Issac Cordal's project of carving then placing miniature figurines in dire yet melancholic climate changing scenario's acts as a subtle reminder of the natural environments potential future. I write this on April the 4th during a heavy snow shower at 9' o'clock in the morning.

Natural illustrator Natalya Zahn has been able to make a living by combining her blog and painting into an artist book that relates her experience's of visiting Franklin Park Zoo. The initiative to combine the traditional and digital mediums of an an artist's thought's, research and expressions is an inspiring and motivating one.

To be able to cultivate one's own unique pathway in the arts and present it in an accessible way is a very industrious feat. Also the demand for such work as Natalya's is high, which is a perplexing phenomenon in these times of socio-economic strife.

What may account for this is a dexterity to combine zoological and ecological systems and it's power with funding and promotion with an artists flexibility, motivation and skills. One a personal level I am very intrigued with the study of Natural Illustration and am interested in the modules of study and possible pathways thereafter.

Yasuaki Onishi's commission for Rice University Gallery, Houston, is a perplexing installation constructed from simple polythene and synthetic materials orchestrated to construe grand natural formations in the likeness of mountains and clouds. 'Onishi views this process of “reversing” sculpture to be a meditation on the nature of the negative space, or void, left behind.'

I am interested in this polarity between representation and nothingness, that such practices as Onishi's deals with. The conflicting theoretical ideals of East and West may be bridged when perceived with an inverted tangent such as this. The work of Onishi is suggestive of natural structures however they are presented with the philosophical backdrop that 'nature' is insignificant yet important at the same time. This Zen or Taoist rhetoric is informative of Onishi's affirmation to a practice concerned with the metaphysical.