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Elizabeth Beston
183 Plays5 years ago
A warm welcome to Elizabeth Beston
Her artist statement gives a wonderful introduction to her explorations:
We often associate the microscopic world as looking inwards, and downwards (as opposed to space, which is felt of as an outward, expansive pursuit). Through my photographic work, I want to challenge this paradigm, using the microscope as a platform for connecting to something bigger than us – after all, in H.G. Wells’ ‘War of the Worlds’ it wasn’t the power of the humans that won earth it’s victory, it was microbes, unseen by us on our plane of vision, but there nonetheless, mightier than any army. Through my microscope, I am invited into new galaxies, and whilst I use my instrument for scientific exploration, I also find abstract and aesthetic beauty – mysterious landscapes, intriguing textures, and depths of colour. It is these fascinating discoveries I want to share with the world, and show the beauty under a microscope through visceral eyes.
https://www.instagram.com/elizabethbeston/
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Transcript
Introduction and Artist Statement
00:00:00
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host Ken Volante. Editor and producer Peter Bauer.
00:00:17
Speaker
This is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. In this episode, we're speaking with Elizabeth Best. And I want to atypically read her artist statement because I really believe it gave a great introduction to what she does. And she writes, we often associate the microscopic world as looking inwards and downwards, as opposed to space, which is felt as an outward, expansive pursuit
00:00:47
Speaker
Through my photographic work, I want to challenge this paradigm, using the microscope as a platform for connecting us to something bigger than us. After all, in H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, it wasn't the power of humans that won Earth its victory. It was microbes, unseen by us on our plane of vision.
Microscopic Photography and Inspiration
00:01:06
Speaker
But they are nonetheless mightier than any army. Through my microscope, I am invited into new galaxies. And whilst I use my instrument for scientific exploration,
00:01:16
Speaker
I also find abstract and aesthetic beauty, mysterious landscapes, intriguing textures, and depths of color. It is these fascinating discoveries I want to share with the world and show the beauty under a microscope through visceral eyes. Elizabeth Bestin, welcome to the podcast. Hi, Ken. Thanks for having me. It's a great pleasure. Starting off right from the get-go,
00:01:46
Speaker
Were you an artist when you were born? That's a good question. I think yes and also no at the same time. I think all humans are artists perhaps with a little a and also scientists with a little s when we're born because as children, as adults,
00:02:07
Speaker
We explore, we're curious, we create, we make, we write, we draw, we perform. So yeah, we are as beings, as animals, artists and scientists and obviously many other things as well.
00:02:27
Speaker
But artist with a capital A? I wasn't, no. I think that's something that a person has to choose to call themselves. I think there are many, many people out there who create art who don't call themselves artists, which is interesting.
00:02:45
Speaker
I don't feel comfortable calling myself a scientist yet. I am doing a biology degree. I feel like I have to get my degree first before I can call myself a scientist. However, when I was an artist, I didn't feel it necessary to get my degree in art to be able to call myself that. But yeah, I think artists with a capital A is something that you choose for yourself. But we're all artists and scientists when we're born.
Exploring Marine Life
00:03:13
Speaker
Yeah, I do enjoy that because I find it's a great discussion to get into how much we have control over what part of it is built into us in our identity.
00:03:29
Speaker
I wanted to chat with, I wanted to give the listeners a sense if you could just kind of walk us through how you explore. Now I've seen your Instagram page and I'm delighted, I'll speak personally, I'm delighted by the images. I'm deeply fascinated by oceans, by water, by this world, by the small, by the enormous that exists within it.
00:03:58
Speaker
I look at your photos and I really enjoyed them all because they all seem so new to me, a lot of them. So can you take us through whether art, science, taking photography, you as a photographer, how are you going into this world and engaging with it and what do you find?
