Posts: 8

1. Bold as Ice

   12.Apr.07, 17:04 EDT
   
   Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

   Bold as Ice: Miami artist Xavier Cortada finds fresh air at the South Pole. By Carlos Suarez De Jesus. Published in the Miami New Times on March 29, 2007. During a recent visit to Kunsthaus Miami, Xavier Cortada was putting the finishing touches on his show while ruminating on the "transformative effects" of his visit to the South Pole. "Antarctica," his solo exhibit, features videos and photographs accompanied by wall text documenting a handful of installations he created as part of a two-week National Science Foundation Antarctica Artists and Writers Program residency he completed this past December and January. But it's his remarkable series of pristinely displayed "ice paintings" that steal the thunder here. "I conceptualized all the installations in Miami as part of the proposal for my project," Cortada explains of his brainy, eco-based works at the South Pole. "I also packed my canvases, brushes, and paints before the trip, not knowing what to expect, but ended up making these ice paintings of and about Antarctica instead." While at McMurdo Station on Ross Island, Cortada worked in a lab alongside biologists, geologists, oceanographers, physicists, and other researchers studying the continent. "It was incredible," Cortada says. "A scientist working next to me was researching how single-cell algae would cluster to avoid being eaten, while another was examining the effects of temperature change on life in the Dry Valley, Antarctica's most arid region." Inspired by his labmates, he asked the researchers to provide him with ice core samples from their investigations and began experimenting with them to create purely abstract, nine-by-twelve-inch works. "In part it was accidental," he says. "The vast solitude and remoteness of the place added to the process." Those familiar with Cortada's public murals and expressionistic figurative paintings, notable for their lush tropical palette, will be pleasantly knocked back by the radical departure. The subtle, mixed-media works on paper, bleeding cool monochromatic tones, look like watercolors from a distance. On closer inspection the works convey a sense of Antarctica's flowing ice streams, vast ice sheets, imposing mountain regions, and isolated frozen deserts, as if captured from above by a satellite's lens. They are divided into two series, in which Cortada uses sediment from Antarctica's Dry Valley, ice from the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet, and sea ice from Antarctica's Ross Sea given to him by scientists. The artist used the drilled ice core samples as brushes, dipping them into acrylic paints before applying them to paper, often letting the ice melt and pool, while the ancient sediment contained within adhered to the surface. He later titled the works by randomly selecting the names of geographic locations such as bays, glaciers, and coastlines taken from a map of the continent (which in turn are often named after explorers). Isolated on a wall near the entrance of the gallery, an arrangement of four works from Cortada's "Antarctic Sea Ice Series" seems alchemical in nature. It's of little wonder that the delightfully atmospheric pieces pack such a primeval wallop, given the fact that they are encrusted with thousands of years of history. In works like porpoise, one can detect how the artist used the ice samples to sponge up rich blue, green, and lavender hues he then applied to the surface in swirls, evoking an ice cap from a bird's-eye view. Scratchy layers of sediment and patches of inky black pools add to its depth and texture. Across from it, prydz exudes a scabbier vibe, its background soaked in darker tones and caked in grit throughout. Against this sooty wash the artist seems to have placed a chunk of sea ice, slathered in turquoise, leaving it to melt until the piece resembled a frosty Rorschach test. Other pieces, like bellinghausen and weddell, telegraph how the artist became looser in his approach to experimentation. The first shows how he used two pieces of ice, dipped in a deep purple tone, placing them inches apart on the paper until the organic-shape meltdowns took on the look of twin iodine spills. The other piece, brushed across horizontally with multiple washes of icy blue and generously worked over with sediment streaks, shows how the artist lifted color-saturated fragments of ice off the paper, allowing them to drip onto the surface like runny popsicles. A mood-ringlike splotch in this work is playfully surrounded by drip splatters that look like a band of amoebas. Unfortunately the photographs documenting the meatier work Cortada executed during his visit to the South Pole nearly get lost in the shuffle. Exhibited on a wall at the rear of the gallery, they depict the projects that earned him his visit to Antarctica, complemented by elaborate wall texts describing their process. This past January 4, on the 50th anniversary of the opening of the South Pole station, Cortada created the Markers, planting 51 different colored flags along a 500-meter stretch of the moving ice sheet covering the Pole. He placed each flag ten meters apart, approximating the location where the shifting geographic South Pole stood during each of the past 50 years. Each of the flags also displays the coordinates of an event Cortada believes "moved the world forward": Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit Earth in 1957; the Civil Rights march on Washington in 1963; the United Nations' First World Conference on Women in 1975; the invention of Prozac in 1987; the end of apartheid in South Africa and Mandela's election in 1994; and the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003. In Longitudinal Installation the artist placed twelve identical pairs of black leather shoes, purchased from a Liberty City wholesale outlet, in a circle around the South Pole. The text accompanying the photo notes that the shoes served as a proxy for a person affected by global climate changes in the world above, and were placed inches apart along the corresponding longitudes where those individuals live. For The 150,000-Year Journey, Cortada embedded a replica of a mangrove seedling in the three-kilometer-thick glacial ice sheet blanketing the Pole. The Cuban-American artist has adopted the mangrove seedling as a metaphor to address the immigrant journey — what he refers to as "the displacement, the solitude, the struggle to simply integrate oneself into society." As the seedling begins it 150,000-year trek in the direction of the Weddell Sea, 1400 kilometers away, Cortada questions how humanity and the earth might evolve in the time it will theoretically take for the art piece's completion. The short video piece captures Cortada in the process of planting his flags, and the harsh subzero conditions he endured. All of his installations were created on the same day, documented, then taken down.

