Evolving Art Series 4:Global Warming is Creating a New Art Movement

                                      Evolving Art Series 4

Global Warming is creating a new Art Movement 

Paintings and Verses by Dr Abe V Rotor

Coral Reef Deforestation. Eye of the Coral Reef.  

When the sea rises and buries the shoals and sandbars,

the sea grass and coral reef;

when the sun bears hard on the fringes of sea and land,

requiem hums eerie and grief.   

Oh, Art - what gift do you bring in suffering and lament,

but catharsis however brief. 

Mountain Desertification 

When the wind hot and dry sweeps over hills and mountains

all day long, freezing cold in the night;

and rain after a long absence brings gales and hurricanes;   

the landscape turns into a pitiful sight.  

What movement can a artist recall in the long history of art? 

too far out romanticism and classicism;

realism lost to the lens, impressionism to varied abstract art -  

welcome Dali-Miro'-Ernst surrealism.  ~

  Is it Summer or Autumn?

Global warming is destroying the orderly march of seasons, 

worst it is destroying the setting of this magnificent drama of nature.  

Neither!

Summer is when the sun is brighest

to nourish the plants into full bloom;

the fields transform green to golden, 

haystacks growing like mushroom.

Autumn is when the wind gets chilly,

birds in the sky migrate southward,

among stars and kites and fireflies,

and trees wear their brightest ward.

Neither!       

Never again will summer or autumn 

come, the march of seasons gone

where once Paradise stood proud,

prouder a rational wandering son.

  

Mutation (Mutilation) by Genetic Engineering

Genetic engineering has put into man’s hands the path and nature of evolution, creating heretofore unnatural organisms leading to speciation (species formation) under the dictate of the new science.  Here,  the god in man is taking over God’s power over creation.  In this painting one can subjectively identify organisms fused into an unorderly fashion yet revealing basic identities. 

It's a riddle, shocking, senseless and cruel,

seeking answer not only to what but why;

an elephant, a hog, a bull, save your guess,

science knows no limit like the endless sky.

neither direction nor purpose, obedience 

to sacredness of creation nor of humanity.

Frankenstein's regret too late to destroy

what he created, a fiend to life's sanctity.   

It's a riddle, more than the Sphinx's threat,

the key to safe passage in ones journey;

move over robot, we may say to strangers,

yet strangers we are seen too, by many.   

Where now leads the path of evolution 

of millions of years to what all the living

are today? Move over Darwin, Mendel et al;

your time is up, it's genetic engineering!

Did man destroy Eden on purpose then?

knowledge and disobedience on one table,          

then to build and to destroy are also one;

beauty in his eyes and heart insatiable. ~     

Photography: Capture the fleeting sun in the sky

                                                                     Photography:

 Capture the fleeting sun in the sky

Dr Abe V Rotor

Unedited photo taken in Virac, Catanduanes, with Sony 

Cybershot camera, 7.2 mega pixels. October 20, 2011

Never aim at the sun, never, said my mentor,

     a rule I never forgot;

Photos I took, the sun at my side or back,

     became pride of my art.

But art with no rules grew, and took over the helm;

     take it from artists Picasso

and Van Gogh, their masterpieces with the sun

     burning in deep arctic blue.

Take art deeper,  the soul suffers when the body

     is hale yet unwilling;

and triumphs in the works of Milton and Monet,

     their inner sun shining.~

The sun through the trees is a favorite subject of photography.  

Photos taken by the author at the San Vicente Botanical Garden,

San Vicente, Ilocos Sur ~ 

Macro Photography of Insects with an Ordinary Camera (Article in Progress)

Macro Photography* of Insects

with an Ordinary Camera, or Cellphone Camera

Dr Abe V Rotor

Macro photography is extreme close-up photography, usually of very small subjects and living organisms like insects, in which the size of the subject in the photograph is greater than life size. Wikipedia

Part 1 - The  Obnoxious Cotton Stainer (Dysdercus cingulatus)

   

Dysdercus cingulatus is a species of true bug in the family Pyrrhocoridae, commonly known as the red cotton stainer. It is a serious pest of cotton crops, the adults and older nymphs feeding on the emerging bolls and the cotton seeds as they mature, transmitting cotton-staining fungi as they do so. 

                                    How do you know a True Bug? 

  Colorful early nymph stage of Harlequin Bug (Murgantia histrionica) . 

Right, last instar of nymph showing a pair of developing wing pads.

 The brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys) is an insect 

in the family Pentatomidae.

Insects are often called bugs. But the real bugs belong to Hemiptera, the Order of insects to which the Stink bug, bedbug, rice bug (atagia), black bug and green bug (Nezara viridula) are members.

True bugs emit a characteristic odor, specially when crushed. This is a practical way of telling an insect if it is really a bug. Bugs secrete a caustic substance that is corrosive to the eye and skin. (If affected, immediately wash with warm water and mild soap.)

