The Last Word On Nothing

I’m a recent convert to Instagram as my main form of social media. After spending a lot of the day reading and writing, listening and talking, sometimes I just can’t take any more words. Facebook sometimes seems too complicated, Twitter too fast—but looking at images feels restful. I’ll follow most anything—photos of kids, vacation scenery, what’s for lunch, sketchbooks of working artists—and like it all. On a quick check Thursday afternoon, I saw a friend’s Tarot card, tributes to Prince, a yawning dog, the sunrise in Joshua Tree and a brand-new baby. Even writing that down feels inspiring.

I’ve been particularly inspired by the work of San Francisco-based graphic designer Katrina McHugh. As part of the 100 Day Project—a project that encourages people to make and share creative work and talents—she started a series of infographics called 100 Days of Lyrical Natural Sciences. (For those interested in the 100 Day Project, the 2016 edition started at the beginning of the month, and there’s still time to jump in.)

At first glance, McHugh’s work may seem like illustrations that you might come across in a textbook. But instead of explaining a single phenomenon, like the dew point or the phases of the moon, they’re showing something perhaps more inscrutable: song lyrics.

McHugh inherited a set of encyclopedias from her grandfather and became obsessed with the images inside. For the project, she says, she wanted to create an encyclopedia-style collection that calls out the many different ways we connect with the natural world. And songs are one place that we find them. “There are so many love songs that use these visuals from the natural world that try to explain how we get by as humans.”

She considers herself a “make-believe natural scientist”—she studied book art and drawing—but left to her own devices, she’s always found herself drawing plants and nature, and has done a collection of botanical drawings. She’s particularly amazed by the drawings from botanists who had to document plants in detail by hand, without the help of a camera. In her images, the details come from photos she and her friends have taken, along with public domain images. Even in cases where the illustration itself may not have natural science details, she’s tried to bring in a bit of the natural world, as in the image of “Ain’t No Sunshine,” by Bill Withers, which has a long-exposure photograph of the night sky in the background.

I feel as if I should write some more here, but in the spirit of letting the images do the talking, I’ll do just that. But I guess I can’t be completely silent: If you find yourself humming along, I’m right there with you.

 

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All images courtesy of Katrina McHugh