Interview with photographer Jeremy Underwood from Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge (June 17-July13, 2013)

By Ryan Mudgett

Jeremy at Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge

Houston photographer, Jeremy Underwood was part of the Aldo & Leonardo artist in residence program at the Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge which took place June 17-July13, 2013. Underwood’s fine art photography embodies our complicated relationship with nature and the contemporary landscape.  His photographs focus on the tension between nature and culture, challenging viewers to reflect upon our consumer society, the connection we have with our environment and the pervasion of pollution (Underwood).

Q: Why were you interested in participating at the Monomoy National Wildlife residency?

J.U. I knew the Aldo and Leonardo Wilderness Science and Art Collaboration would be more different than anything I had experienced before.  History is no stranger to the collaboration of science and art.  Leonardo da Vinci, cited as one of the greatest painters of all time is renowned for his skills as an artist and a scientist.  William Henry Jackson’s images of the American West introduced the world to a vast landscape never seen before, laying the groundwork for the preservation of America’s National parks.  Ansel Adams served on the board of directors of the Sierra Club advocating the preservation of the land.  For me, it is about what can become of art, the message an image can portray when words are not enough.

Q:Why is the intersection of Art and Science so important to you and your work?

J.U. My artwork embodies our complicated relationship with the natural world and the contemporary landscape, challenging viewers to reflect upon our consumer society, the connection we have with our environment and the pervasion of pollution.  I was curious how a scientific influence would affect my work.

Q:What are some of your first reactions to the Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge?

J.U. As I began my journey to Monomoy, a conflict in ideology ran through my thoughts, scientific utility versus aesthetic sensibility.  We were a group of artists working with scientists.  In one sense, artists are at odds with science, relying more on intuition than scientific theory.  On the other hand, both artist and scientist try to posit change working for the same outcome.  I wondered, what was to come of such a residency experiment?

Q:What do you believe to be a highlight to your time spent at Monomoy?

J.U. Upon arriving at Monomoy, it was difficult to get passed the chaos.  Fifteen thousand nesting birds in a small area was mind blowing.  But once I settled into the environment, quiet heartfelt moments began to reveal themselves: the gentleness of a mother bird with her chick, the playfulness of the newborn birds, the devotion of the parents to their young.  To be able to witness these events…that is what life is all about. 

Q:Did you experience any change in your perception during your stay at Monomoy?

J.U. I’ve seen the level of commitment needed by the staff to continue to protect this wildlife area.  And too, I’ve seen the frustration of the public not allowed to recreate on the nature preserve.  In the end, my experience has left me with more questions than answers about how we negotiate the natural places left in our world.  Wilderness stewardship is a complicated issue.  I guess it is to be expected that at any confluence, there is sure to be turbulence.  At the edge of nature and culture, this is especially true.  But I can say, that I’ve left with the idea that stewardship, change, and protection is not the calling of one career path.  Rather, it takes many to sew the seeds of change.  I’m hoping I can be a part of that circle. 

Q:As an artist do you feel like you influenced the scientist that you worked with? 

J.U. I remember having a conversation with one of the scientists about what they were doing at Monomoy.  My curiosity and layman’s description of the project put a smile on her face.  She told me her daily job was all about the routine, the data and science and it was good to be reminded about the passion.

Q:Did you experience any absurd situations at the Monomoy Refuge?

J.U. Upon arrival, it was clear that much effort was put into the protection of Monomoy’s tern colony.  So that is where I put my energy, documenting productivity.  In ideology, the act seemed straightforward, even a bit romantic.  Protect and document Monomoy’s colony of birds.  In reality, philosophy and practice can be a considerable divide.  Approximately fifteen thousand terns nest in a small range on Monomoy.  Despite our good intentions to protect them, the birds only saw us as predators to their young.  Every moment, and I do mean every single moment we were in the open, we were barraged by birds, attacked and defecated on, sunrise to sunset.  It made Hitchcock’s film, The Birds, look like child’s play.  I’ve been told that in some cultures people believe that is very good luck to be hit by bird poop.  The staff at Monomoy must be some of the luckiest people on earth.  Every day we came back to camp covered in good luck.

