When I was deciding to go back to school for scientific illustration at CSUMB back in 2018, I was really influenced by remembering how much I loved a course I took in undergrad at Union College in Schenectady. “The Illustrated Organism” was a dual-listed biology/arts course, which was a great way to sneak in some art for this biology major in my senior year. It ended up being one of the most rewarding—and challenging—courses I took.

The professors recently put together an exhibit for the Kelly Adirondack Center featuring artwork by students over the years, highlighting the course’s history, the different modules of the course, and some of the facts about nature we learned.

I’m not sure I realized at the time that the course was created by a professor named Carl George—who was my dad’s biology professor when he was at Union in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s. Though I never met Prof. George, I had heard a lot about the ecology classes my dad took with him, studying fish in Bermuda and hiking Adirondack high peaks (or spraining his ankle and sitting in the car while the other students hiked, in my dad’s case). It seems like Prof. George influenced my path a lot, though I never met him!

While COVID derailed a planned in-person exhibition scheduled for last year, here is the web gallery to enjoy.

https://muse.union.edu/adirondack/what-came-home/drawn-from-nature-poster/