are you kidding?” Better artist than me made that bird.

Riddell: At the School of the Art Institute, Peggy’s relentless labor to precisely replicate things in nature is considered conservative, almost modest compared with other faculty. But at the Field Museum, their take is totally different.

So Peggy, how do the scientists respond to what they see when you are representing their work in some way? If they’re going to define a color, they’re going to define it by an industrial color chart.

Macnamera: Right.

Riddell: They’re not going to talk about the reflection and the surface of the black birds feathers. Can you say a little bit about that?

Macnamera: Yes. Nobody did it the way I did it. The scientific illustrator who was at the field when I came, and he would look at my big paintings and he’d say, “You know, they’re not bad if you get way far away.” Finally, a scientist came to me. I wasn’t looking for work with scientists. I was going to do my own thing. The Madagascars, Steve Goodman, and he said, “I’m doing a book on Madagascar Wildlife. Would you come to Madagascar? I need something wild.” And I thought, “This is hilarious. I’m over at school where I’m the most boring person alive, but to him, I’m wild.”

So I went and I did some illustrations for them and some drawings. And basically they did respond. If people did ask me to do something, they thought it was a little wild. I’d do two views or I’d use layering or … And I thought, that’s great. If they want someone to do little ink things for publications, there’s millions of people who can do that, but I’m not going to do that. I think people can look at scientific specimens in a lot of ways and a black and white ink drawing doesn’t necessarily make your heartbeat like a big, huge …

I just did a buffalo that’s 5 feet tall. And yes, a buffalo is a big black hunk of fur, right? So there is some color in my buffalo, but he’s also engaging. I want you to go, “Wow, that’s amazing. That buffalo’s walking off the page.”

Riddell: So the scientists perceived you as being really out there and the artist perceived you as being very conventional and in there.

Macnamera: Right. Right, totally. And then when I started doing the books, the first book I did was insects. That wasn’t a traditional … It’s not a guidebook to Illinois insects. What it is a celebration of Illinois insects. I don’t cover every species, but it was heaven.

Riddell: Well, the book on the Illinois insects was the first time I ever saw your work, and I was so astonished to see it. I saw it in a bookstore somewhere. And I just loved it that somebody had taken the time to make watercolors of spiders.

Macnamera: Yeah. Yeah. I have to remember before I die to do something that earns money though. All these other things are fabulous, but I don’t recommend them unless you …

Riddell: There’s the rub, isn’t it? How to have kids and still bring in a salary, make art, manage the endless details of adulthood, the deciding about insurance, the refinancing mortgages, the paying of taxes, all that time devouring administrivia.

Macnamera: I had five kids in five years, and I needed to draw every day. And parking was free 30 years ago in front of the museum. And I got in because I was teaching up at Bear College, so I just made the Field Museum my studio. So I drove down every morning, and I would park and go in. And I started in China, and I probably spent 10 years painting Chinese artifacts. And it was heavenly. I mean, the other option would have been home. I did have a studio at home, but there’s just too much going on.

It wasn’t until 1990, Debbie Moskowitz saw me drawing in the bird hall, and she said, “Can we use these paintings in our exhibits?” And then someone got me a studio upstairs, and then I started doing the books with the scientists, but none of it was in my long-term plan.

Riddell: I’m going back to your saying that you had five children in five years. And as a mother myself, I have to imagine that that must have been such a contrast between leaving your house with five young kids and then going down to the Hollywood spaces of the Field Museum and just sitting there and being in that mode for that period of time.

Macnamera: Well, it’s pre-cell phones, and I was completely free. I mean, I could really immerse myself. People didn’t do that so … I mean, they went to a job that paid. They did not go to the Field Museum and draw for five hours. And I have a whole bunch of siblings too, and we all raised kids this way. And I was freed up by a mother who didn’t make dinner or take me anywhere. There’s a whole lot of ways to do it. There’s a lot of ways to paint. You can be an abstract expressionist, you can be a scientific illustrator. And there’s a lot of ways to do the mother thing, and it doesn’t have to be give up your life and sit at home and drive them to lessons.

