Welcome to this issue of Stumped by Nature, where we notice nature lurking just beyond our screens, curate a list of outside-y events in Austin, and build community with other folks in the thick of the startup ecosystem.
In this week’s issue:
🐟 Gyotaku
🌤️ Upcoming outdoors events
🚙 Adventures just beyond Austin
Let’s dig in!
-Nicole
PS. There’s a batch of folks who read this newsletter who also meet outside, IRL.
ATHENA ALERT (!) / EVENT SAVE THE DATE
Current status: One of two of Athena’s eggs has hatched.
Obviously we’re going to visit the little family.
Save the date for an ATX Outsiders + ATX Art Club collaboration at the Wildflower Center on Tuesday, May 12.
NATURE SPOTLIGHT
When I’m curating events for the week and a nature heavy hitter drops an event titled with an unfamiliar-to-me Japanese term, I know I’m about to go down a rabbit hole.
Thank you, Inks Lake, for your March programming that stopped me mid-scroll.
Today’s topic:
Gyotaku.
Gyotaku 魚拓, aka fish printing
With origins in 18th century Japan, gyotaku was a solution for fishermen’s record keeping. Specifically, when there were fishing competitions and folks wanted to know whose catch was bigger, they whipped out the sumi ink and washi paper to document the full length and girth.
Artists and scientists couldn’t let competitive record keepers have all the fun, with so much potential reverence for fin and scale. So gyotaku expanded:
To study anatomy and function of design
For displaying the skills of fishing, inking
For a connection to the creatures of the sea
As a lasting display of a moment and an experience and a life
Say less, the internet. I was sold on the concept immediately.
The Art Experiment
If we’re getting loosely technical, the translation is “fish printing.”
Inks Lake called it “fish painting.”
My version of it was definitely the less eloquent “fish rubbing.”
With spring break offering the known hellscape of spotty childcare, we fled to the Texas coast for a dose of OOO.
And with “mud and oyster shells and the little fish that herons and egrets grab in the shallows,” we had no choice but to give gyotaku a go.
One of the first learnings: that gyotaku requires having fish in hand.
Increasingly malodorous work station
And so an experiment that I’m told involved learning the difference between throwing a cast net with a five-foot radius (which, turns out, is not a natural collaborator with oyster shells) and a three-foot radius (which, turns out, is just fine for knee deep in the mud shallows).
From the channels of saltgrass, my crew gleaned what were maybe pinfish (for accuracy, we can call them Little Fish), and the need for an unplanned laundry session.
We also acquired mullet, freshly purchased from the local bait boat, henceforth called Slightly Larger Fish.
This is roughly the moment in the process when I realized the fish would need to die for the sake of our novice art. I had a moment of considering bison, the sacrifice of the thumbless to nourish.
I had a flimsy landing on the inevitability of their death—these fish would have been eaten by something. Of my role in this ecosystem, of consuming and creating. And so I clung to gratitude.
How to Rub Fish
Materials are necessary:
Little Fish
Slightly Larger Fish
Paper, like rice paper or mulberry paper. The goal: something with high wet strength
Muslin cloth if you’re feeling like a paper-alternative
Sumi ink, aka calligraphy ink
Paint brush, sponges, a q-tip
Mulberry paper + a gyotaku learning curve
To do:
rinse off the slime layer
dry off as much liquid as humanly possible
lob a light coat of ink on the fish
use a sponge to extract liquids/attempt to contain the fin ooze
give the eyeball an extra little roll with a q-tip
put your transfer material of choice on top
rub the fish snout to tail fin (to keep scales intact)
reveal the imprint
thank the fish for their service
secure the art to dry without blowing away
Then try again the next day when the fish are less wet and more rigid, with the added audience of the dock cat(s), dock flies, and a growing olfactory experience for all dock-dwellers
Why not toss in a cyanotype while you’re at it?
All this to say: props to fishermen for their desire to prove how big it was, and for my spring breaking children to come face to face with art/death.
For the State Parks absolutely ripping it with programming.
For Japanese traditions that nail the nature inroads into lives worth living.
For the inevitability of being consumed by bigger fish or speared by egrets or for the sake of art.
For the lengths we go to compare. The small beauty of fin lines and scales. And how generations have and continue to document and pin details down with rocks to keep the moment from escaping.
PSA
UPCOMING EVENTS
The rain chances are making outdoor events especially variable this week, so perhaps a good time to whittle down your TBR list.
🗓️ April 10: Trail Talks #3, rain permitting, this is one of my favorite crowds
🗓️ April 10: Introductory Botany Tour: Get to know the 75 most common species at Spicewood Ranch
🗓️ April 11 Squirrel Festival: including origami, a moth study, and cyanotypes
🗓️ April 11: The Board Walks for curious people who love deep convos
🗓️ April 11: TEMPO on the Trail Opening Celebration, featuring nine new art installations and bikes available to borrow
🗓️ April 12: Austin Symphony Orchestra Concerts in the Park: Wind Ensemble edition
🗓️ April 13 Mama Betty’s Golf Classic, with a mental health focus
🗓️ April 14: Neil Degrasse Tyson discusses scientific literacy and conflict over objective truths
🗓️ April 14: The Art of the Wild Bouquet workshop: Learn the art of champêtre floral style
🗓️ April 15: Much Maligned & Misunderstood Animals: Give coyotes and armadillos a break
🗓️ April 16 Austin Ruck Club Everyone loves a 6am start time
🗓️ April 16 Garden Party at UMLAUF
🗓️ April 17: Founder Pickleball for some morning dinks and donks
JUST OUTSIDE OF AUSTIN
🚙 April 10: History of Enchanted Rock- Campfire Chat
🚙 April 11: Warbler Walk ‘tis the season, y’all
🚙 April 11: Bluebonnet Festival Flyer Did you know there’s a Bluebonnet Capital of Texas? And a train to take you there?
🚙 April 11: Learn to Fish with an Angler Instructor, and let me know if you need to borrow rice paper and sumi ink
🚙 April 11: Poetry Hike, both consuming and creating
🚙 April 11: Mountain Biking for Beginners
🚙 April 12: Wildflower Walk, featuring frequent stops to ID flowers
🚙 April 15: Medicinal Plant Hike—the OG seed stage bio tech
🚙 April 16-19 One Wheel Festival / Lemonade Float Fest
🚙 Weekends through April 19: Sherwood Forest Faire
That’s all for this week!
In the meantime, I hope you consider capturing the little details of a fleeting life in ink.
-Nicole
OPTIONAL SIDE QUESTS
🪵 Are you looking for a community of people in the startup ecosystem who go outside together? I’ve got you.
🪵 Are you sitting on a misogi-esque story? Spill.
🪵 Do you need to commission a writer? I’m happy to discuss projects that might make me cry in public/funnel my experiential/existential dread into essays like this one.
🪵 Is this newsletter not your vibe? Forward it to your enemies to make them suffer too.
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