2. Cold Reality

   12.Apr.07, 16:50 EDT
   
   Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

   Cold Reality: Artist Xavier Cortada takes environmental awareness to the South Pole By Deseraè E. Del Campo Pubished in Miami Monthly Magazine, April 2007. Many artists have traveled the world in pursuit of inspiration, but few have found it on the South Pole. Xavier Cortada did just that recently under the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. "Xavier's Antarctic work is dynamic and multi-faceted," said program director Kim Silverman. "[His] project represents a new and progressive dimension in artistic expression for the program, adding an element of conceptual interpretation to the growing body of Antarctic art and literary works." Cortada did not embark on his career to create art on the South Pole – in fact his original occupation was as a lawyer and advocate for troubled teens. But a trip to South Africa in the mid-1990s changed all that. "It was the baboons!" exclaims the 42- year-old Cuban American, recalling the awe-inspiring wildlife and natural beauty that inspired him to change professions. A natural-born artist raised in an artistic family, Cortada felt his calling and acted on it. His quaint and cozy art studio, just blocks from the Brickell financial district, is strewn with samples of his work and tools of the trade. One table is covered end-to-end with bottles of paint, creating their own mosaic of color and design. Over the past decade, Cortada has produced murals, paintings, glass mosaics and exhibits around the world. Examples of his creativity are visible throughout Miami, from his "Miami Mangrove Forest" on I-95 to Miami City Hall, and the Miami-Dade Juvenile Courthouse to U.S. 1 in South Miami. "His work is very much tied to his physical and cultural surroundings," said René Morales, assistant curator with the Miami Art Museum. Morales commissioned Cortada's "Absence of Place" for an exhibit on the Miami real estate boom. "The show dealt with an amazingly narrow topic, but his piece expressed the cultural and emotional effects associated with the physical. It was absolutely perfect for the show." That skill was expressed again early this year in the South Pole, where Cortada created various pieces for the Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. For a painting of Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922), who made several expeditions to the icy frontier but never reached the South Pole, Cortada mixed melted ice with watercolors and soil samples from Antartica's McMurdo Dry Valleys. "I used pieces of Shackleton's Antarctica to place him conceptually in the South Pole, the place that eluded him in life. The place he never went and always wanted to be," the artist explained. In another installation, Cortada used an element often represented in his work – a mangrove seedling. The artists "planted" an ice sculpture replica of a seedling in the ice sheet. In 150,000 years, the seedling will have moved with the ice sheet to reach the Weddell Sea, where it will symbolically "set roots." Cortada says the journey symbolizes human evolution through time, and raises questions about what our world will be like 150,000 years from now. For his "Endangered World," installation, he combined art and science to plant 24 flags around the South Pole, each with the name of a threatened animal species. The flags were placed at the corresponding longitudinal degree where the species is facing extinction. A similar idea expressed in the "Longitudinal Installation" was accomplished with 12 black shoes placed in a circle, each corresponding to the longitudinal location where global changes have affected inhabitants' way of life. That installation will be on display at the UN World Environment Day observations in Norway, on June 5. Cortada's "Markers" installation tied in to the 50th anniversary of the opening of the South Pole station on Jan. 4. It featured 50 variously colored flags placed along a 500-meter stretch of ice. Each flag was marked with a year and the coordinates of a place on Earth where something significant happened. "For example, for 1973 I used the coordinates of Sydney, Australia, to represent the construction of the Sydney Opera House," Cortada said. "I was making the point of how the world has dramatically changed over these 50 years. "What I was trying to do in the South Pole was [illustrate] how we fit into this planet," Cortada said. "How we may think that we are the ones who are in control and own this planet, but our role is custodial in nature and we need to try our best to leave it a little bit better than we found it." Selections from Cortada's South Pole art are on display through May 5 at the Kunsthaus Miami Contemporary Art Space, 3312 N. Miami Ave. in the Wynwood Art District.

