Artist Debbie Edgers Sturges

Recently discovered an extraordinary, gifted artist.

Debbie's work is realistic in style. Yet her work looks more Fauvist with the use of bright splashy colors.

Below is one of Debbie's paintings of a black bear named June.




And below is the photograph Debbie referred to when painting June.






To see more of Debbie's beautiful art link directly to her Website

The Library of Dust

Recently heard about David Maisel's project on Studio 360

Library of Dust is a project that David Maisel completed in 2008 with the publication of the photographs as a book. The series had begun three years earlier on the grounds of the Oregon State Hospital where he had learned there was a storeroom lined with shelves that held thousands of copper canisters. These contained, he knew, the unclaimed ashes of people who had died at this “insane asylum,” as it had once been called. Corroded along the lead side seam by chemical interaction between the metal and the ashes, many of the cans had a livid fur of blue-green on their exterior. Placing these on a black felt background and photographing them at close range, Maisel created a kind of civilian counterpart to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier—each canister a mini-Monument to the Abandoned and the Forgotten.



Working in window light, Maisel had to make exposures in slow time befitting these memorial objects that the hospital had accumulated between 1883 and the 1970s. The first day, as he was making his photographs, a work detail of prisoners arrived from a penitentiary to clean up the building. Sneaking a peek into the room, one prisoner whistled as he said to no one in particular “the library of dust.”

Link to the Slide Show

Sarah Bear is Dead

Why kill a yearling, why????

Radio-collar of Ely Research Bear turned in.

September 7, 2010: "Braveheart’s yearling daughter Sarah is dead. Her radio-collar was covered with bright ribbons (photo taken Aug 26) We thought she was safe."



"We picked up her blood-spotted radio-collar from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources this morning. It had been turned in anonymously."

"We are at a loss what to do to combat this kind of loss. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources posted a picture of a radio-collared bear with ribbons like on Sarah’s collar and asked hunters not to shoot these bears. The Minnesota Bear Guides Association asked their hunters to spare radio-collared bears. We contacted all the hunters we know in this area to introduce them to bears and answer their questions."

"We have gotten the word out every way we know, including signs throughout the study area. And thanks to Lily fans, a huge amount of media coverage told how the radio-collared bears are helping science, education, and the regional economy. Sarah was a gentle, trusting, and trustworthy bear with the calm personality that allows a person to accompany her and be ignored. Such a bear is a window into bear life for both us and the world."

"Ethical hunters are reacting with disgust, saying “that is not hunting!” We both felt the hopeless sense of somehow being violated. We hoped our shaking wasn’t noticeable as we spoke to cameras for the BBC documentary. We know you understand our feelings."

"We re-checked the other radio-collared bears. They seem to be safe. But we are still worried about the trail cam on a bear trail on the edge of the property here."

"Thank you for your support through the hard times as well as the joyous ones."

—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center.

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