Journey through time: New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science is full of treasures at every angle

Aug. 27—Art at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science?

Why, yes, there's plenty of it.

According to Jayne C. Aubele, museum adult programs educator/geologist, art is an essential part of the museum exhibits.

"Murals, paintings, photographs, sculptures, and restorations or reconstructions in bronze, plaster or fiberglass are an integral part of the museum's science education," Aubele says. "The artistry in a museum also includes things you might not think about, such as specially designed metal mounts, information panels, and faux plants and rocks."

Aubele says art in the museum helps visitors immerse themselves in the museum experience, to connect to past landscapes, climate and extinct animals and plants, and to "see" planetary and solar system processes that take millions of years and are difficult to visualize.

"There is so much art and there are so many wonderful examples of each type that it is difficult to choose just five," she says.

Here are some favorites that visitors might miss, each using a different type of art form.

1. Alamosaurus: A New Mexico Icon

Aubele says a small permanent exhibit, newly added to New Mexico's Seacoast Hall, is a great example of using multiple types of art to tell a scientific story in the museum. A mural, photographs, illustrations, information panels, metal work and faux plants/ground are all included in one exhibit.

"As with all modern museum exhibits, this exhibit about the New Mexico dinosaur, Alamosaurus, was produced by a team of museum staff members from the exhibits, education and science departments all working together," she says. "The layout of the entire case was designed by museum exhibit designer Alaina Wiwi, who acted as co-project lead with museum exhibit fabricator Pedro Toledo."

The art elements of the case include a large background mural produced by museum exhibit designer Mark Kotanchik using photography and photo editing techniques, overlaid with illustrations of the Earth at this time period, the life appearance of Alamosaurus, a drawing of its skeletal reconstruction, and carefully designed information panels. Illustrations and graphics were done by museum exhibit designers Wiwi, Andy Romero and a student, Ian Hutchinson.

"The case transports the visitor to the world of Alamosaurus by including a fake tree made by the museum's exhibits staff," she says. "The tree is constructed of foam, chicken wire and cardboard, with bark and roots of carved and painted foam; and a special surprise, look for a bird peeking out of one of the holes in the tree. The natural-looking scene is completed by sandy ground made on a carved foam bottom to create a sloped look."

2. 'Evolutionary Geoscape II'

Aubele advises visitors to look up from the museum's atrium to the wall above, and you will see seven bronze sculptural panels covered with impressions of fossils, footprints and other ancient life objects.

The panels were created by Albuquerque artist, Evelyn Rosenberg.

Small handprints on the first and last panels are her signature.

Originally installed in 1986 outside the museum, when the museum first opened, the panels were reinstalled inside the atrium in 2000.

They are a gift from the Southwest Arts and Crafts Festival. One of the museum's first directors, Jon Callender saw the art piece and worked to acquire it for the museum.

"The panels roughly follow a geologic timeline and reflect the changes in species throughout geologic time and the fossil record of New Mexico," she says. "They were created by a process called detonography that was developed by Ms. Rosenberg and created in collaboration with the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center (EMRTC), New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (NM Tech) in Socorro, New Mexico."

Detonography creates 3D designs that are highlighted and carefully prepared by the artist after explosive compression of a "sandwich" consisting of metal sheets, natural objects or casts of objects, a clay mold and a layer of explosive material.

"This unusual piece of art fits Ms. Rosenberg's approach to creativity and her themes of evolution and destruction, and it fits the museum's theme and style perfectly," Aubele says.

3. 'Ice Age' and 'A Panorama of Time'

Many traditional murals were created directly by artists on the walls of the museum; and visitors can see them in several of the permanent exhibits.

These murals give the visitor a feel for the environment of that place or that time period in a way that nothing else can. Two examples that are sometimes missed by the visitor are in museum's Ice Age Hall.

Aubele says after leaving the walk-through cave and entering the Ice Age Hall, the visitor faces two skeletal reconstructions of dire wolves.