Riddell: That’s an amazing story. So light mothering allowed for you to do the deep sink into whatever you were looking at at the Field Museum.

Macnamera: Right. And the result is nobody was exceptional. It’s just that they understood you find your path, you work at it every day, you persist, and that’s what I passed on.

Riddell: And you had siblings around, so there were other adults in their lives and they really saw you evolve and that you were modeling that for them?

Macnamera: Yeah. My son especially, he was third. He said, “My God, you’re so much better.” I said, “Well, if you do something every day for five hours, you get better. I mean, what do you think athletes do?”

Riddell: That’s right.

Macnamera: And somehow artists, there’s this myth that it’s all there and all you got to do is put it on a surface. Well, that’s nonsense. You have to hone it, develop it, nurture it.

Riddell: Can you say a little bit about what your early relationship was with the natural world? Like, why were you attracted to that as subject matter?

Macnamera: Yeah. And I have to laugh because we didn’t have a pet. My mother would look outside and say, “There’s a cardinal [inaudible 00:12:01].” That’s the extent of my bird development. So I had nothing. It’s just that I grew into it, I guess. And then once I was at the Field Museum for five, 10 years, I started a lot of working outside and traveling with scientists and … But the natural world is an antidepressant, so if you soak it in, you live a better life, I think.

Riddell: What’s your vision of a celebration of science?

Macnamera: Well, I want to somewhat expose common things, but also things you don’t know about. So when I was doing the insect book, you have to wait for your watercolor to dry. So I would open up these cases. I’m down in the dark corridors of the third floor. And I found a cabinet, and one man had collected nests for his whole life, and they were in boxes in this cabinet. And I opened up the boxes, and they were all brown. I was like, “Oh, layering compliments. Be still, my heart. This was meant for me.”

So I started doing nests, and I did it for maybe a couple years. I remember the insect guy coming to me, and I was doing a catastrophe nest, and I was making it 6 feet tall, just because it’s so outrageous. It’s in our ponds, and you’ve never seen one, and I’d never seen one. And it puts silk around itself and then it attaches anything that’s in the pond. So it’ll make a little wood house with four sides, or it will cover itself with shells. I didn’t know any of this, and I thought, “Well, if I make it big enough, someone will see it, the lazy viewer.” How can you miss it? I thought it was … So I did a whole bunch of these 6 feet tall, so I could celebrate, so I could say, “Here’s something, you don’t have to look in a scope to see it. It’s recycled material, building your home with recycled material.” It’s brilliant, and it’s insects doing it.

Riddell: But you had fun by playing with the scale and surprising somebody who might not look at it otherwise, but sees it in a fresh way.

Macnamera: Right. I wanted to take a secret out of that cabinet and tell people like me who don’t know there’s a nest in the tree, but we did all the insect nests and then we decided to do birds too. And I thought, “Oh, birds, a bunch of sticks that go, ‘Oh, well, heavens’.” They work in clay. They work in … Once I got going, I was like, they use a ton of media.

Riddell: Can you tell me what it feels like to be you with your favorite tool in your hand? And what does it feel like when you’re in motion?

Macnamera: Sometimes when I would do those whole bird pages where I had to draw 15 birds and exact relationship to each other, I really needed a vacation. So what I would do was fill cups of water with paint and I’d pour them all over my page. So I made skies by just … I’d pour three cups, three colors, and I’d wait ’till it dried, and then I’d pour three more colors. And I’d do this maybe 10, 15 times and get these wild, beautiful skies. Now they’d cover up the drawing that I had done. So then I’d have to go back in and lift out the birds, but the activity sort of soothed me after being a maniac for three days to get all the birds in the right place. And it made beautiful skies. I’ve wrecked some things, but I don’t care about wrecking.