Q:What were some of the beneficial outcomes of your experience?

J.U. Monomoy has given me the insight of what it takes for preservation and protection first hand.  It’s a hard job, it’s a dirty job, it’s a complicated job.  This experience has furthered my understanding of the complexity of our relationship with the environment.

Human Debris- Jeremy Underwood's trash scuplture in a Huston waterway.
http://jeremyunderwood.com/trash-sculpture-public-art/

  

Final Days of the Residency on South Monomoy

By Elisabeth Nickles

South Monomoy

The lighthouse during a storm

My last week of the residency I spent a total of six days on Monomoy at the south end of the island staying in the house adjacent to the historical lighthouse. The lighthouse was built in 1849 and it was an important warning of the shoals and currents that surround southern Monomoy. It was last used in 1923. Besides the lighthouse and remaining house and shed, Monomoy is left to the elements, to the winds and winters that are constantly changing its shape and habitat. It has suffered little from the effects of man, except in a few creatures and plants that proliferated with the population of humans. 

The island was not always disconnected from the mainland, people fished and a small community existed in the mid 1800’s. The Monomoiyicks hunted and fished regularly during the summer months. The abundance of food is evident in the many fishing boats that harvest off of the coast of Monomoy.  Perhaps Monomoy's extreme conditions protect it and make it difficult to be used for permanent settlement. In the past, there was a lighthouse keeper and his family making sure the lighthouse remained lit.   

An edge of the lighthouse with surroundings

The privilege of being on Monomoy on July 4^th is that I felt a pride in my country in a way that was so connected to the land, and a deep appreciation for the people that set aside this area. I could spend the day thinking about evolution over time that created an ecosystem full of flying creatures, lichens, tidal pools and ponds. The day was mine to explore a new place, with no distraction. To have my job be “to look” and “to experience” was a gift on a day that represents our independence and national pride, making it the best Fourth of July I have ever experienced. 

Inside the lighthouse facing east

Inside the lighthouse facing west

 

Lighthouse facing East 

 

Exploring the Southern end of the island, one gets the sense that existence is existing  in that the animals and birds are left to simply be. The interference of human development is prohibited, frozen in time… and you are experiencing something beyond the abstract boundaries and divisions that contain the spaces of our modern world. 

The southern end of the island is quite different from the north in that there are freshwater ponds. The vegetation is diverse, there are pine trees, water lilies, cranberry bogs and cattails. Until hurricane sandy and the contamination of salt water to the ponds,  freshwater fish inhabited the fresh waters of the island. River otters have been seen in the ponds until recent years. I noticed a large variety of song birds around the ponds, bringing the constant bird songs and the arcing trails of fast moving swallows.

The boundaries that exist on the southern end of the island, are formed by water, grasses, marshes, mud, lichen and the shifting water lines absorbed in the sand. All is a sensual wonderland of color, light, and atmosphere. Each moment changed by the bright sun or dim mist. A change in the weather brings dramatic changes to the sky and horizon. The light and mist make each previously observed area appear muted, subdued in clarity, light and shade. One’s confrontation with the mist, rain and wind is a part of its cycle as is night and day. Water is refreshing after the heat of the sun, the birds keep flying seeming to delight in the light rain. The falling rain and mist dampen the plants and lichens, changing the sound underfoot from crunchy to soft.

 

A clear, sunny day, very crunchy

a cloudy, damp day, very spongy

edges begin to merge

One can see in the morphology of the landscape and the vegetation that grows in the different areas, where water gathers and collects creating a different ecosystem within the large areas of dunes. One could miss the diversity beneath eye level unless spending time looking down, and getting on your hands and knees to take a closer look. From a few inches above the ground one can see an entirely new world, adding to the feeling of boundless wonder.  

The Bog

 

The lichens cover a large area. I noticed three different kinds interspersed with areas of cranberry bogs, filled with mosses, carnivorous plants and cranberries.

