sign up/login
The Big Draw
  • Festival Festival
    • About The Big Draw Festival
    • All events
    • Awards
    • Care UK & The Big Draw Festival 2020
    • Covid-19: Information & Guidance
    • Organisers Area
    • Sponsor Partners 2020
    • The Big Green Draw: A Climate of Change 2020
    • Vote
    • What the Organisers Say
  • Blog Blog
    • Support Support
      • Shop Shop
        • Gallery Gallery
          • Our Work Our Work
            • About Us
            • Contact
            • Drawing in Schools
            • FAQ's
            • Opportunities
            • Press
            • The Big Draw Ambassadors
            • The Big Draw Patrons
            • The Big Draw Turns 20!
            • The Big Draw x Forest of Imagination
            • The Ruskin Prize


          Membership area

          Drawing Changes Lives

          The Big Draw
          • Festival Festival
            • About The Big Draw Festival
            • All events
            • Awards
            • Care UK & The Big Draw Festival 2020
            • Covid-19: Information & Guidance
            • Organisers Area
            • Sponsor Partners 2020
            • The Big Green Draw: A Climate of Change 2020
            • Vote
            • What the Organisers Say
          • Blog Blog
            • Support Support
              • Shop Shop
                • Gallery Gallery
                  • Our Work Our Work
                    • About Us
                    • Contact
                    • Drawing in Schools
                    • FAQ's
                    • Opportunities
                    • Press
                    • The Big Draw Ambassadors
                    • The Big Draw Patrons
                    • The Big Draw Turns 20!
                    • The Big Draw x Forest of Imagination
                    • The Ruskin Prize

                  Membership area

                  The World's Biggest Drawing Festival


                  How Drawing is Bringing Art And Science Together

                  It’s not everyday that I attend a launch event for an arts project and find the room filled with microscopes, stacks of specimen slides, and mineral and plant samples. Located at CAST in Helston, the experimental Cornwall Morphology and Drawing Centre (CMADC) created by artist Gemma Anderson, offers the opportunity for both learning and productive interdisciplinary research. 

                  The launch event on 21 March 2015 marked the opening of a series of experimental workshops that Anderson will offer until November 2015. For this launch about fifty people gathered in CMADC, all eager to find out what this new lab/studio would offer.  Each microscope featured an illuminated specimen, and next to each microscope a drawing board, paper, a pencil, and a selection of samples of plants and minerals. Some members of the audience excitedly peered into every microscope in the room. Others looked warily at the microscopes, and others – like me – looked warily at the blank paper and pencils. Examples of Anderson’s detailed drawn studies of groups of scientific specimens hung on one wall and placed around the room were a series of mysterious symbols cut out of wood.


                  The launch event consisted of three presentations: one by Anderson on her work and the evolution of CMADC, another by Dr Colin French from the Cornwall Botanical Group, and a third by mineral collector Courtenay Smale. What shone through each of these presentations was the complete mutual respect all three speakers have for one another’s work.  Dr French detailed in his presentation the immense value of drawing botanical samples. He showed us the ERICA database for recording plant species found in the British Isles, and demonstrated how valuable it is when the records include drawings, rather than just photographs. The level of detail resulting from the close observation required by drawing makes it easier to distinguish the sometimes-subtle differences between plant species.


                  Mineralogist Courtenay Smale showed part of his collection of nineteenth-century wooden models of mineral crystal formations. Models of this type were traditionally part of the process used to identify minerals. These are representations of ideal forms – the way a mineral crystal would grow if it was completely uninhibited by environmental factors. Smale’s wooden models had the audience fascinated, especially when he demonstrated mineral ‘twinning’. Holding a small wooden model in his hands Smale twisted it to alter the shape, demonstrating the need for careful craftsmanship and close observation in creating these mineral models.


                  Anderson’s concept of Isomorphology is the subject of her PhD and is described by her in her new book as: ‘…a comparative, drawing based method of enquiry into the shared forms of animal, mineral and vegetable morphologies. As a holistic and visual approach to classification, Isomorphology runs parallel to scientific practice while belonging to the domain of artistic creation. It is complementary to science: addressing relationships that are left out of the scientific classification of animal, vegetable and mineral morphologies.’


                  The term ‘morphology’ was coined by Johann Wolfgang Goethe in The Metamorphosis of Plants 1792, and refers to the study of form. Anderson has created Isomorphology as the study of shared forms. The abstract wooden symbols around the walls of CMADC are a new system of visual classification resulting from Anderson’s research. They represent the forms and symmetries that she has found to repeat through various animal, mineral and vegetable samples she has observed through drawing. Already, Dr French and Anderson are working together to use Isomorphology as a means of navigating the records of the ERICA database.

                  With learning as a central goal, the Cornwall Morphology and Drawing Centre holds huge potential by offering participants the chance to improve drawing and observation skills while learning about plant and mineral morphology. What is so unique is that whilst these learning activities are central to Anderson’s practice as an artist; every participant is offered the opportunity to make an active contribution to the new study of Isomorphology, which provides endless opportunities to study shared forms in nature.

