The Cast of the Archaeopteryx

The Science

The Archaeopteryx was a crow-sized, winged bird living in the late Jurassic period, around 150 million years ago. When the first Archaeopteryx fossil was found in the mid 1800s, many people were stunned because birds from that period hadn’t been discovered yet. Some even proposed it was an angel. So, was it the first bird or was it a dinosaur or was it a transitional creature, revealing to us the evolution between ancient dinosaurs and the birds of today? There’s still disagreement. The Archaeopteryx lithographica cast that inspired me during a trip to the Beneski Museum of Natural History in Amherst, MA, was a plaster replica of an original fossil that was most likely formed when the creature’s body was buried in mud at the bottom of a hypersaline lagoon.

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/dino-directory/archaeopteryx.html#

The Medium

To create this piece, I first sketched the skeleton of the Archaeopteryx on A4 copy paper in pencil; then, with a scalpel, I cut out the skeleton in one piece. As I was lifting my cut-paper skeleton, I felt like an archaeologist excavating a fossil. I loved the way the skeleton changed shape as I worked and the way light from my table lamp cast shadows on the paper that appeared both black and blue. I photographed the piece, intensified the blue hue, and used a digital paintbrush to blend the texture of the background. The preservation of creatures from the past enables us to see change over time.

Artist Bio

MARY AMATO is a multidisciplinary teaching artist who specializes in the art of shadow puppetry using cut paper, negative space, and light. Her work has appeared in numerous art magazines and journals. She is passionate about connecting with other artists, writers, and students through her own online meditative art and writing class.

https://www.instagram.com/authoramato/