Public art & cicada portraiture
May. 27th, 2021 10:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thanateBrood X has risen. I missed the last round because I was in Colorado 17 years ago, but 34 years ago was second grade, and among other things it was the only year I walked to school. I remember trying not to step on cicadas on the sidewalk. The Megatherium (finishing second grade without walking to school at all) has taken to cicadas with her usual enthusiasm, decided they're super cute, and convinced her friends to be enthusiastic also.
I've been uploading all the cicada pictures to the Cicada Safari app and watching the (thoroughly skewed) ranks update... I'm currently at #62 on the Cicada Scout leaderboard, with 413 of my 1272 photos approved. (What is getting approved seems to be very dependent on whether you're submitting photos when one of the people doing the approving is online... I assume they'll go back & catch up after the bulk upload season, so the rankings will change dramatically after all the photos are in.)
But since it's the season that I wake up far too early with the daylight anyway, and early morning this week seems to be a lovely time for wandering around documenting cicadas on the shrubbery, I've been adding hundreds of photos before 8am, and generally the volume of the treetop chorus is a little less oppressive before it heats up.
A couple months ago, another Baltimore-local linked to the call for artists by the Cicada Parade-a, and we adopted two of them to decorate, and then was brave & talked to people and got permission to put them up at our library. (Every time I go in now, one of the staff tells me how much everyone likes them!) Pictures & some progress/process stuff on the craft forum here.
So I guess I do public art projects now, as well as citizen science and too many silly video games* and de facto auditing virtual second grade.
*I've been playing Cozy Grove on the switch, which is sort of an Animal Crossing game mechanic, only you're a Spirit Scout whose job is to quiet the restless dead and you've gotten in way over your head on your first solo overnight.
ETA: and then someone went through a few hours after I posted this & approved my Cicada Safari backlog, and we jumped to #15.
I've been uploading all the cicada pictures to the Cicada Safari app and watching the (thoroughly skewed) ranks update... I'm currently at #62 on the Cicada Scout leaderboard, with 413 of my 1272 photos approved. (What is getting approved seems to be very dependent on whether you're submitting photos when one of the people doing the approving is online... I assume they'll go back & catch up after the bulk upload season, so the rankings will change dramatically after all the photos are in.)
But since it's the season that I wake up far too early with the daylight anyway, and early morning this week seems to be a lovely time for wandering around documenting cicadas on the shrubbery, I've been adding hundreds of photos before 8am, and generally the volume of the treetop chorus is a little less oppressive before it heats up.
A couple months ago, another Baltimore-local linked to the call for artists by the Cicada Parade-a, and we adopted two of them to decorate, and then was brave & talked to people and got permission to put them up at our library. (Every time I go in now, one of the staff tells me how much everyone likes them!) Pictures & some progress/process stuff on the craft forum here.
So I guess I do public art projects now, as well as citizen science and too many silly video games* and de facto auditing virtual second grade.
*I've been playing Cozy Grove on the switch, which is sort of an Animal Crossing game mechanic, only you're a Spirit Scout whose job is to quiet the restless dead and you've gotten in way over your head on your first solo overnight.
ETA: and then someone went through a few hours after I posted this & approved my Cicada Safari backlog, and we jumped to #15.