Winter 2005
WSM Winter 2005
Winter 2005
Adorning the world
The opening of the Metropolitan Museum’s exhibition was the first time the visiting Marquesans had seen these representations of their culture.
In conjunction with the opening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City of Adorning the World: Art of the Marquesas Islands, (May 10, 2005 – January 15, 2006) Carol Ivory, who was the advisor and consultant for the show, lectured on Marquesan art, her research specialty, at the Barr Graduate Center. Attending the lecture were 15 Marquesans, a remarkable fact in that the Marquesas Islands are marvelously remote. To reach the Marquesas, one must first reach the already remote Tahiti, and … » More …
Winter 2005
Magpie Forest: Protecting a piece of the past
Magpie Forest is like something out of the Wizard of Oz, a strange green land in the middle of a field.
Nestled in a 33-acre parcel of wheat north of Pullman, the 14-acre tract is a remnant of the original Palouse prairie. Last spring, Washington State University purchased the property from a local landowner to protect it from being developed.
Accessible only through a network of game trails, the spot is covered with hawthorn thickets, quaking aspen, mountain ash, and native shrubs, grasses, and flowering plants. The University hopes to upgrade these trails and encourage people to visit the property. Plans for an access road … » More …
Winter 2005
When buoy meets barge
“You look out on the ocean, and it looks huge. It looks like there’s space for anybody or anything out there.
“But,” says Steve Harbell, “really there’s a lot going on.”
Take, for example, crabbers and ocean-going towboats. Historically, the two have not mixed well off the Pacific coast. Dungeness crab fishermen typically set 400 to 500 pots in the waters off Washington’s coast. Multiply that by 228 fishermen, and you get a thicket of buoys attached by monofilament to the pots 50 to 250 feet below.
That same ocean, near shore, is a towboat highway over which huge boats towing barges laden with various … » More …
Winter 2005
Medieval Missive: An ancient document rediscovered
A sacred and significant artifact of European history-a genuine papal bull from the Middle Ages-was recently found tucked among the books and papers of Washington State University’s Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections.
The bull, or bulla, named for its original form as a bubble-shaped metal plate, and later for the lead seal affixed to an official document, was most often a legal missive from the pope. Papal bulls did everything from advocate for an individual’s safe travel to advise the citizens of a country to follow their king.
The written communication from the pope now at WSU once protected a house for lepers in the … » More …
Winter 2005
Ann Christenson's Time Piece
Bringing disparate images together into a unified whole seems to come naturally to ceramic artist Ann Christenson, professor of fine arts at Washington State University. It’s particularly evident in one of her most recent projects-a sundial.
Christenson was one of several artists invited by the University of California, Berkeley, to submit a design for the sundial, as part of the renovation of a courtyard within the Clark Kerr Campus at the university. The limitations imposed upon the design-that part of the area containing the sundial could be flat and that sundial parts be theft proof-led Christenson to choose an analemmatic sundial of tile and bronze … » More …
Winter 2005
A Sweet Buzz: Honey
Entomologist Steve Sheppard has never gotten over his wonder at how people came to raise swarms of stinging insects for the honey they produce.
“To see this guy dumping out thousands of bees to collect honey from their hive. . .” He shakes his head. “It’s amazing that humans ever figured it out to do that.”
But the Washington State University associate professor, who not only keeps bees himself, but unflinchingly opens beehives with his bare hands, understands the passion for honey.
People prize it as a delicacy and demand it as a staple. They cherish some honeys for their color and admire others for … » More …
Winter 2005
Maybe tomorrow: Graduate student follows his heart into uncharted territory
Just as Washington State University political science student Steve Overfelt was finishing his master’s degree coursework and preparing to write his thesis, he decided to put it off. And his advisor, Prof. Martha Cottam, encouraged him to do so.
Was this evidence of deteriorating academic standards at WSU? Hardly. It was a response to the tsunami that devastated coastal communities in Southeast Asia on December 26, 2004.
“I’d spent Thanksgiving in Indonesia doing research for my thesis on non-governmental organizations (NGOs), so I really wanted to go back to help,” Overfelt says. “But nobody wanted my physical labor, only the cash in my pocket. After … » More …
Winter 2005
Brewing Up Business
The Small Business Development Center celebrates 25 years of success.
Mark Burr and his business partners, Nina Law and Skip Madsen, dreamed of owning their own beer brewing business. After a visit to Port Townsend a few years ago, the trio began to investigate buying the historic Town Tavern and turning it into the Water Street Brewing and Ale House. During the course of his research, Burr discovered the Small Business Development Center (SBDC), hosted by Washington State University, and made an appointment with Kathleen Purdy, business development specialist with the Olympic Peninsula Regional Center of the SBDC.
The SBDC is designed to help small … » More …
Winter 2005
Pop Art in Pullman
This fall, Washington State University’s Museum of Art is showing more than 70 works by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. Entitled Roy Lichtenstein Prints 1956-97, the exhibit offers a comprehensive record of the artist’s evolution. Lichtenstein explored commercial and comic book images and painted them in immense scale, utilizing bright colors, simple lines, and the dot patterns associated with newsprint reproduction. Although his work was controversial in the 1960s, it changed the way America looked at and thought about art.
The exhibit, from the private collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer of Portland, Oregon, continues in Pullman through December 16 before moving to the Henry Art Gallery … » More …