Madison Mayfield: SPECIMENS
2021 Artist-in-Residence at the Montana Natural History Center
How was your experience as an Open AIR Artist-in-Residence?
My summer at Open AIR was my first Artist-in-Residence experience, so I didn't know what to expect going into it. That being said, it exceeded all of my expectations. Working at the Montana Natural History Center was a dream and being surrounded by other inspiring artists really gave me the creative boost I needed after losing a bit of my creative motivation throughout the pandemic
What was your research process during this time?
I spent the majority of my time at the Montana Natural History Center, exploring their exhibits, sketching their many gorgeous taxidermy mounts, and trying to learn about and familiarize myself with local species. I also spent several days at the Philip L. Wright Zoological Collection on the University of Montana campus taking photos of their research specimens and using them as references for sketches and future works. I often enjoy illustrating or working on species that I have personally seen or experienced in the wild, so being close to so many amazing wild spaces around Missoula made it easy for me to go bird watching!
What are you up to now (post Open AIR)?
Since my summer in Missoula, I've started a new job as the Education & Outreach/Collections Specialist at the Slater Museum of Natural History in Tacoma, WA, so I'm actually working in a space similar to my residency location! As part of my job, I'm lucky enough to create educational programming that centers art in scientific research collections and have even been able to teach several scientific illustration classes in the museum space. When I'm not working, I continue to use my research from my residency to produce "specimen" based art, specifically focusing on birds.
How would you describe your work?
My work draws heavily on my background in scientific illustration and leans toward a more "realistic" depiction of animals/species as a result. I often focus my work on birds, and more specifically birds in the form of specimens or study skins that you would often find in natural history museums and research collections. My goal with my work is often to recreate what I see in front of me as accurately as possible, maybe because trying to replicate nature is just another way for me to experience it. I have mostly worked in 2D mediums (specifically graphite, charcoal, watercolor, and acrylic) but have been experimenting more and more with creating 3D works. During my residency, I played around with sculpting small bird study skin replicas and hope to continue to explore sculpture as an alternative to traditional taxidermy.
What keeps you returning to this subject, body of work?
I think that the main thing that keeps drawing me back to birds and birds as specimens is that they're just so visually stunning. Being able to get so close to birds never gets old and I feel like I could replicate their beauty all day, every day! On top of that, I love working with specimens in museum settings and feel very passionately about more artists using science museums and their collections as reference and inspiration for their work.
