Art In Service Of Science: Happy Birthday, Julie Child

By BARBARA CLARK

“Anyone want a dead catbird?” It’s a sunny June day, and five women, students in a nature drawing class led by Woods Hole artist and teacher Julie Child, are gathered around the contents of the small box that was brought in by a friend. They’re used to seeing such specimens, ranging from insects to birds, considered as possible subjects for their nature drawing sessions, but today there are no takers; the students are all immersed in their individual art projects, with materials they’ve set out on a long table, their workspace at the Woods Hole Library. Several have been working for many weeks on their drawings.

Each student is creating a project of her own choice, and Child, a slim figure with short, curly hair, moves around the room from person to person, listening quietly, offering a brief suggestion or sitting down to touch up the shape of an insect antenna here or an owl’s feather there.

Julie Child, who turned 90 years old in June, has combined her talent for observing and drawing nature into a long career as a biological illustrator and educator. Much of her life has been spent in the community of Woods Hole, contributing her scientific and art expertise and helping engage others in the pleasures of connecting with the world of nature.

Child spent her early childhood in rural Pennsylvania, on the eve of World War II. Julie and her four siblings ran and played freely in the outdoors, where she developed her love of nature and the talent for getting it down on paper in her artful drawings. She often spent time with her older sister, Mary, each creating drawings that chimed with their own interests. Besides drawing, Child often preserved small specimens from nature, which she kept in boxes that her father made, so she could save her insect and butterfly collections.

Child often collected specimens she described as victims of “road kill” or other fatal encounters in nature. Often a deceased bird or the skull of a small animal found its way into the family freezer, waiting to be committed to paper in one of her intricate drawings. Child herself learned how to clean and preserve the specimens she’d later use in her artwork.

The varied talents of her artistic family are visible in a book the two sisters created as a gift for their mother. Child’s contributions were detailed drawings of insects, shells, feathers or flowers, while her older sister presented an athletic viewpoint with her images of people pursuing activities like swimming, golf and tennis.

After World War II began, the family moved to Wayne, Pennsylvania, closer to a city environment. Child said, “We always had time to draw and read. … We all learned to entertain ourselves.” With so much to observe and draw, she added, “I don’t think I ever got lonely.”

Child and her sister, Mary, began summering in Woods Hole when Child was about 12, staying with relatives who lived in the village’s iconic Airplane House. She attended the venerable Woods Hole Children’s School of Science, and one year found work as a chambermaid. In a personal profile she posted at the Woods Hole Historical Museum website, she noted, “I made $100 that summer and thought I was rich.”

After graduating from Mills College in California in 1956, Child enrolled for more formal training as a medical illustrator, at Massachusetts General Hospital School of Medical Illustration. One assignment was to create a self-portrait—in the form of a full-size skeleton, precisely drawn from her own anatomical measurements. The drawing was completed on a large roll-up window shade.

Early in her post-college career, Child taught at what was then called a school for “juvenile delinquents,” located in the countryside outside Pittsburgh, where there were walks and field trips for these young women, many of whom had little experience out-of-doors. On one trip, she said, “We waded in the water, where everyone got leeches.” But, she said, “Because I didn’t scream and yell, they didn’t, either.”

In the late 1950s, she found employment at Woods Hole’s Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), working for anatomy professor Philip Armstrong, drawing the stages of embryonic development of the freshwater catfish. In order to keep up with the rapid growth of the fish from its earliest stages, she kept an eye trained on the viewpiece of her microscope, completing a drawing every half-hour for eight hours, after which she could gradually reduce the timing of subsequent drawings to 12 and 18 hours and finally to one a day, over about 18 days. The whole project, including final completion of the monograph, took two summers.

In her online profile, she recalled, “It was fun and I was young, and the long hours at my desk staring through a dissecting scope was an adventure.”   

Child married MBL scientist Frank Child in 1960. She returned to the Science School, teaching her own course in biological illustration for young people starting in 1975. She continued teaching there for more than 17 years. Following family tradition, she said, all her children and grandchildren also attended the young people’s classes.

Later in her life, her own children gravitated to her love of nature. On one walk with her 6-year-old son, they found a baby snapping turtle and brought it home. Clarence the turtle outgrew his aquarium and proceeded to spend the next several years in a family bathtub before being donated to a nature center at the hefty weight of 35 pounds.

After summering in Woods Hole for years, Child and her husband retired there in 1994. There was a long career for her to look back on—and add to. Besides her many biological and medical illustration projects, she has illustrated a children’s book and done textbook illustrating, including a series of gardening books for Rodale Press. On a less formal note, she has also created graphics for T-shirts and other items sold at the MBL store.

Child also spent many years sharing her scientific expertise and love of nature through drawing classes she held in the local community. Currently she holds a weekly drawing class at the Woods Hole Library, with adult participants. The five women present at a recent class are all area residents with ties in the community, plus their affinity for all things nature.

Laura Lubin, who recently joined the group, described Child as a special kind of teacher, who listens rather than imposing a giant structure of rules for creating art. “She teaches that you have to see deeply,” said Lubin.

Each member’s initiation to the class has been to draw an apple, using graphite pencil, encountering what Child called “the play of light and shadow” and how it influences the process of “drawing in 3D on 2D pieces of paper.”

Kerry Walton, a five-year veteran of Child’s classes, showed off photos of her poodle, who’s the main subject of her drawings. Child’s unique qualities as a teacher, said Walton, come from how she “guides you just a little bit,” telling you gently what you need to know, when you’re ready to know it. Weeks into one drawing, Walton said, Child quietly remarked of one of the drawings, “You know, your dog doesn’t have a jaw.”  Walton said her ability to notice such details changed dramatically after the comment.

Class members applauded as Child held up Nancy Copley’s just-finished drawing of a tiny screech owl peering from its safe bird house at Copley’s home. Copley, another class veteran, described a book that students created for Child several years ago that featured some of the “words of wisdom” their teacher often shared with them. There were phrases such as, “Life is so short; you may want to do something easier.”  “You need to make your shadows bumpier.”  “The eraser is your best friend.” “Keep that edge a whisper of softness.”  “Let your hand follow your eye.”

 

Her demeanor and methods seem unobtrusive, but at the same time, Child’s guidance is central in the room where students are working.

Her long career was honored last fall when the Cahoon Museum of American Art in Cotuit mounted an exhibition of her work, titled “Julie Child and the Art of Biological Illustration.” The comprehensive show, including examples of Child’s “words of wisdom,” allowed visitors to see her art, as well as that of her students, and to peruse some of  the “tools of the trade” that, over the years, have furthered the techniques of technical drawing as a profession. The show included a space full of drawing materials where visitors could create their own still life, using samples of Child’s time-tested specimens—feathers, skulls, vines, plants, insects and shells.

Child noted the lack of “free play” time available in today’s world—the kind she enjoyed as a youngster out and about in the countryside. “We are more urban and more crowded, and (there are) a lot more people.” But, she said, there’s still an important “connection between the human brain and what’s outside” in the world around us, and “there will always be people fascinated with the real world of nature.” People know more about the environment, and are eager to work on creating a sustainable planet.” Her own children and grandchildren, she said, just seem to take life in stride. As an example, “They don’t mind finding a bird in the freezer.”