Bugs undergo incomplete metamorphosis - egg, nymph, and adult. Both the immature and mature insects have sucking mouth parts. They subsist on the sap of plants, resulting in stunting, defoliation and death of the host plants.

The term "bug" is a spy term. Bugged, means "being secretly monitored", usually with an electronic device, such as a miniature microphone.

Bugged could mean an exaggerated zeal for something (camera bug). It could mean the failing of a machine, or the compactness of a car (buggy). Think of the surreptitious nature and other adaptive ways of the bedbug.(Cimex lectularius) PHOTO ~

Part 2 - Beetles -  Little Gladiators

Dr Abe V Rotor

 

       A.  Iridescent* Asian Jewel Beetle (Sternocera aequisignata)

*Iridescence (also known as goniochromism) is the phenomenon of certain surfaces that appear to gradually change color as the angle of view or the angle of illumination changes. Examples of iridescence include wings of certain insects, feathers, butterfly wings and seashells as well as certain minerals. 

                           

          B. Click Beetle - Living Catapult: Click Beetle (kuddo         Ilk) Alaus spp. Family Elateridae, Order Coleoptera*

C. Rhinoceros Beetle - Male Oryctes rhinocerus

Part 3 - Preying Mantis 

 Dr Abe V Rotor

A preying mantis (Mantis religiosa L) catches its prey 

with specialized raptorial appendages.   

A gravid Green Preying Mantis

Part 4 - Moths: Masters of Camouflage and Mimicry

Dr Abe V Rotor

Sphinx Moths:

Polymorphism or Diversity? These three Sphinx moths have strong basic morphological characteristics, including size and color that at first glance one would not suspect their differences. The shape and position of their antennae are different, so with their "hoods". Another difference lies in the markings on their bodies and wings. In some cases a pair of eyes appears real to a would-be predator.

Halloween Moth (Brahmaea sp)

Part 5 - Other Live Specimens 

A. Phosphorescent Caterpillars

Glowing caterpillars feast on the leaves of ilang-ilang (Cananga  odorata)

B. Singing cicadas.  How many are they in this photo? Only the male sings and attracts the female. A beautiful song brings in two or more potential mates such as the case in this photo. 

 

C. Katydid, (left) a long horned grasshopper (Phaneroptera furcifera), and the field cricket (Acheta bimaculata) are the world's most popular fiddlers in the insect world.

                          D. "King Spider" (Gagambang Hari) - Argiope aurantia

Author takes a close look into its intricate hanging web. ~

                  

33 BOOKS: The Living with Nature Center Collection

33 BOOKS: The Living with Nature Center 

San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

Dr Abe V Rotor

Organize your home library, retrieve your books and dust them off from the selves, share them with the children and grownups as well. Books make a fine library and part of a family museum. Open them to your community and local schools, link them with the computer.  Here are some thirty-three books I have made available for students and guests who would come now and then for their research, thesis, assignments - or simply curious to scan a page or two  - and rekindle interest in books. 

       

"Books, the epics of Homer, stories of the Grimm Brothers, One-thousand-and-one Nights of Scheherazade, distilled from oral literature passed through generations to our present time.

Books, written ahead of their time - Galileo's astronomy, Darwin's evolution, Martin Luther's Protestantism ignited dis-pleasure of the Church.

Books, bedtime stories, baby's introduction to the world, legends and fantasies that take young ones to the land of make believe.

Books, the record of ultimate scholarship, are the epitome of the greatest minds in thesis and dissertation, theories and principles.

Books, the precursor of the Internet, the framework of the i-Pod, Tablet, Galaxy, and other gadgets that man becomes virtually a walking encyclopedia." - AV Rotor, Books the Greatest Treasure of Mankind

  

"One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time." – Carl Sagan

 

  

“Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real.” ― Nora Ephron

 

"Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world." – Napoleon Bonaparte

  

"A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors." – Charles Baudelaire

     

  

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” ― Harper Lee

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”― Ernest Hemingway

  

“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest (people) of the past centuries.” ― René Descartes

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” ― Cicero

  

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis

"Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people – people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book." ― E.B. White

 

“I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them.” ― Emma Thompson

“I guess there are never enough books.” ―

 

“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” ― Henry David Thoreau

“For my whole life, my favorite activity was reading. It’s not the most social pastime.” ― Audrey Hepburn

 

“You will learn most things by looking, but reading gives understanding. Reading will make you free.” ― Paul Rand

  

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” ― Jane Austen

“I can feel infinitely alive curled up on the sofa reading a book.” ― Benedict Cumberbatch

 

“The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.”― Eleanor Roosevelt

 

  

“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.” – Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind

 

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray 

  

“One must always be careful of books... and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.” – Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

“The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.” – George Orwell, 1984