“This seemingly simple delight has evolved over centuries, each layer telling a story of cultural exchange, innovation and the pursuit of exquisite taste.”
Mixed Berry Trifle photo by Amanda Suarez via Serious Eats.
One evening this past November, Phillip and I were watching an episode of The Great British Bake Off (GBBO) where the consensus on one contestant’s crumbly cake was that it would have been better as a trifle.
White Chocolate Tiramisu Trifle with Spiced Pears via Epicurious. Photo by Con Poulos.
All the Pretty Trifles
Phillip wasn’t familiar with the term, but I knew he’d seen these classic, layered desserts before. I did an image search, looking for quintessential trifle examples to show him.
Naturalist, artist, and author Roseann Hanson is an explorer. But her definition of the word doesn’t require you to have traveled extensively on 5 continents the way she has.
To her, being an explorer is more about how carefully you study something – whether it’s the Sahara Desert or a grain of sand – than how far you go. (Incidentally, I agree!)
She gave a talk at the Natural History Institute in Prescott called “The Art of Exploration: How Field Sketching and Journaling Bridge Science, Conservation, and Well-being.”
Krkonoše Mountains drawing by archaeologist Jan Erazim Vocel, c. 1841. Photo via State Regional Archives in Prague + Wikimedia Commons.
Field Note History
In the days before you could just carry a camera with you, it was common practice for scientists and explorers to draw what they were observing out in the world.
Their field notes often included beautiful illustrations, along with handwritten descriptions.
Ancient rock art in Twyfelfontein. Photo by SqueakyMarmot / Mike, Vancouver, Canada – CC BY 2.0
Sketched in Stone
The impulse to make a visual record of what’s around us and what we’ve seen on our journeys goes all the way back to the Stone Age, to cave walls and sandstone boulders. Roseann Hanson sees these drawings as early field notes. Continue reading “Field Notes: Drawing (on) Your Experience”
“We … find our way on canoes as we travel across the ocean where there are no street signs.”
Even in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with no land in sight – and no GPS – Lehua Kamalu knows where she’s going.
Hōkūle’a was designed to replicate traditional Polynesian voyaging canoes. Photo courtesy of the Polynesian Voyaging Society.
I learned about Lehua through an interview on the Overheard at National Geographic podcast. As part of the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS), she has learned to find her way across the waves by employing ancestral knowledge and constant, keen observation of her surroundings.
Captain navigator Lehua Kamalu before departing on a voyage from Hawaii to California in August 2018. Photo by Hye Jung Kim / Polynesian Voyaging Society.
“Wayfinding for us really is the idea that with the naked eye, with all of your senses, [you] immerse yourself into the signs of the natural world around you.”
The Polynesian Voyaging Society was founded in the 1970s, part of a Hawaiian cultural renaissance of pre-colonial arts, language, knowledge, and skills. They re-learned how to build the large, ocean-going canoes that had originally brought Polynesians to the Hawaiian islands centuries ago, as well as the navigational methods that guided them.
“Waves create regular, readable patterns in the ocean that are long range and very consistent, particularly in the tropics, particularly here in Polynesia, and are very reliable to find your way.”
The first voyaging canoe PVS built was the 62-foot long Hōkūleʻa, which was launched in 1975 and has since traveled over 140,000 nautical miles! The next canoe, Hikianalia, was built in 2012.
Photo courtesy of the Polynesian Voyaging Society.
In 2018, after years of honing her navigational skills, Lehua Kamalu became the first woman to captain one of these canoes on an extended voyage.
It was fascinating to hear her describe what it’s like to sail across the Pacific Ocean without present-day navigational equipment.
“The navigator’s job is to spend as little time sleeping as possible. And as much time watching for consistency, watching for patterns in the sky and in the ocean, and also for changes and comparing what’s going on between the two.”
Currently, she’s one of the 400 crew members of two Polynesian voyaging canoes (Hōkūle‘a and Hikianalia) that are circumnavigating the Pacific on the 43,000-nautical-mile “Voyage for the Earth,” Moananuiākea.
The University of Arizona Museum of Art (UAMA) wasn’t even open yet the morning after Thanksgiving 1985, when an employee arrived to find a man and a woman already waiting outside. The gregarious couple managed to talk their way in, following the employee into the building.
University of Arizona Museum of Art in 1982 via Gannett.
The woman, wearing a red jacket and a scarf in her hair, chatted up a security guard, while her mustachioed partner went upstairs toward one of the museum’s most important works.
Woman-Ochre had been in the museum’s collection since 1958. It was unceremoniously taken off exhibit when this Black Friday visitor hacked the canvas out of its frame, rolled it up, stuffed it under his jacket (or somewhere), and made a hasty exit with his accomplice.
Agave has been cultivated in the Tucson area for hundreds of years.
While tequila might be the most widely known product made from agave (a.k.a. the century plant or maguey), it’s certainly not the only one! Different species of the plant are distilled into different spirits, collectively called mezcal.
Native peoples would also use agave to make food, medicine, and even rope. They developed farming techniques to maximize the plant’s adaptability and drought-resistant qualities, so they could grow it where other crops wouldn’t thrive.
Mural of Mayahuel, the agave goddess, by Rock ‘‘CYFI’’ Martinez.
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