Riddell: And then you had the courage to then go back and refine the bird all over again?

Macnamera: Right. The bird gets wrecked a little bit. But if you go up to the bird with this perfect little sky, it looks like somebody went up to the bird with a perfect little sky. Sometimes I walk a lot. And whenever I look at a sky on a dull day, even like today, I’m overwhelmed by this great abstract painting and I’m like, “How could anyone even compete with this?” The sky, first of all, scale, surprise. We have daily abstract painting in front of us. And I’ve tried to paint them. And when I painted it’s still and it doesn’t have the life that when I’m pouring, the watercolor will do something I wouldn’t do because I’m boring. And then when I pour, that’s my little wild moment, and some magic will happen.

Riddell: That’s great. I love that idea that you’re sort of letting something else take over or have a hand in your painting.

Macnamera: Right.

Riddell: I’ve walked by your studio in the Field Museum and I have to admit it’s just the most alluring spot. So you’re right next to entomologists and ichthyologists and people who are really steeped in the science. What would you say your proximity to being next to scientists day in, day out for so many years? How has that affected you?

Macnamera: The work ethic of the scientist is really pure. There’s no getting important or having a great job. I mean, obviously they want to publish. Obviously they want to find new species, but there’s this kind of persistence that I really admire.

Riddell: One of your students told me that you had said in class that an eraser is the artist’s greatest tool.

Macnamera: Yes. So the first day of class, at the end of the first class, I pass out an eraser to everybody, so that maybe they’ll get rid of that notion that, “Oh, I didn’t do it right, so I’m not good.” Of course you didn’t do it right, but it’s the guy who persists who gets it right. And then you’ll get it right quicker as you go on, but you can’t let too much … I would love to do the psychology of being an artist because your head is such a big detriment. It gets in there and, “Well, you’re not making money,” it says, or, “You’re not this or you’re not that.” Instead of, “Did you have a great day today?” Well, be grateful and get up and do it again tomorrow.

But erasing, they aren’t … It’s amazing. They start over, for instance, and I go, “Don’t start over. I mean, how many husbands do you want? Try to fix the first husband. If he doesn’t work, get rid of them and get another husband.” But I mean, at least try to fix them because it’s so much work to start over. And I don’t think you carry with you, which is not completely true. I just did a big painting twice and it did go faster the second time because I didn’t make the same mistakes. But it’s not fun to do the same painting. I like to be lost in trying to find a home.

Riddell: How much do your students interact with scientists? And do they feel free to push back and put forth their own opinion and be willing to express what it is that they want to do in art, even though the scientists may have a different idea?

Macnamera: The ones that are really meant to be scientific illustrators and work under a scientist, sort of as his expression, they find their little niche and then they can go to UIC or they can go out to … California has a little program for it. And they’re really different than my normal student. The class is 9:00 to 4:00. 1 o’clock I have a visiting scientist every week. So they come in and here’s the reaction they get, “Well, maybe I should be a scientist.” They’re like, “Oh, you mean I could pin bugs as a calling,” right? Or, “I could collect bugs?” Then I have the bird guy, take them out and let them listen. Maybe birds, some area of bird life would be more interesting. And I probably have maybe 10 kids working at the museum now over, because it’s been 30 years.

Riddell: So you’re saying that their response to the scientist is to completely throw art out the window and say, “I’m going to live a life of science.”

Macnamera: Well, it has a ground floor that we don’t have. Art, you’re floating and there’s such a vague future. And here you can contribute to conservation, education. I mean, there is something solid about it.

Riddell: So if money were no object, if you didn’t have to get a grant to do what you wanted to do, is there some kind of a long-term project that you wish you could do?