                  Gemma Anderson and Dr. Colin French

                  Anderson’s abstracted Isomorphic symbols provide a means for study and a new system of classification that crosses into a number of scientific disciplines. Since everything on this planet – animal, mineral and vegetable – is formed of the same elemental building blocks with predetermined habits, then perhaps Isomorphology can offer us a unique insight into the nature of these building blocks. It brings us out of various scientific ‘ologies’ into a kind of ‘meta’ causality, referencing the principle of uniformity in nature. Anderson’s series of abstracted symbols representing the consistent forms she has found throughout her observations are reminiscent of those found throughout ancient art. These Isomorphic forms are there, constant within physic’s natural laws: we only have to join Anderson on her quest as this study evolves.

                  by Kenna Hernly. 

                  Kenna Hernly is an independent event curator and Learning Curator for Adult Programmes at Tate St Ives. She studied at Falmouth University and at St Mary’s College of Maryland, USA.

                  Gemma Anderson graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2007. She is currently Associate Lecturer in Drawing and completing a practice-based PhD studentship at Falmouth University.

                  Cornwall Morphology and Drawing Centre (CMADC) offers a series of experimental workshops combining artistic and scientific approaches. Itis based at CAST, Helston, until November 2015.

                  Cornubian Arts & Science Trust (CAST), Helston, is an educational charity that promotes participation, appreciation and learning in the visual arts and sciences.

                  Find out more: The Cornwall Morphology and Drawing Centre
                  http://projects.falmouth.ac.uk/cmadc
                  @Isomorphology
                  http://www.gemma-anderson.co.uk/
                  http://www.isomorphology.com/
                  facebook twitter instagram pinterest YouTube
                  Find an event

                  search Advanced search »

                  Receive Big Draw News

                  Subscribe to our mailing list

                  Add me to the list
                  Inviting the parents in to contribute to our whole school piece of artwork.
                  Inviting the parents in to contribute to our whole school piece of artwork.
                  Weetwood Primary School
                  Artists Joy Cuff and Tahira Mandarino preparing for The Big Draw
                  Artists Joy Cuff and Tahira Mandarino preparing for The Big Draw
                  Turner's House
                  getting involved!
                  getting involved!
                  Working Men's College
                  Creatives at work!
                  Creatives at work!
                  New College Lanarkshire
                  Big Draw at the Welcoming Party 2015
                  Big Draw at the Welcoming Party 2015
                  Cambridge International School
                  Listen to free storytelling session during our half-term family day
                  Listen to free storytelling session during our half-term family day
                  Barber Institute of Fine Arts
                  On the Big Red Drawing Bus in Ashburton
                  On the Big Red Drawing Bus in Ashburton
                  Ashburton Festival Association
                  Textile group
                  Textile group
                  Calderdale MBC- Discover
                  Salvatore Rubbino at Park Primary year 2
                  Salvatore Rubbino at Park Primary year 2
                  Park Primary School Newham
                  A Kearsney discovery: thud
                  A Kearsney discovery: thud
                  Dover Arts Development
                  Bookseller Crow event
                  Bookseller Crow event
                  Leaping Hare Press
                  Drawing with rollers to music by our steel pan band
                  Drawing with rollers to music by our steel pan band
                  Kingsdale Foundation School
                  Io Di/segno ottobre 9 at Bastione degli Infetti
                  Io Di/segno ottobre 9 at Bastione degli Infetti
                  Comitato Popolare Antico Corso
                  Wellness: Embrace the benefits of Drawing for wellbeing and relaxation
                  Wellness: Embrace the benefits of Drawing for wellbeing and relaxation
                  Devonshire Educational Trust
                  monoprints made on the press
                  monoprints made on the press
                  Whitley Bay Big Draw
                  Paperscape (photo credit: SPAB)
                  Paperscape (photo credit: SPAB)
                  The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings
                  STEAM Powered Big Draw in Berwick
                  STEAM Powered Big Draw in Berwick
                  Berwick Visual Arts
                  HACA Year 6 & 6th form
                  HACA Year 6 & 6th form
                  Haberdashers' Aske's Crayford Academy
                  Atilem school participants drawing living lines
                  Atilem school participants drawing living lines
                  Hisa! drustvo za ljudi in prostore (House! society for people and places)
                  Scambio di saperi attraverso il disegno
                  Scambio di saperi attraverso il disegno
                  Comitato Popolare Antico Corso
                  Gallery View The
                  Big Draw

                  @ The Big Draw

                  Tweets by @The_Big_Draw
                  • About us
                  • Terms and Conditions
                  • Organise an event
                  • Press
                  • Privacy policy
                  • Contact
                  The Guild of St George
                  Urban Space Management
                   
                  East London Chamber
                  Alan Davidson Foundation
                  Foster and Partners
                   

                   

                   
                  Lottery funded
                   
                  Trinity Bouy Wharf Trust
                   
                  Trinity Bouy Wharf
                   
                  Here for Culture