Conscious Choice: Books for the holidays

December 2005 | Conscious Reading

Books for the holidays

Illinois Insects and Spiders

By Peggy Macnamara

After painting watercolors at the Field Museum for more than twenty years, I was unexpectedly given the opportunity to concentrate on insects. I had painted from the museum’s vast collection of artifacts, birds, and mammals, as well as its architecture, yet had not paid much attention to the largest group of animals — insects — many of them tucked away in drawers hidden from public view. For the watercolors in this book, I worked from the Field Museum’s insect collection and Jim Louderman’s personal collection of local insects.

I became uneasy when I learned that I would need to use a microscope to observe and draw the insects in detail. I was accustomed to looking at my subjects directly, holding my pencil a couple of feet from the subject and closing one eye, thus observing how each part related to every other. This system was my mainstay. In this new endeavor, however, I would be leaning over a microscope, unable to see my 20 X 30 inch paper at the same time. My worries were quickly replaced by excitement. When I sat down and looked through the lens, I saw such a strange figure that my heart began to beat faster. A hairy little alien (a spider) was looking back at me with many eyes! Amazed by its body’s outrageous colors and patterns, I felt lost, silly in love. I began drawing forms I had never seen before, gradually forgetting my old methods and creating new ones.

I was also forced to change my palette to accommodate insects. I needed to use more fluorescent and bright colors as well as earth tones made up of layered opposites and metallics. Later, when I took the revised palette outside, my landscapes improved. In a sense, by observing nature’s least obvious creature, I began to understand how to paint her showier productions such as skies and mountains. How odd that the smallest things in nature would help me describe the most grand.

Insects as “artist-actors” soon fascinated me. By impersonating the habitats around them, they literally draw their surroundings on themselves in order to blend in. Moths become leaves, beetles become bark, and false eyes are everywhere. Their reflective surfaces distort form and help them disappear. They appear light where a shadow would otherwise make them dark and obviously round. As if using good drawing practices, insects dissolve their form rather than make it obvious.

The experience of painting insects has also afforded me the chance to collect insects myself. Insects are in such abundance that no matter how many are collected, the supply does not diminish. I never quite understood the phenomenon of collecting until now. I get to know the insect better after I have seen it alive. Also, I never walk down a street without the possibility of discovering something new. Vigilance has rewarded me with a wonderful collection of Illinois insects.

The history of art has proved that strong work always contains some element of surprise. Coincidentally, the insect world is a parade of surprises. I invite you to look through my lens and discover the power of patient, heartfelt observation — the starting point of both art and science.

How to Use This Book

This book is meant to introduce the beauty, wonder, and diversity of a local population of insects. The specimens are painted true to scale in relation to each other, and are approximately ten times life-size. (A one-inch scale is in the right-hand corner of every plate.) The first two plates contain examples of different insect orders. Starting with plate III, the paintings illustrate the main insect orders: true bugs, grasshoppers and crickets, butterflies, flies, etc. There is endless variety within these groups, as the following pages demonstrate. Although we present just a sampling, the paintings and text are meant to give you a new perspective on insects and pique your interest in the entomological side of the animal kingdom.

It is hoped that the information throughout this book will dispel the commonly held myths that insects are merely pests. They are a necessary part of the ecosystem, where they serve as food for many species of fish, birds, and other animals. Many bees, flies, and beetles are essential for the cross-pollination of plants. Insects pollinate around 40 percent of the world’s flowering plants, including many used by humans for food. When enlarged enough to be seen, insects display wondrous colors and composition. They perform many familiar jobs: garbage recyclers, artificial inseminators, architects, artists, soldiers, and team players.

I have found that the insect experience is a prescription for life. I see the value in moving a little slower, looking ever more closely, and finding treasures in the seemingly mundane. Each local population is worth study and admiration, and where I am is where to begin.

Excerpted with permission from ILLINOIS INSECTS AND SPIDERS, paintings by Peggy Macnamara. Text by Division of Insects at the Field Museum. (University of Chicago Press in association with the Field Museum, $16.) Info: press.uchicago.edu.

Whether you’re considering giving a book as a special present or kicking back in a chair to enjoy one yourself, Conscious Choice recommends these gems that explore everything from the majesty of the insect world to spirituality of the ages, from hope for combating global warming to inspirational tales of unlikely friendships. Every book in the bunch offers a unique perspective to help you and others see the world in a new way.

THE WAY OF IGNORANCE, and Other Essays, by Wendell Berry (Shoemaker Hoard $24). To many in this country, Wendell Berry is a hero. He is a spokesman for intact families, strong community ties and preservation of our land. As the Kentucky writer/ farmer /pacifist once wrote, “Common work, common suffering, and a common willingness to join and belong are the conditions upon which speech is possible in [the] ‘dumb abyss’ in which we are divided.” He has consistently spoken out about the importance of work, of marriage, of community, of friendship, and of conservation.

In The Way of Ignorance, these themes reappear. Many are philosophical essays, but a few are more clearly narrative, such as the portrait of Charlie Fisher, a logger who still prefers to use draft horses in lieu of an expensive skidder. Although the tone of many of these essays is somewhat pessimistic, even hopeless, Berry still holds some optimism for our collective futures. “We now have hundreds of large and small organizations devoted to protecting or saving things of value that are endangered: peace, kindness, freedom, childhood, health, wilderness areas. … More and more, as I tell over our lengthening catalog of calamities and discouragements, I think of these organizations. I think of them with great sympathy, and with love, for I think they are the basis of our worldly hope.”