On the left is a mural entitled "Ice Age" by well-known scientific illustrator/artist Kent Pendleton. "This mural shows the location of today's town of Carrizozo, New Mexico, and the view across the valley that today is covered by Valley of Fires lava flows but at this time was a lush, wet grassland," she says. "The mountains in the background include Sierra Blanca on the far right."

Aubele says during this time of episodic glacial periods, New Mexico was a very different place of cool temperatures, grasslands, forests and abundant water; a place of mastodons, mammoths, camels, saber-toothed cats and horses.

"New Mexico was not covered by a great continental ice sheet, but the climatic effects of the glaciations did affect our landscape," she says. "Isolated alpine glaciers and large glacial-age lakes formed throughout the state."

Follow the mural to its far end near the exit from the Ice Age Hall and you will see the only depiction of humans in the museum's walk through time — a group of Paleoindian hunters from the Clovis culture who lived in New Mexico 12,000 to 11,000 years ago.

"As you leave the Ice Age Hall, you walk along another long mural by Kent Pendleton called 'A Panorama of Time.' This unique mural is designed to take the visitor through time from the Ice Age to the present," she says. "It shows a summer scene looking from Wagon Mound toward the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, but look closely, and it changes from one end to the other, illustrating the gradual change in climate, snowline, and vegetation from about 20,000 years ago to today. Many visitors miss this gradual change as they walk along the length of the mural and exit the hall."

4. Pteranodon and Rhamphorhynchus

It is common to see articulated skeletal reconstructions using casts of fossil bones in natural history museums, and a mixture of science and artistry is used to fill in the missing bones.

Less common is the work of some paleoartists who create life restorations or sculptural models of extinct organisms as they might have appeared in life.

"The next time you are in the museum, look up from the second floor to the atrium ceiling, and you will see two different kinds of pterosaurs (flying reptiles) life-sized and captured in flight," Aubele says.

Rhamphorhynchus was a long-tailed pterosaur, about 20 inches long, with a long skull, large eyes and an unusually long tail.

"It had a very distinctive flat tail vane and needle-sharp teeth and is believed to have eaten mainly fish," she says. "This flying reptile lived during the late Jurassic Period (160-145 million years ago). In the museum, several of them are flying from the atrium into the Jurassic Hall as though they are headed 'home' to their proper time period."

Look beyond the Rhamphorhynchus and visitors will see a much larger pterosaur called a Pteranodon.

It is mounted close to the ceiling, so it can be difficult to realize how big it really is.

The wingspan of an average adult male was 18 feet and could be as much as 25 feet — close to the size of a modern small plane. Pteranodon lived during the late Cretaceous Period (90-85 million years ago) and also is believed to have eaten fish.

"Expert paleoartist, Doris Tischler, created these restorations specifically for the museum in the 1980s, using fiberglass, foam and resin, and based on the best scientific information at the time," she says.

5. Volcano Rock Work — 'Land of Volcanoes' Exhibit

Built for the museum's grand opening in 1986, and currently being modernized with new technology and new scientific information, the walk-through volcano is a leading example of the "museum experience."

Faux rock work is a critical part of setting the scene in a natural history museum and requires an expert blend of art and science. The rock work associated with the museum's volcano is a great example. Larson Theme Construction, from Tucson, was the faux rock contractor. The amazing rock work they designed and produced for the volcano gives the real feel and appearance of the volcanic rock called basalt as you enter through lava flows, walk through the interior, and exit out a lava tube.

"The entry to the volcano actually represents a real place in New Mexico," Aubele says. "It was built so that visitors enter through a section of two lava flows, one on top of the other. The lava flows were carefully created by rock work artists to reflect scientific research on the internal structure of lava flows. Sections were molded directly from roadcuts of the lava flows at La Bajada on Interstate 25. The Larson rock work artists were so accurate that some boulders of real basalt were placed next to the molded, painted variety, and it can be very difficult to find them. The next time you visit, see if you can identify the real rocks."