Allyson Comstock, art professor at Auburn University for 25 years, was granted the opportunity to embark on a two-month excursion to Antarctica in October.
The National Science Foundation (NFS) awarded Comstock the Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, covering all cost of transportation, food and other ground accommodations.
"I think one of the reasons I was selected is that I am using the microscopic views," Comstock said. "In my application I talked about how that's imagery and scientific knowledge that very few people have access to."
While there, Comstock will be working in collaboration with a team of scientists led by Dr. James McClintock, who received his Ph.D. in Biology from the University of South Florida in 1984. During the past 25 years of research, Dr. McClintock and his team, specifically Dr. Chuck Amsler and Dr. Robert Angus, have been working together in studying the prospective impacts of ocean acidification and increasing seawater temperature on Antarctic marine algae and invertebrates, the findings of which Comstock strives to put in a new light.
"As an artist I'll learn a lot about the research that's being done there, and one of my goals as an artist is to present that research to an audience in a different means then a scientist," Comstock said. "One of the goals of the NSF program is to bring to light the research being done there through a different format."
Over the two-month period of her excursion, Comstock will be studying microscopic views of core samples from the ice, from which she will to draw a series of art pieces in the triptych format, which consists of three drawings per piece.
"The central panel is more of an artistic invention; I'm using a view of the landscape, a smaller view, and then I'm layering in the broad view and the microscopic view," Comstock said. "So, it becomes more of a composite of the macro and the micro. That's the title of my project; it's 'Antarctica: Micro, Macro and In Between'."
Her artwork will not be completed until about a year after the excursion.
With the help of the resouces available, Comstock is hoping to return with many photographs that will help her be able to compose drawings.
"I'll be gone all of fall semester, and it's because my colleagues and department chair are willing to rework course assignments so that I can be on leave," Comstock said.
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