A Smith Gallery - “Art + Science” Photo Contest and Exhibition

Has photography ever really been disconnected from Science? From the invention of the pinhole camera about one thousand and twenty years ago by the Arab mathematician, physicist, and Astronomer, Ibn al-Haytham, up to today’s use of radiology to produce works of art, science and art have been inseparable. Photography is the perfect intersection of Art and Science.”

Linda Alterwitz

“Jeremy Ducette developed a fascination with squid as a boy working his uncle’s snapper charter boat out of Port Aransas, Texas. Squid were used as bait. He was fascinated with their oversized, almost human eyes, their red Jello-like translucency, their hidden parrot beak.

The summer of ‘75 his uncle began a relationship with a recently arrived Native Hawaiian woman. She escaped Vietnam at the end of the war, the widow of a Vietnamese anthropology professor. She had been a student of his in France. She decided to temporarily move to Texas with her husband’s extended family. When she discovered that squid were being used as bait she was appalled. Although squid were eaten in large quantities in Vietnam. Her Polynesian grandmother told her stories of many of the animals of the sea.

The squid was seen as a holder of great intelligence, with the ability to adapt and communicate across cultures. They were both a symbol of creation and the underworld. In Polynesian stories, squid often symbolize adaptability and intelligence, reflecting the people’s deep understanding of marine life. The woman accepted squid as a foodstuff, nourishing life, but not as a snack to lure others to their end, even with squid’s strong connection to the underworld.

The woman could tell that Jeremy had a fascination with and an affinity for the cephalopods. She approached him with a business proposition….” From “Doryteuthis plei – Calamari To Go” by Franklin Cincinnatus