00:04:24
Speaker
you the way that you just express that interest ken is very much how i feel about it it's the marine world for me particularly is extremely exciting and mysterious you know it's it's a place where we can't exist you know we can't live in in in the underwater world because we don't have gills um and and there are so many creatures in that world that
00:04:53
Speaker
only exist in that world, like a kind of, um, so starfish and sea urchins and so on. Um, and like you say, the range of sizes, you know, from the, from the tiniest single cell organism to the enormous blue whale and everything in between. Um, and for me, I engage with that world on the shoreline, um, intertidal it's called, and
Photography: Art and Science
00:05:19
Speaker
I go rock pooling, I walk on the beach, I come across animals that have been washed up, so deceased, which are equally fascinating because I get a real opportunity to have a really good explore and I can notice things like textures and shape and record that and get really intimate with those morphological features.
00:05:46
Speaker
and down at the rock pools, I can see things living, I can see things working together, I can see the ecology, which is really exciting. And then there's the microscope, so I bring home some samples and I can see this tiny world, you know, like diatoms, for example.
00:06:06
Speaker
I went to the rock pools yesterday and there's this sort of buff-colored, muddy-looking kind of stringy stuff that's just not very attractive at all in the rock pools. And then you take it home and you pop it under the microscope and bang, there's these golden shapes, crystal-looking glass things. I mean, this is what diatoms are. They basically have glass exoskeletons almost. It's an algae, but it has these
00:06:34
Speaker
These these outer casings made of silica and that they're so vibrant and beautiful But you just you wouldn't know that you wouldn't know that looking at this this muddy gloop it's it's incredible all these layers of interest from you know, the seascape that you see with the with the with the greens and the Browns and the Reds of the different algae's and
00:07:01
Speaker
down to the intricate shapes and colors and patterns of the micro world. I've no idea if I've just answered your question. I think I just went off on one. No, no, absolutely not.
00:07:16
Speaker
Yeah, I was totally vibing what you're saying and kind of following. And that's the piece just for me. And believe me, I'm not going to overexpress the knowledge I have about the oceans. I am from Rhode Island, which is the ocean state. But I'm not going to say that that gives me all the technical pieces. But I think one of the most curious pieces about
00:07:42
Speaker
about the ocean tends to be whether you look as you look closer like you do or you see that fish of how everybody always says alien right like it doesn't belong like some of the deep water stuff it seems so we know it's there but it seems so foreign and I think there's in general this deep fascination of how did these like
00:08:02
Speaker
almost like space creatures end up in the water. And I've always thought that there was a strong draw, at least for me, in seeing others are like, what is that thing? What is that animal, if you can see it? And with your process, you have that, but you even drive down deeper to see under the microscope what else is there.
00:08:25
Speaker
So I enjoy following that path with you. I wanted to ask you, Elizabeth, and when we first started talking, you mentioned about science. We're talking about art and science and your connection to that. And you said you had considered yourself an artist. And I know from you telling me you'd have been involved in different art endeavors.
00:08:52
Speaker
I wanted to ask you, what is art in your opinion? That is an incredibly good question. And from my point of view, this is just my opinion, I guess it's a creation of something where something other than function is the priority.
00:09:21
Speaker
I think that's something that I kind of resonate with. But also at the same time, I don't think it's my place to say what art is. I do feel like that's the privilege of the artist. I was thinking about how I could stand on a hillside and I could move my body in a certain way. And I could say, I am exercising.
00:09:49
Speaker
Or I could move my body in the same way in the same place and I could say I'm creating art And I know that it's been mentioned on your podcast before but I think it's about intention, isn't it? It's about You know why why you're creating? something Is it purely for for function or is there something deeper a form of expression and
00:10:16
Speaker
in the way that you, I mean, you know, do you, does art have to be seen? I mean, that's another question that I ponder. You know, if art is, if I create a painting and don't show anybody, is that art? Yes, I think it is, but yet I'm not giving a message to anybody. I'm not expressing myself to anybody, just expressing myself to myself. It's a really fascinating question I could go round in circles with, I think.