 

Within the cranberry bog

sun dew carnivorous plant

Powder Hole

The area around Powder Hole on the Western side of the south end was one of the most magical places I explored.  Each step, I was observing a different painting. Every texture told of the tide and the rolling up and away of a force, both feeding and taking away. The water used to be contained by sand, but the ocean has broken through and creates a stream of water directly in and out of the mud flats. The area is an important spot for migrating birds to stop and eat, there are always many different species of birds feeding on the mud flats.   

Oystercatcher at Powder hole

Each time I hiked to Powder hole, it appeared different. Depending on the light, time of day, amount of rainfall and cloud cover. The cycle of the tide changes constantly as does the movement of the clouds, the same environment can appear new and create a completely different experience. 

Powder hole from the Eastern edge

The blotches at powder hole with violets, deep blues and light greens

              

             

            

The tides filled areas with water over a stained sandy ground, the textures created by growth and decay was an enchanted wonderland of blotches. Each pattern and design marked the passing of time in the abundance of life of the large and small. Death is common in its intertwining rhythm of coming and going, each part fulfilling a role for some organism along its existence.

                                             

                  

The ocean makes paper- seen above to the bottom right is a paper like phase of seaweed that is caught in the grasses at the edges of powder hole. 

                  

The unbelievable colors of Powder hole.

 

The orangish, yellowish, brownish water contrasted with the blues and light greens had me floating inside of a
color field painting

Bright green in the sun , deliciousness of texture and color

I watched this accumulation of broken down seaweed ( I believe it is a type of spongomorpha) and took video of its movementgracefully forming organic lacework patterns that shifted constantly. Its colors ochre,
sap green. The fish 

The Inlet

The ocean has broken through to create a stream of water that rises and falls, filled with seaweeds that float with the movement. My own sense of scale changed with the experience of walking under an open sky surrounded by water and grasses. The proportion of my body was dominated by the land and atmosphere. To stay still and to watch is my favorite part of being in wild places.  In simple listening, in being quiet and motionless, I can see so much more. I am not the subject, but the observer. In the age of speed and fast images, I protest with long looking. I rebel in taking time to respond to texture and sound. Southern Monomoy gave me an easy invitation to look long and release the ego and ambition to the wind and rain; to worship sun and color.

The simplicity of two color families and their variation. I felt i was
in a living, breathing, perfect painting. 

The area where the sea breaks through, bringing life and evidence of past life. There are bones at the edges that
have been washed in with the force of the tides. 

Nightfall

When the evening comes, the day is done. The rhythm of eating, bathing and entertainment, is simplified. The morning light woke me to see the sun rise. The night begged for me to look at the dome of the stars, to hear the crickets and toads.  

The beach on the east side of the island 

 

Nightfall from the lighthouse, the silhouette of the land and structures create the uniform shape
to frame a changing sky

It was difficult to leave Monomoy’s southern area.  Life has a different rhythm when it depends on the rising and falling of the sun, the day dictated by weather and your activity of the day entirely dependent on the light offered naturally.

 For most of human existence, we were hunter gatherers. We related to the world quite differently than the modern human. I believe our minds still long for this connection, our modern psychological ailments a symptom of the growing divide between man and nature. Even in language we have separated who we are and the rest of ‘nature’. It’s as if we have created an alien species, living in the industrial world, without considering what it means to our totality as an animal, to lose habitat and experience within that habitat.   The imposition of convenience on the earth has left fragmentation for which I seek wholeness. I find it best in the wild, creative places of my mind and in the wilderness areas still intact.

 

Harrier hawk seen above dunes late in the day

Carl Jung’s writings about our interconnectedness with the natural world tell of a world without boundaries:

 

“At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals that come and go……..”

When looking at the history of life on planet earth and the evolution of life on earth we are a part of a lineage that is constantly morphing. We are just a bud on a flower forming and never finished. All things pass and all things change, there is no crowning moment and no final curtain. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are all related and the divisions are verbal and philosophical constructions. 

