This is Mazon Monday post #101. What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:[email protected].
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The cover of the book "A Comprehensive Guide to the Fossil Flora of Mazon Creek" by Jack Wittry features a painting of a fiddlehead, which is an immature fern frond. The fiddlehead species in the Mazon Creek biota are named Spiropteris.
This painting was created by Peggy Macnamara, who is the Artist in Residence at the Field Museum in the Division of Birds. She has served in that position since 1990. Her website is peggymacnamara.com which features quite a bit of her work at the Field Museum and other places. She has a Youtube channel with interesting videos of her drawing and painting, some are at the Field Museum.
Artist in Residence at the Field Museum
Her office at the Field Museum
She has a few other paintings in "A Comprehensive Guide to the Fossil Flora of Mazon Creek". There is a Carboniferous coal forest scene. on page x.
A painting of a beautiful Laveineopteris rarinervis is on page 193.
The original specimen is on page 191.
The painting on page 214 features a Architarbis spider hunting on a vine of Annularia spenophylloides on a trunk of Synchysidendron andrewsii. That watercolor painting will be part of the live auction at the ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show on March 19th and 20th, 2022.
Peggy Macnamara
Architarbus (spider) hunting on a vine of Annularia sphenophylloides growing on a trunk of Synchysidendron andrewsii, 2017
30 x 23 inches
This original watercolor was commissioned by Jack Wittry for his book “A Comprehensive Guide to the Fossil Flora of Mazon Creek” published in 2020. A picture of this work is shown on page 214 of the book.
Peggy Macnamara has served as the Artist-in-Residence at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History since 1990 and as an Adjunct Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Macnamara has traveled with Field Museum scientists all over the world to paint nature and illustrate conservation efforts. She has published 5 books in collaboration with museum scientists through the University of Chicago Press. In addition, Macnamara has created 2 children's books (one with Northwestern University Press) and a coloring book. Her 6th book, Marine Life From Shore to Floor, which covers Sea Life and conservation efforts is due in 2022.