The Dual Role of Photography
00:10:45
Speaker
No, no, thank you so much for that, Elizabeth. But one of the things that popped into my mind, maybe to give it more of a tactile piece to it, it's an extremely theoretical question. But you're a photographer, and you're a skilled photographer, and you have that skill. And of course, photography,
00:11:04
Speaker
Photography has to deal with you know, is it a sheer documentation or you know in the composition? Is there something artistic and I think I wonder about that question for you because The only thing that would be expected of you with a photograph I would surmise in the science world is documentation. What is the thing reflected properly? but if there's any aesthetic component to it and
00:11:27
Speaker
I'd imagine your aims aren't strictly tied to documenting, they're tied to something else. But in that example, can you talk about your photography in that context of how you view your photography within the documentation versus art? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, photography and especially in the realm of science is where the arts and the sciences do kind of come together. When I'm out
00:11:51
Speaker
exploring or using the microscope, I will take different kinds of images. I will take images that are for function, for identification. They won't be particularly pretty, but they will be of a particular part of an organism that I need to see to be able to say, ah, it's this species. And then I will also take photographs that are more
00:12:17
Speaker
from an aesthetic point of view, perhaps emotive wanting to excite people, for me expressing my excitement through an image, which if I presented a strictly sort of scientific image, say I'm down at the rock pools and I take a photograph of a brittle star and I am taking a picture for it to identify it,
00:12:43
Speaker
I don't feel as though I want to present that to say my followers on Instagram because
00:12:49
Speaker
on Instagram, I want to share my excitement, and my passion and my enthusiasm and my squeamers that oh my goodness, it's a rebel star. So yeah, so and I think that inspires me to take a different kind of image. And it's the same with the with the microscope as well. You know, I will compose things, I will put things in the frame in a different way to create something that is more not palatable, but more exciting and more inviting.
00:13:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, thank you for that. I was very interested in like on that point too because I know that it was very useful for me to hear how you how you would like to present in into whom and into why and those purposes in the photographic image itself. I wanted to ask you
00:13:43
Speaker
What is the role of art and you can speak from your art, but what, what role that is has. And I want to say for me, looking at your stuff, I'm like, this is me without any knowledge, you know, we're meeting. I'm going to look at your stuff. I'm going to say through these images, what is spectacular in the oceans will inspire people to protect them because if these fascinating things are there, they should be there.
00:14:08
Speaker
Right? Like for me, I'm thinking of that. And I know that's very, very questionable if you expand it to everybody. But I'm speaking specifically about the role of art or the work that you do. What do you think is the role of it?
Curiosity and Marine Exploration
00:14:23
Speaker
I think the work that I'm doing now is to get people excited. And I think that as a byproduct of that excitement will hopefully come a sense of responsibility, a sense of wanting to protect. But I think for me, rather than wanting to talk to people directly about that,
00:14:50
Speaker
is to just share the excitement, to get people excited, to be almost like a gatekeeper, I suppose, to take this unseen world and say, hey, look, look at this, this exists, isn't this amazing? And get people excited about that.
00:15:10
Speaker
and then perhaps go and do something with that. But I don't think that's what all art is about. Art has so many roles. In the past, art for me was about catharsis, was about therapy, expression, finding my identity.
00:15:29
Speaker
Um, so, you know, I think that the role of art in an artist's life can change and also the role of art in a in an observer's in an audience's uh life can change as well depending on where you at you where you're at you will View art in in different ways and get from it different things Yeah, yeah, I I really appreciate um your your your comments there
00:15:53
Speaker
I wanted to mention one of the things as far as my exploration of the oceans that it was just just a general big, you know, realization I'm from the east coast and Atlantic Ocean is so very different from the Pacific Ocean and then when I moved out.