3. The Worth of Water

   12.Apr.07, 16:49 EDT
   
   Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

   The Worth of Water WorldChanging - Mar 15, 2007 by Katie Kurtz. Miami, Florida Standing in Miami heat picturing the subzero Antarctic seems unimaginable – but this is the premise Xavier Cortada uses to show the neighborly aspect of global warming. A series of photographs documenting projects by Cortada in the Antarctic are currently on view at Kunsthaus Contemporary Art Space in Miami. Cortada used a different system of markings for each project to illuminate relationships between the Antarctic and sites elsewhere. Longitudinal Installation uses pairs of shoes to show how people may live across the world from each other but still share a longitudinal line. http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/006283.html

4. The End Of The Earth Is Closer Than You Might Think

   12.Apr.07, 16:48 EDT
   
   Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

   The End Of The Earth Is Closer Than You Might Think, by Julia Yarbough. Aired on NBC - 6, Miami on March 9, 2007. MIAMI -- Antarctica, the frozen icy landscape that seems a world away, is actually closer than you might think thanks to a South Florida artist with vision and talent. Even if you don't know the name, you may have seen Xavier Cortada's Eco-Art strategically located at points in and around Miami-Dade. This artist just returned from a trip of a lifetime to Antarctica. "Antarctica is a continent that helps us reflect on our humanity because it is the only place on Earth that hasn't been tapped. 90% of our planet's fresh water is in the ice sheet that blankets that continent. Scientists from all over the world are in that continent researching the effects of our actions and how we adversely impact that sheet of ice. As that ice melts; we all die." Cortada, the recipient of a National Science Foundation grant in December made the incredible journey to Antarctica to do what he does best. Create art that makes us think. It was an exhausting trip. Five hours to Los Angeles, fourteen and half hours to Australia, two more hours to New Zealand, five hours to the famed McMurdo Research Station then finally another three hours to the South Pole, where temperatures hovered around -20 degrees during his visit. Cortada says being in a place to pristine, so untouched by man inspired him. "We are just custodians taking care of this planet. Human history is just a blink of an eye and we need to be more aware of our consequences of our actions on the planet." The creative action Cortada chose to take was to install artistic pieces to signify how all of us all over the globe are connected and responsible for our plane In The Longitudinal Installation, Cortada placed twenty-four shoes in a circle around the South Pole. They are only inches apart but signify how people around the world who live miles apart are actually closer than they might think, because their communities lie on the same longitudinal line. "There are no boundaries, says Cortada. In Endangered World, Cortada place twenty flags around the pole and on each flag included the name of an endangered species and the longitude of that animal's habitat. "If we don't do anything about global warming, then we will lose many of the species which now exists." In The Markers, Cortada placed fifty-one different flags on the main sheet of ice that covers the South Pole; ten miles apart. Each indicates where the Pole stood over the past fifty years. "It captures how time moves. And most significant is that it was literally fifty years to the day that the South Pole station was opened, January 4th, 1957, that I positioned the flags. It's a way to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of research in the South Pole. Every flag stands where a contributing scientist once stood." A little piece of South Florida also stayed behind when Cortada returned. He placed a Mangrove seedling in the ever-moving ice. Theoretically it should take one hundred fifty thousand years for that seedling to reach the coastline and put down roots. Cortada says his trip allowed him to blend science with art in a unique way. His exhibit will also feature a series of Ice Paintings. Scientist in the South Pole gave him samples of their work. Ice. Volcanic ash and rocks. Pieces of dirt millions of years old. "These are all guys telling me that science of Antarctica by showing me their work. With the same materials, I am using art to expand knowledge." To see Xavier Cortada's latest exhibit and visit Antarctica without ever leaving South Florida, simply head on over to the Kunsthaus Contemporary Art Space, at 3312 North Miami Avenue, Miami, Florida, 33127 in the Wynwood Art District. The exhibit opens Saturday, March 10th and runs through May 5th. For more information on Cortada, his work and this exhibit, check out his website at Cortada.com/Antarctica.