 

Upon returning to a modern town, it was so striking to see the lines and divisions everywhere.  How important it is to have a place without exact lines, except that of the meandering or crashing of water. A place where a human is a small and humble creature in the large landscape. The importance of wild places is a part of retaining balance, not only in that environment but also within our own psyches.We need air and water, the composition of our blood so close to the waters of the sea. The mind can be a part of the vastness contained underwater where all of our lives and life on earth originated.

http://paleobiology.si.edu/geotime/main/htmlversion/archean3.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilderness_Act

http://lighthouse.cc/monomoy/history.html

Holding onto a Wild Place

By Elisabeth Nickles

I have been back in Philadelphia for a few weeks now and Monomoy is still on my mind, in my heart and on the computer screen. I have been going through the thousands of photographs of what I saw, the camera catching what I could only ingest at the moment and at times seeing so much more than I could, I am still awestruck combined with a longing to return to the sea. So I returned to the city and I spend much time in the forest. We have the thousands of acres of Fairmount Park within the urban sprawl. I am thankful to the people who set it aside as a protected area in the mid 19th century. It saves me from feeling that life is only a human right. 

I have always felt technology to be a blessing and a curse, in this instance, I am glad I have the imagery and the video, the details are so vivid but also speak of myself desperately wanting to hold onto what I was experiencing. The photos bring me back to those moments of smell, touch, even the taste of the air. What I have found to be the challenge - is how to bring that feeling to everyone else. So I work on this in Philadelphia, while feeling that I cannot bottle the experience in an easy, ingestible unit.

Powder Hole, South Monomoy

I have always found myself looking for wildness, seeking it out in life. For better or for worse, I have rebelled for wildness in a number of ways. I suppose being in the city seems strange for someone who loves 'the natural world' s. In the city, I am looking for wildness culturally, in the diversity of people,  in ways of thinking, in the museums and in the opportunities for knowledge. Other people who create art or music and try to live as individuals.   I have lived in wild places and loved it for the environment, but culturally I could not find my place, so I return for long spells to the urban environment. I have seen hawks and bald eagles nearby in Philadelphia, eaten fruits from plants I have grown. All of these are ways that I can hold onto wildness and be free in a city with a population of 1.5 million people. 

 If I can ask something of every human, I would ask this: to seek out the wildness, not just in parks and separated areas that are designated, but in your environment: the tiny things around you and the largeness above you and within your own mind. To feel connected to one's natural world is not a commodity  and no one can take it away. It is inseparable from existence, so why not pay attention to it?  In a world of consumerism and economics above all else, I find the most valuable things in life to cost absolutely nothing. The sensuality of life is a gift at all times, from everything we ingest, the air, the water are a wilderness we must retain to survive, so why not begin in the mind?

It boggles me why humans have had so much trouble with living as a small part in a larger organism seeing their place as a part to whole, not an "I" to forge forward, to control and always to "gain".  I am reminded of the religious text of different cultures to subvert the ego, yet within the institution of worship, the ego grows and the importance of humans elevated above other life forms. I prefer to go to the source and will always seek the open air for my psalms. I am perpetually humbled by what I see. 

Walking North on the Eastern side of Monomoy

There is an edge in life that exists in trust, trusting that our bodies and subconscious have knowledge we find hard to grasp with our logic and measuring. In wild places I can find that edge fast, the boundaries do not exist. Formally, the lines merge with each other.  The sounds are not rigid and overpowering, the rectangle with clear edges and boundaries is not dominating the landscape!... the rhythm flows.  What design! What infinite patterns and forms. What more could anyone need for entertainment? fascination is easy.  I love the line written by Charles Darwin "endless forms most beautiful" - yes. I bow, with forehead to the ground and say to the sky and sea " I am infinitely yours". 

A view of Nantucket Sound from the kayak

When Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy

By Jeremy Underwood

Work in the tern colony on Monomoy takes a special type of person.  I never put much thought into the aggressive behavior of birds until I experienced it first hand.  Now, visions reminiscent of Hitchcock's The Birds play in my head as I think about the nesting colony.  Here is a little raw footage to give you a piece of the experience...if only it were in 3D.  

Birds Everywhere

While working in the tern colony you are, perhaps, closer to birds than you will ever be. The birds are protecting their young, it is understandable that they attack. 

If any creature that bonds and feels their young is threatened, it will do the same. 