00:16:07
Speaker
out to the West Coast, the Pacific Ocean is so extremely powerful and to be deferred to in its strength. But one of the pieces that I was able to enjoy and start forever were the tide pools that would collect along all the rocks and crags on the Pacific Ocean, which is pretty much a unique experience. I've been out here for 10 years and doing that and seeing things I had never seen.
00:16:35
Speaker
by being at this ocean and having access to it. So I found that here my experience is like, it's such a cold, intimidating and powerful ocean that there's this deep respect for, but it's also open at the edges on the tidal pool for you just like kind of to go in. It's been quite a thing to get used to growing up on one ocean and going to another ocean that feels so different from me. So I just wanted to have the opportunity to share that
00:17:12
Speaker
What or who made you who you are, Elizabeth? Oh, so, so many things. I'm in my mid-40s now, so I've lived a bit of life. And all the usual suspects are in there, the genetics, the experiences, the relationships, my parents, my children, my husband, and all of that. But I think the one thing that has propelled me
00:17:32
Speaker
that experience with you.
00:17:39
Speaker
through my life and to where I am now is my curiosity, is my sense of curiosity and nurturing that within myself.
00:17:49
Speaker
And thankfully, having a few people in my life that have also nurtured that within me, you know, there's there was a science teacher at school, who he was a he was a cover teacher, temporary teacher. And and I remember in the 80s, he used to wear these these amazing, brightly colored jumpers with these huge sort of bat wings. And I would get frightened every time he used a Bunsen burner, because I just thought that that sleeve is gonna go is gonna go up in flames.
00:18:19
Speaker
But he was amazing because I could go up to him after class and I could say, Mr. Stott, why is it that when I look at the night sky, the stars in the corner of my eye are brighter than the ones that I'm looking directly at? And he'd say, right, okay, let's sit down. Let's talk about this. And we could explore things together.
00:18:37
Speaker
that was that was amazing. And my mum too, I mean, she loves to learn, she's like me, you know, she will read and she will research and, and, and create presentations for her U3A and write articles, because she just loves to research. And, and that definitely is something that I've inherited.
00:18:58
Speaker
So this sense of curiosity, this needing to find out, this being excited about life and about the universe and about what's in it and how things work.
00:19:08
Speaker
I think is the main thing that makes me who I am, which basically is like a kid in a candy store, like pretty much all the time. I'm kind of like, oh, I need to find out everything. I'm the person when I'm sitting around with my friends and they ask a question. I'm the one who gets my phone out and Googles it because I want to find out the answer.
00:19:30
Speaker
Um, I'm a bit of a Jonah from superstore. I don't know if you know that character, but it's like, I have to, you know, I have to find out. No, I really, I really, I really connect with, with what you're saying there. And I think, um, you know, the, the curiosity, it's good to connect with you around that curiosity because.
00:19:53
Speaker
I think questions prompt that. Just with what I'm trying with the show is the questions prompt that openness, the curiousness. Why? Because we can't answer a question or know what a thing is doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try. In my opinion, we're going to fall short a lot of times or have some misconceptions.
