A dinosaur utopia

[asakiyume]

The Arkell Museum in Canajoharie, New York (a town celebrated by They Might Be Giants in a song--can your town say as much? Mine cannot--but more about Canajoharie later) has been assiduously advertising its exhibit of art from James Gurney's Dinotopia since October. Yesterday the ninja girl, the healing angel, and I went to see it.

Do you know Dinotopia? James Gurney imagined an island populated by sentient dinosaurs and humans, living together. Gurney's worldbuilding is fabulous, and his art is amazing--very much like N.C. Wyeth or Howard Pyle. Here are some examples from the Dinotopia website that we actually got to see:

flying on a skybax



Waterfall City in the Mist

Desert Crossing

One very intriguing artifact was an early sketch of the island that would become Dinotopia. In pencil, he has it labeled Panmundia, and then under that, a series of other possible titles, including Sauropolis, Saurotopia, and Dinotolia, and at the bottom, Dinotopia, with three underlines and a star beside it. Yep, that's the one!

Gurney obviously loves the whole process of creation--he has built full-scale dinosaur models to see how the light will fall on them, and he's had his neighbors dress up in costumes and pose, so he can paint them. He has a nice quote, too, about illustrative art: "Artists have been ambassadors to the world of the imagination." How lucky for him--thinking back to the previous entry, about the Hackney brothers, who were not so lucky with their band--that his vision found a warm welcome in the world.

It was an epic journey getting to Canajoharie and back again--two-and-a-half hours, through snow squalls. For a while, as we were nearing our destination, there was a wide river to our right, all crowded with broken and refrozen ice, and then occasionally stretches of smooth ice, and still more occasionally, stretches of unfrozen water. We thought we saw a heron, but as it passed overhead, we saw its white head, curved beak, and strong white legs--not a heron, a bald eagle.

"What river is that?" I asked the guy--very young--manning the sole toll booth as we left the highway (asked, because I'm an idiot who doesn't know the geography of the region I grew up in). "That's the Mohawk!" he told me. We saw him again on our way back onto the highway. "Have you seen the dinosaur paintings at the museum?" I asked him. "They're really great." "Oh, yeah? I haven't, but I- I should check them out," he said with a grin.

Comments

[coldhighmountai.livejournal.com]

I really like Waterfall City in the Mist. It reminds me of something really refreshing but I'm not sure what. Imagining pure unpolluted waters.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The painting was so real-seeming, you could just about hear the roar from the falls and feel the mist as you looked at it.

[coldhighmountai.livejournal.com]

I hope to see Victoria Falls someday, "the smoke that thunders".

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I hope you get to!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Ah, Dinotopia paintings! I loved those books as a kid: I could stare at the illustrations for hours and hours. I particularly loved the city in the tree tops (although I always worried about all the opportunities is presented for falling to one's doom!), and how detailed all the pictures were. How cool that they're having an exhibition of his art!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

It's every bit as satisfying as you'd hope it would be. Just wonderful.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Those paintings are really lovely!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Have you ever seen the books?

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes--they were regular staples at school, and many friends had them in their homes. I think I had one for my son, too, for a time.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Oh wow! An exhibition of the art of Dinotopia's creator, as seen through your keen and poetic eyes! What a gorgeous post!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Glad you enjoyed! It was a great exhibit.

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

I adore Dinotopia. I had all the books at one time. Sadly, they were lost in one of my moves, but the artwork--oh, the artwork was magnificent. I loved them much.

Did you see the mini-series back when it was on?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I didn't, but I think the kids saw one or two episodes. There was a model at the exhibit that had been made by Jim Henson Studies for the mini series.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this entry. Sprout is very into dinosaurs at the moment, and she got a kick out of looking at what you posted and the website you linked to. :D

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

My kids *loved* these books (not all were out at the time they were small), and I enjoyed the care he took with them and his obvious delight in the world he'd created.

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

Ah, I was hoping Canajoharie was close to Herkimer, and so it is. What a very beautiful area.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Tell me about your connection to Herkimer! (Have you told me?)

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

It is very slight indeed. :D I think that the Mohawk River Valley is very beautiful, I can remember Herkimer's name and spent one night there in the late 1980s-- the only time I've been along there. But I remember it surprisingly viividly.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

It is definitely beautiful! I want to go back there...

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

Me too. :)

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

DINOTOPIA. Breathe deep, seek peace!

I own the first two Dinotopia books. Loved the hell out of them because they were so beautiful and awesome. Especially Will and Sylvia, holy crap, how I loved Will and Sylvia, and as a tomboy who never liked romantic stuff that is saying a lot. I think partly because there's a part where Bix and Will talk about how Will can control neither his Skybax nor Sylvia.

Thanks for the throwback!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Any time :-)