J/aRt Competition!

This year's contest invited artists to create a drawing, painting or other artwork featuring the JR and its work with microbes and microbiology. For more information, visit our Adopt a Microbe sites: http://sites.google.com/site/adoptamicrobe/ and http://adoptamicrobe329.blogspot.com/. Learn more about the seafloor microbiology-focused expedition here!  

And we have winners!

High School First Place Winner:

Karolina Akimov, 11th grade, John's Creek, Georgia

Artist's Statement: I think many people fail to appreciate the beauty of microbes. Their molecular intricacy often goes unnoticed. Their vivacity goes unseen. For my piece, I really wanted to place emphasis on these microscopic organisms. The JOIDES Resolution itself is anchored to them, representing the connection of research and likewise the interconnectedness between humans and all living matter.

High School Second Place Winner:

Hannah Huddle, 11th Grade, Woodstock, Virginia

Artist's Statement: The first half of my day, I attend a regional environmental Governor’s School. When the bus returns to my home school before lunch, there is a twenty-minute period that the students have as free time. During this block, I go into the art room. Most days my head is full of ideas from classroom and bus ride discussions. I go through my day thinking of new ideas that I want to exploit. This piece developed in my sketchbook while I was exploring ways to use paint, and seemed only appropriate to use to tell the story of a ship’s exploration. The main element I wanted to focus on was the nature of exploration. Though the ship is above the water, the focus is on what is all around it. By having the abstract microorganisms filling the page, I aimed to show the purpose of the expedition. When you are gathering data, your numbers may go onto a page. Clouds are physically up in the sky. Paint is put onto flat paper. However, all these things are so much more. When there is something to explore, it is quickly found everywhere, such as the microorganism surrounding the drilling vessel. By gathering research, exploring new mediums, and learning hands on, discoveries are made. Artist's Statement:

Middle School First Place Winner:

Lillith, 7th Grade, Ava, New York

Artist's Statement: Extreme microbes are fascinating because they live in places humans could never survive. They live in places where the temperatures can be freezing to boiling. The scientists from the JOIDES Resolution obtain deep core samples by drilling in the most awesome places. They drill in places like South American, Antartica and Hawaii. When you look at the core samples, it is amazing to realize they they are filled with microbes that have many cool properties. They look like tubes of boring dirt but they are really filled with life. Some of the microbes eat harmful gases and some produce helpful things. There are microbes that make methane and others that eat irons, sulfates, sulfide, oxygen and oil. I would like to study these microbes some day and figure out how to use them to clean up oil spills and produce new kinds of energy. Microbes are amazing and I think the scientists on the JR get to study the most amazing microbes in the world.

Middle School Second Place Winner:

Samantha, 8th grade, Providence, Rhode Island

Artist's Statement: I was inspired by the pictures, videos and descriptions of your scientific research on under-sea microbes and underwater volcanoes. I used pencils and colored pencils to draw this picture, and I really enjoyed doing it.

Elementary School First Place Winner:

Jeremy, Kindergarten, Middleton, Maryland

Artist's Statement: The JOIDES Resolution helps me discover things in the ocean. I love microbes. That's me and my microscope [in the art].

Elementary School Second Place Winner:

Adia, 4th Grade, Ava, New York

Artist's Statement: I made my picture to show how the scientists on the JOIDES Resolution drill deep into the Earth to find amazing microbes. I like following the JR web site and learning about the microbes they study. Lots of the microbes live in places that I would never believe anything could survive. I think the microbes that are found may someday help solve different problems in the world. Some of the microbes eat oil and may some day help with oil spills. Some of the microbes live in boiling water. I think it is amazing that all this information can be found by the scientists by looking at the core samples.

Elementary School Third Place Winner:

Luke, 5th grade, Linwood, New Jersey

Artist's Statement: Notan is a form of art that uses positive and negative space.  It is a sort of cut paper collage. Notan is about balance. I imagine that balancing yourself on the JOIDES Resolution is important. You will have to study the Notan carefully to find the shapes in my artwork. I created silhouettes of the JOIDES ship, seamounts, cores and cephalopods. I chose these shapes because most of them tie into what the JOIDES Resolution is doing or has done in the past. I also just really like cephalopods (but not to eat). To create this, I used construction paper, glue stick, scizzors, a pencil, and a printout of micro fossils from the JOIDES Resolution website. I also had to make many versions before I could capture the right effect.