By Elisabeth Nickles

 

I spent most of the day in the tern colony.  I observed, took pictures and lingered over what may have become commonplace to the others and more familiar with the routine of collecting data.

Muybridge studied the movement of animals and humans. With photography came a greater understanding of our natural world, and how animals move through space. Here, in these images, I can see what I cannot see with the eye alone in real time. I can understand the mechanisms of flight and the amazing design of wings, and how birds respond to pressure and air. The gesture of the birds is revealed in these photos. With technology, can we get closer instead of further away? Oh Muybridge, how you would love the Iphone.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge)


For me, being attacked by birds and touching their newly hatched chicks was epic. I have long loved birds and I have been enchanted by nests with eggs and newly hatched chicks. I have always been told not to touch them, that the mother would reject the young. These birds, not so.  My day at the colony was an immersion into reality, it challenged what I ever thought about the innocence of birds and the illusions of a fairy tale natural world.

This particular bird is not fearful and will attack you. I never took it personally and I felt somewhat guilty for being a human in their place of settlement. Why should I interfere with their place in the landscape as much as I should walk into any human's home and start looking at their infant? And so that is what we do as a human in this time frame on planet earth. It is necessary, perhaps, to keep the animals from disappearing further into a distance that does not exist any longer. The edges of the wild are far and few in between the metropolis, highways and industry. So we come to monitor what is left, and hope we can preserve, that which once was, although we really have no idea what that really is.

 

 Do we know how to judge what is nature and what is ourselves? If we have a word for nature and a word for humans, then are we destined to be separated by our language alone? 

another sequence of movement

Fragile Lives and Fierce Protectors

The Tern Colony

by Elisabeth Nickles

This video shows a Common Tern, male or female, protecting and hovering over the nest where it has its eggs and chicks. The Common Terns are prolific and even have their nests throughout the camp where the fish and wildlife employees and interns live during their time monitoring the nests and their productivity. The work the staff does is intense, impressive and tedious. The successful population of the colony on Monomoy attests to its ideal habitat and is also a confirmation of the hard work of the refuge manager, David Brownlie; the biologist, Kate Iaquinto and staff.

The colony is a place where you must be aware of every 

step you take or shift in your body when you are crouching or sitting. 

There are chicks and nests everywhere!

Many of the people working on the census are interns working on degrees
in wildlife management, ecology or avian biology

Kate landed upon. The flags on the helmets are to distract the birds from
pecking their beaks on the helmet 

                                                

The nests are checked daily in several enclosed areas throughout the tern colony.  The areas are used to create averages as an indicator for the entire population of common terns on the island.  The areas are checked for the number of nests and the nests are checked for the number of eggs, if the eggs are starred (cracking), pinging (a chick beginning to break through) or hatched.  If there are chicks hatched, the chicks are banded. If the chicks are already banded, they are checked on daily for their condition. The information is logged daily for each nest within each sample area within certain timeframes of the spring and summer.

Kate checking the number on the band, each day every chick is accounted for
and their number checked with the data already entered

                                         

Kate holding a chick that is starting to form its true feathers,
making it possible to more correctly judge its age at about seven days old

 A Common Tern parent feeding the chick. Both mother and
father share in the roosting and raising of the chicks.
Some of the areas have fabricated wooden nesting areas to help the chicks
find shelter once they are hatched. The downy chicks fledge in 22-28 days

The chicks are completely vulnerable once hatched. The tern evolved
in areas where land predators were uncommon. Today they must be protected from
species that have migrated successfully to the area because of the
absence of larger predators. For instance,  coyotes have adapted well
in the presence of human development, they are not habitat specific as are the terns.
Before human encroachment, wolves were the largest land predator in the area.

Within the Tern Colony are nesting Roseate Terns. The Roseate Tern is an endangered species and it benefits from building its nests and breeding near the more aggressive and protective Common Tern.

Roseate Tern Chick, a few days old

Kate holding a roseate tern chick. The beak still has the eye-tooth that the chick uses to break the shell when it is hatching

For more information on Roseate Terns: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/esa_works/profile_pages/NortheastRoseateTern.html