5. Wynwood District - Second Saturday Art Gallery Walk

   12.Apr.07, 16:46 EDT
   
   Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

   Wynwood District - Second Saturday Art Gallery Walk by Manola Blablablani. Published in Miami Beach 411 on March 12, 2007. Kunsthaus Hey, I’m not writing about Xavier Cortada just because he’s an old friend from college. We recently reconnected through his mangrove project and I can’t praise him enough for his spiritual connection to nature, which he has turned into a beautiful art form. This is a Miami boy with an amazing vision. At Kunsthaus, you can see Xavier’s ice paintings, which he “painted” while on tour of Antarctica. These paintings were literally made from adding paint to ice core samples from the remotest area of Antarctica. (As if Antarctica wasn’t already remote?) While stationed at McMurdo Station, Xavier created over a dozen works that, upon first impression, look like abstract watercolors. As the ice melted, Xavier treated the ice as a tool – brush, sponge and pastel technique – and in the process, sediment from the samples latched on to the paper. The effect is stunning. You’re not just looking at a painting, but literally a piece of our earth from many, many thousands years ago. As Xavier put it: “I’m doing what nature does on a macro level, examining the process.” While in Antarctica, Xavier also “planted” a mangrove seedling in the true South Pole, which he estimates, will take over 150 thousand years to make landfall as the ice breaks and melts and travels to some warmer coastal territory. The gesture represents setting an intention for wholeness and healing in the planet. We joked about how we’d have to reincarnate and come back to see the mangrove take root, but of course the gesture is symbolic. “It represents cycles in nature and how all is connected.”

6. Xavier Cortada: ANTARCTICA

   12.Apr.07, 16:46 EDT
   
   Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

   Xavier Cortada: ANTARCTICA Blue Print Directory, Volume 10, March 2007. Xavier Cortada planted a bunch of mangrove seedlings around Miami for Art Basel Miami Beach back in December; then he went to the opposite ends of the earth to plant flags (and a seedling replica) on a moving glacier in Antarctica. As part of the National Science Foundation artists’ program, he created other installations as well, such as The Markers (below), which marks the passage of time by exploring important events of the past 50 years, and worked on collaborative projects with scientists living on the South Pole. The documentation of all of this makes up this show, which will then travel to Oslo, Norway. March 10 through May 5. Kunsthaus Miami 3312 N. Miami Ave. Miami 305-438-1333

7. Planting for Life: CultureSurge - Artburst.

   12.Apr.07, 16:44 EDT
   
   Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

   Planting for Life CultureSurge - Artburst Written by Anne Tschida category305.com http://www.category305.com/artburst/xavier-cortadas-reclaimation.php Thursday, 09 November 2006 Xavier Cortada's been up to some interesting social actions lately. First off, at the Science Museum (which sometimes falls under the arts radar, and it shouldn't), the Cubamian with the big heart has a quirky installation commemorating, of all things, 50 years of a U.S. presence on the South Pole. "The Markers" is a set of 50 differently colored flags, each one relating to an important event of every year of the last half century. Actually, according to the artist, the flags "mark the passage of time by exploring important events that have moved the world forward." "Move" is the critical word here, as Cortada is going to take the markers in January to …. the South Pole. He'll place them exactly where the Pole stood each year—it moves 9.9 meters annually, in the same direction. That's life on a glacier. His flags will note things such as Sputnik's orbit of the earth (1957); the election of the first woman to lead the world's biggest democracy – Indira Gandhi (1966); the discovery of our earliest ancestor, Lucy (1974); the year Prozac was put on the market (1987); and the year Spain banned all discrimination based on sexual orientation (2005). And how can the tropical trooper afford such an icy excursion? As an award recipient of the — yes you're reading this right — National Science Foundation Antarctic Artist and Writer Program. [In conjunction with this show, the Science Museum is showing photography from the region, including awe-inspiring images of the otherworldly landscape and the creatures that inhabit it – penguins and U.S. scientists both.] Back on our peninsula, Cortada is highlighting more native movement, with his "Reclamation Project." He is "planting" mangrove shoots, in clear cups with water, all over South Beach in a symbolic effort to take the concrete land back to its original state. (It's his Art Basel project.) As Cortada relates, a 1915 photograph was one inspiration, showing as it did Miami Beach founder Carl Fisher posing with Rosie the Elephant, clearing the "swamps" to pave the way for Lincoln Road. Mangrove forests helped keep the sandy earth in place, as well as sustain a healthy eco-system, and he wants his project "to remind us we must learn to coexist with nature in our urban settings, instead of relegating it to nature preserves." Then he will take this show on the road. The 2,600 mangrove seedlings, through an effort of an all-volunteer eco-army, will be shipped over to Key Biscayne starting mid-December and really planted as part of a reforestation plan. Behind this excursion are Citizens for a Better Florida and DERM, among others. Wanna do some planting? Contact coordinator@reclamationproject.net "The Markers" will be planted at the Miami Museum of Science and Planetarium through Dec. 11, 3280 South Miami Ave., Miami. "The Reclamation Project" will be planted around South Beach from mid-November through Dec. 17.