Macnamera: I want to do more for conservation. For instance, they were trying to get a new park in Peru, two million acres. And the president of this area loved this big, huge, crazy fish. So they came to me a week before they were going, “Can you paint this huge fish?” So I did an 8-foot painting, which they took down to the president. Now, they’ve been working on this park for 10 years. I’m a tiny part of it, but that to me is like highlight. That’s what I would do full time. I would just be at their service.

Riddell: To make visual work that shifts the way somebody perceives a piece of land that actually leads to its preservation.

Macnamera: Right. That would be… That’s heaven.

Riddell: That is dreamy.

Macnamera: Isn’t it dreamy? Doing something to contribute. Hello, remember the ’70s? We were trying to be good. Yeah.

Riddell: Well, some people like you are still trying to do it.

Macnamera: Well, sort of.

Riddell: And the scientists that you work with.

Macnamera: Yeah, they are.

Riddell: Do you plan on retiring? What do other people in your field do in retirement? Is there such a thing?

Macnamera: No. I’ll never retire, I don’t think. I might retire from teaching, although I love teaching. Teaching keeps me young thinking. For instance, I’ll give you an example. There are all these animators in my class and I’m like looking at their work on the computer and I’m thinking, “I could make a bird fly on the page. I can make movement on the page.” That’s all inspired by what my students are doing. There’s our book, kids’ books and a graphic novel concept all came from my students. So that is why I would like to keep teaching. And you can’t believe the people rolling into the Field Museum. They can’t even walk and they’re still coming.

Riddell: You mean the people that work at the Field Museum who-

Macnamera: Yeah. The scientists.

Riddell: … continue to come in?

Macnamera: Yeah. Because if you love your work, you just do it until you can’t do it anymore.

Riddell: I heard that you give a gift to your students at the end of your class. The one that I heard about was an empty jar that had a quote on it from E.O. Wilson.

Macnamera: Oh, I love E.O. Wilson. Yeah, he’s great. He’s the ant guy.

Riddell: Do you remember what it was that it said or why did you give them an empty jar?

Macnamera: Oh, I want them to collect for sure because I want them outside looking.

Riddell: Collecting specimens of nature?

Macnamera: Yeah. You walk differently once you start collecting. I mean, I walked for a hundred years and then when I did the insect book, I was like, “Oh my God, they’re everywhere.” And I thought, well, flies and mosquitoes, but no, Kelly Green beetles and cicadas. There’s so much more once you start looking so I try to get them to collect. But I change, I gave them a little notebook this year that had the Michelangelo quote, “If people knew how hard I worked, they wouldn’t think my work was so great.” So it’s a quote from someone that I put on these things. To try to get them into that state that, “Aren’t you lucky you love doing this?”, find a way to do it because it doesn’t always work that someone will pay you. And don’t wake up and you didn’t do it. Don’t wait.

Riddell: I hope this conversation with Peggy Macnamera inspires you to look long and look deep and even after you think you understand something, to continue looking a little more. This week, be sure to make time to step outside. And this time in honor of Peggy, bring along an empty container.

Next week, the strange things that come alive in the night. Until then, enjoy the sky.

The Shape of the World is about nature and people and the world we share. It’s a production of The Office of Modern Composition, a business that creates compositions and fosters composers. If you have a story to tell, the Office of Modern Composition can help. They can go all DIY and teach you how to write and produce the story yourself, or they’ll do the whole thing for you. Either way, you will end up with a permanent archival piece that presents your ideas and experiences.

The Shape of the World is produced in the vital, vigorous, and beautiful metropolis of Chicago in the Prairie State of Illinois. You can find Shape of the World on Facebook and Instagram and on the website, shapeoftheworldshow.com. There you’ll find images of Peggy’s paintings and a photo of one of her parting gifts to students. You’ll also find a drawing of Peggy by the artist Rose Curly and much more.

The Shape of the World’s producer is Isabel Vasquez. The theme music is composed and performed by Brad Wood. Thank you to today’s guest, Peggy Macnamera. And thank you to both the Field Museum of Natural History and to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.