Böcker av James Prosek

Renowned naturalist and artist James Prosek applies his extensive field research and artistry to share the natural abundance of America's sweeping prairies. In 2021, Prosek traveled to the Texas Hill Country to understand the region's threatened prairie habitats, thus embarking on a project to explore the complex realities of contemporary American grasslands.Prosek's art is influenced by his science-based, firsthand fieldwork, with his handwritten notes often lining the margins. The book features his richly detailed watercolors and silhouettes of animals, plants, and habitats that reinforce the importance of the prairies as their own complete ecosystems, as well as the boundaries that define them in the present day--from fencerows to distinguishing native prairies from ones with invasive grasses. The same scientific curiosity, detailed artistry, and passionate attention Prosek brought to raising the awareness of species of trout are now acutely focused on the rich, intricate diversity of our native grasses.

They spawn in the middle of the ocean but spend their adult lives in freshwater. They can overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles and even cross over land. They are revered as guardians and monster-seducers by New Zealand's Maori, yet are often viewed with disgust in the West. They are a multibillion-dollar business in the Asian food market. They are often mistaken for snakes. They are eels?one of the world's most amazing and least understood fish. (Yes, fish.) James Prosek offers a fascinating tour through the life history and cultural associations of the freshwater eel, exploring its biology, its myth and lore, its mystery and beauty. Eels is a mesmerizing biography of an intriguing and mysterious creature, as well as a telling look at humanity, the will to persist, and the ever-changing relationship between man and the natural world.

Works by Prosek and others are juxtaposed with natural objects in an illuminating interrogation of the artificial boundaries we create between art and nature