8. Cortada reinvents style during Antarctic visit

   12.Apr.07, 16:41 EDT
   
   Share It | Spread It | Comments: 0

   Cortada reinvents style during Antarctic visit: Art brings awareness to environmental issues By Peter Rejcek Published in the Antarctic Sun January 21, 2007 MIAMI ARTIST Xavier Cortada came to Antarctica to spread the word about climate change and to educate the public in the little-known scientific and historic facts about the seventh continent. But he didn’t quite expect for his brief journey here to change his own artistic style so radically. The artist’s traditional work pulses with tropical colors, as if living jungle had flung itself onto canvas to be recast in Technicolor wonder. A mangrove seedling seems to serve as his most holy symbol, representing the roots of community in the way that the seed, when it washes up on a sandbar, grows and creates a new ecosystem. Yet, in the scores of small watercolor paintings spread around a laboratory room in McMurdo Station’s main science building, Cortada’s bold colors, his familiar symbols and splashes of style, are missing. The cool blue colors of glacier ice swirl in abstract shapes on 8-by-11 papers, peppered with texture thanks to soil samples from the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Boxes of paint tubes and bottles will return with him to Miami unused. Blank canvas sits in a nearby chair, folded like bed sheets. “Instead of going home with drawings of icebreakers and mountaintops, I’m going home with abstract pieces created from samples of Antarctica, and I think that’s good, that’s the exploration and resonance it was created from,” said Cortada, his round face beaded a bit with sweat from the overheated room. He was trying to dry the paintings, still wet from the sea ice that he had used both as a watery base for his paints and as a brush, before flying north the next day. “I’ve never been so prolific and inspired as I’ve been here,” he added. “It’s been the ultimate artist residency.” It was also a fast-paced residency under the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. Cortada churned out a half-dozen pre-planned projects in just two weeks, including several temporary installation pieces at the South Pole. He flew there for a one-day mad scramble, though at one point weather threatened to cancel the venture altogether. But a window opened in the weather on Jan. 4 – 50 years to the day when construction of the first U.S. South Pole station was completed – and he and his partner Juan Carlos Espinosa, a musician and sound artist, reached 90 degrees south. Cortada called one temporary exhibit Longitudinal Installation. It involved placing 12 pairs of nondescript black shoes around the ceremonial South Pole, which resembles a barbershop pole topped with a mirrored orb like the tip of some magician’s wand. Inside the sole of all 24 shoes, he had painted degrees of longitude, so that each shoe would represent 15 degrees of distance. At the Pole, where the world converges, they conceptually come together in a tight circle. He chose 24 news items from around the world that would roughly correspond to the longitudinal location of each piece of footwear. Each clip was a voice in the global wilderness, a warning about the impacts of environmental degradation. He read each news story aloud. Espinosa recorded the performance, which took place in temperatures that dipped to about negative 17 degrees Fahrenheit. For example, one news item from Colorado at 105 degrees west said, “In Colorado, climate change means less snow, less water, more wildfires, less biodiversity and less economic opportunity, as there is less water available for development.” “I wanted to make the South Pole this global campfire where people would come and talk,” Cortada explained. “The South Pole is where all these longitudes converge … by literally putting these people’s voices inches apart from one another from where they stand on the world at the South Pole, I conceptually diminish the distance, so we can empathize and care more.” The next project was somewhat similar, but Cortada expanded the notion of how human-induced climate change affects not just people but also other species. He painted 24 flags with degrees of longitude and the scientific names of 24 endangered or threatened animals. Both installations will be reproduced for a June exhibit in Oslo, Norway, for United Nations World Environment Day 2007, in a show the Natural World Museum is producing in partnership with the United Nations Environment Program. Cortada has created works for numerous public institutions, including