By Peggy Lawless, Colorado Art Ranch Co-founder
I knew Leonard Shlain
only briefly before his death in 2009, but his ideas are still alive with me. Len
was the quintessential scientist-artist: a vascular surgeon, an elegant and
engaging writer, and a big thinker who synthesized complex concepts and made
them understandable. All that and he was humble and generous and big-hearted.
As with so many important events, I met him through a
synchronicity. At Colorado Art Ranch’s first Artposium, an attendee, artist Keith Howard,
recommended that Grant and I read Art
& Physics and invite the author, Leonard Shlain to speak at a
future Artposium. We did both. And Len graciously agreed to speak at the Trinidad,
Colorado Artposium on May 15, 2009. But he couldn’t make it. Len died of brain
cancer on May 11.
I haven’t stopped missing Len. I miss the books he would
have written and the conversations we might have had. I wish he were here to take part in Aldo & Leonardo,
a collaboration of scientists and artists to celebrate the 50th
anniversary of the Wilderness Act. I don’t know if Len loved wilderness, but I
do know he’d love the energy and surprises that arise from mixing the
creativity of artists and scientists. So, in loving memory of Len, I dedicate Colorado
Art Ranch’s creative collaboration, Aldo & Leonardo, to Leonard Shlain.
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