The author of many volumes of poems, essays and novels, Berry practices what he preaches. He still types his manuscripts on a typewriter and refuses to shop at Wal-Mart. He remains married to his only wife and still lives in the same community. — Deborah Straw

HIS OLDEST FRIEND, The Story of an Unlikely Bond, by Sonny Kleinfield (Times Books, $24) The elderly and young adults are two of the most misunderstood groups in our society. In His Oldest Friend, The Story of an Unlikely Bond by Sonny Kleinfield, the reader explores a remarkable friendship spanning both age categories. Elvis Checo is 20, born in the Dominican Republic and poor. Margaret Oliver is 93, a nursing home resident and twice-widowed mother. Elvis gets paid to visit Margaret three times a week, and they become instant close friends. Most of the nursing home residents suffer from dementia, but Margaret remains positive and in relatively good health, though she does use a wheelchair. Elvis is a rap songwriter who has worked since he was very young and lives in a poor, drug dealer-infested area of New York’s Washington Heights.

Both these people have sharp minds and kind hearts. They have much in common and their relationship fulfills both their needs. Elvis helps Margaret put the batteries in her remote control and pushes her wheelchair to the garden. Margaret shares her wisdom and believes in Elvis, something no one else has done for him.

Sonny Kleinfield is best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning articles on race published in The New York Times, but he has written seven other nonfiction books and received many journalism awards. — Deborah Straw

MAKING KIND CHOICES: Everyday Ways to Enhance Your Life Through Earth-And Animal-Friendly Living, by Ingrid Newkirk. (St. Martin’s Griffin, $13.95) Ever wonder where to purchase vegan shoes or how to avoid using cosmetics that contain animal ingredients? The engaging new reference book Making Kind Choices answers both of these questions and much more. Written by Ingrid Newkirk, founder and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Making Kind Choices serves as a how-to guide for anyone interested in living a life that is both Earth- and animal-friendly.

Newkirk covers everything from the importance of making environmentally safe choices in cleaning supplies to the preparation of what she refers to as “kind cakes,” or desserts made without the use of animal products. At the conclusion of each chapter, Newkirk includes websites, contact information and an occasional recipe, all designed to assist readers in making enlightened everyday choices. But perhaps the most compelling part of the book is the narrative. Newkirk’s easy-to-read prose provides the reader with some surprising facts. After all, how any people actually know that the production of some wool harms lambs? Newkirk explains how, in an effort to rid Australian-raised Merino lambs of maggot infestations — caused because the breed was intended for colder climates such as Scotland — farmers remove a large chunk of the lamb’s rump with the wool. The process is so painful that it takes several days before the lambs are able to stand. And what about the declawing of cats? The practice, Newkirk notes, is already illegal in England, where one veterinarian proclaimed: “I wouldn’t declaw a cat if you paid me $1,000 a nail.”

Making Kind Choices promises to make readers think twice about how just small, everyday decisions can affect the larger web of life on Earth. — Christine Mangan

BACK FROM THE LAND: How Young Americans Went to Nature in the 1970s, and Why They Came Back, by Eleanor Agnew. (Ivan R. Dee, $16.95) When millions of Americans embraced the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s, many headed to remote areas of the country and tried to live off the land. Among them was Eleanor Agnew, who in her memoir relates that she, her husband and two children were attempting to escape from modern materialism when they moved into the Maine woods to make a go at the real simple life.

Often humorous in her telling, Agnew describes the many triumphs, coupled with the many disappointments, that her family encountered as they set out to create a self-sufficient life. The family hauls water from a well, grows its own vegetables, and raises and slaughters its own animals. More than once, food is scarce and they are stuck with few options, prompting Agnew to list the surprising number of meals that can be made from spinach alone: spinach soufflé, spinach soup, and the ever-popular spinach tacos.

Perhaps it was the limited menu and funds, but finally Agnew has had enough, and she hightails it back to civilization, divorcing her husband who decides to remain firmly on the land and eventually finds a new wife.

Woven in among Agnew’s own tales are interviews with others who joined the back-to-the-land movement. By combining their stories with her own, Agnew has managed to recreate a compelling chapter of American history, one that should be experienced by everyone, even if only through a book. — Christine Mangan

MIRACLE DOG, How Quentin Survived the Gas Chamber to Speak for Animals on Death Row, by Randy Grim. Foreword by Dr. Jane Goodall. (Alpine Blue Ribbon Books, $19.95) Randy Grim rescues dogs no one wants. He spends weeks gaining the trust of abandoned and feral dogs. Since 1991, he has rescued more than 5,000 in St. Louis, Mo., where he is founder and director of Stray Rescue. Based on the success of The Man Who Talks to Dogs (about Grim) by Melissa Roth, Grim was encouraged to write his own book, about one special case: Quentin or the Miracle Dog.

Quentin, a young Basenji mix, was a “turn-in,” a reject, on death row. “If not adopted within five working days, there’s a 100 percent chance that, even with so much love to give, they [dogs like Quentin] will … wind up in the gas chamber.”

For Quentin (originally named Cain) life was up at the St. Louis Animal Regulation Center, or the Gasconade, where dogs and cats are “herded” inside a gas chamber by way of a trainlike apparatus.

But Cain wanted to live. He was inside the chamber for 15 minutes. When the warden opened the door, writes Grim, “Cain is standing atop the mound of [six] dead dogs.” Grim had no choice but to adopt him, change his name and make him a symbol.

Part narrative and part hard statistics, Miracle Dog is a plea for help for all animals on death row. — Deborah Straw

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