the White House, the World Bank, the Florida capitol, the Florida Supreme Court and the Miami Art Museum. Not all of the Antarctic projects revolved around the theme of climate change and global warming. A different concept played with time. Cortada poured South Pole water into the mold of a mangrove seedling to create an ice counterpart to one of his familiar symbols. He then buried the inorganic seed at the geographic Pole, which rests on a moving ice sheet. In about 150,000 years, Cortada said, that seed would reach the Weddell Sea. Cortada said the piece reminds people that the immediacy of political or societal concerns is far less important than we might think. “We forget that we’re just a small passing moment in a broad spectrum of time.” He stretched out a shorter timeline in Markers. For this installation, Cortada dug 50 holes to plant flags that correspond with the 50 spots where the geographic marker has stood over the last half-century. The ice sheet moves about 30 feet, or 10 meters, each year and the marker is relocated on New Year’s Day. Cortada chose pivotal, inspiring moments from history to represent each year. For instance, the marker for 1989 represents the fall of the Berlin Wall. This geological timepiece was half a kilometer long. “I love the idea of a moving ice sheet to explain Antarctica,” Cortada said. The prolific artist didn’t stop with these one-hit wonders designed to shock the mind off its normal line of thinking. He also painted a portrait of Antarctic hero and explorer Ernest Shackleton while he was in McMurdo and presented the painting to the South Pole station management during his brief visit. “Shackleton to me is the epitome of the Antarctic hero,” Cortada said. “He opened up this continent to us.” Shackleton failed to reach the Pole in life. Cortada imbued his painting of the famed British explorer with some unusual elements for his long overdue arrival. He used GIS maps of the continent that traced Shackleton’s various expeditions. He also overlaid historical photos for the portrait before painting it. The materials used in the paint included glacial ice, dirt from the Dry Valleys and even crushed crystals from Mount Erebus. “I think the painting is very significant,” said Jerry Marty, the National Science Foundation representative at South Pole. “Shackleton’s Antarctica expeditions and his leadership pioneered – almost 100 years later – a continent being used for scientific research, without ownership, and for peaceful purposes. “The temporary installations of climate change and notions of geologic timeline were very powerful,” he added. Antarctica exerted its own power on Cortada, particularly for his last project, an 8-by-4-foot painting that he donated to the McMurdo community. The second-generation Cuban-American artist combined his traditional style with his emerging intuition for abstract images. He had solicited comments from people at McMurdo’s local art show for the piece. The question: why had they come to Antarctica? Participants wrote their answers on note cards, which he adhered to the borders of the canvas, a GIS map of the Ross Island region. Jess Walker, a GIS analyst at McMurdo who creates the maps for the U.S. Antarctic Program, worked with Cortada on finding the right maps for his projects. “I think there’s a lot about a map that lends itself to artistry,” Walker said. “We spent quite a bit of time looking at maps.” The Ross Island map particularly appealed to Cortada because of a whimsical swirl on the left side of the digitally created image, the turning basin created by the annual icebreaker in the sea ice. “It’s like a doodle on the water,” he exclaimed, apparently delighted by the playful imagery the shape lent to the overall image. Ross Island, where United States and New Zealand science stations sit, disappeared under a firework display of color created by Cortada’s brush. Over the note cards, he wrote in all of the science events for the season. The final layer of the painting again included some texture thanks to the Dry Valleys. “I’ve used Dry Valleys’ dirt everywhere,” said Cortada. “I wanted Antarctica in the art.” And Cortada wants back in Antarctica. He said he already has plans to apply for another NSF grant. The artist has not fully fleshed out the concept, but he would like to venture to the Dry Valleys or Mount Erebus with a field team for several weeks. “Part of my excitement about this has been dealing with the Antarctic scientists,” he said. NSF-funded research in this story: Xavier Cortada, Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, www.cortada.com/antarctica.