00:20:13
Speaker
I think for you or I, the process of getting there is definitely worth wherever we end up. Obviously, this shows a lot of the theoretical big questions, but I don't want to get too far away asking you
Discoveries and Ocean Wonder
00:20:30
Speaker
what's the what's a couple of the coolest things you've ever found in the ocean like animals are like species like what what like tell us like a couple like cool things that you discovered you're like I did nothing that this thing could exist okay so I have
00:20:48
Speaker
I've lived back by the ocean probably for about a year so it's only been about a year of immersion in marine life but on the very big we had a deceased sperm whale
00:21:04
Speaker
wash up on my local beach, which was incredible, emotional. That was an emotional experience. I wasn't sad because, you know, nature is nature and things happen. But yet to kind of be able to go to this whale and to be able to place my hands on its skin, a sperm whale, you know, this thing lives in the deep
00:21:34
Speaker
and to be able to touch it and look in its eye and to be able to stroke its fluke. And oh my God, I just, as soon as I found out about it, it was like already dark. So me and the family were running down the beach for about 20 minutes, you know, with our torches, trying to get there before the tide came in again, just to see this. And oh, it was amazing. So that was incredible. But obviously I knew sperm whales existed, but I never thought that I would ever
00:22:01
Speaker
get to see one let alone touch one and then other things that I've been I've been learning about uh just oh it's been such an education this last year um brittle stars are are incredibly delicate and beautiful um and tiny little things they're in the same family as as um as sea stars and and they're just so exquisite um nudibranchs
00:22:28
Speaker
I mean, sea slugs, these sea slugs, they're mollusks, they're related to snails and slugs. And they are so beautiful. I mean, the Pacific Northwest, where you are, there are some
00:22:40
Speaker
beautiful nudibranchs. I follow a few people who live in the same area as you can and the things they find are absolutely stunning. And then down to things like barnacles. Barnacles, they're a bit boring. There's this barnacle that I'd known about but I hadn't seen until just a few days ago that looks like a tiny rose. It's this most beautiful delicate thing.
00:23:10
Speaker
And you look at it, but you'd only see it if you kind of got down on your knees and put your microvision on. My microvision is taking my glasses off because I've really, really got bad eyesight. I used to see microvision, microvision technology. Exactly, exactly. And to look at that, it's absolutely incredible. And what I love is that I see
00:23:36
Speaker
families down at the rock pools, which is great. You know, I love the fact that they're interacting with nature. But very often, I think people will only see the things they're expecting to see. So they'll see some crabs, they'll see some some seaweed, they they might see periwinkles, but they can't help but see periwinkles because they are.
00:23:55
Speaker
But yet, if you just take your time and you look really closely, you can come across the most amazing things. And I think that's really an important thing to get across when you go out to somewhere like a rock pool. Don't just glance over, take your time.
00:24:13
Speaker
look closely because you'll find sponges and sea squirts and starfish and eggs and worms and all of these things that you wouldn't necessarily think were there. Yeah and thank you for saying that.
Drive and Impact of Marine Life
00:24:32
Speaker
On my most recent episode, I had Zoe Presley, and she talked about the intention with nature of forest bathing and the practice of being present around your surroundings and taking in what's there into you. And I think there's a pretty profound point in what you said about
00:24:53
Speaker
stopping in allowing other things to appear in front of you because you're right. I mean, I know I'll even do it. You know, I'll definitely see, Oh, I crab. There's certain things are going to fit into your fixed vision of what you expect. And I think part of what you're talking about is the openness towards the unexpected and to actually see those other things. Um, you know, our, you know, our eyes aren't documenting cameras, catching everything there, you know, they're,
00:25:22
Speaker
They're far more complicated than that, so I just love that. I love that suggestion. Elizabeth, a question I ask most of my guests is, do you ever think about why it is you create? Yeah. These days, I think
00:25:44
Speaker
I create because I can't hold what's inside. I can't hold it in. I mean, I've tried kind of coming off social media. I say social media like I'm some kind of guru. I'm literally like on Instagram. That's it.
00:26:01
Speaker
I've tried coming off Instagram and not posting anything and it just kills me. I'm so excited about life and what's around us that I just have to share it. I think I will explode if I didn't share it, if I didn't shout from the rooftops about how awesome stuff is.
00:26:28
Speaker
So I think it's a bit of a release for me. But also I think it's a kind of without sounding to up myself, which us British, of course, are not supposed to do. I think that my enthusiasm and my excitability is a bit of a gift, you know, it's something that I can share.
00:26:49
Speaker
with people and it's infectious. And when I receive messages from people who say, I love your posts, I look forward to them, you've taught me something new, this is really amazing. It just makes me feel so good that I've passed on some of this excitement for life and specifically for the marine world.
00:27:12
Speaker
I don't create for the praise. I think that would be a foolhardy thing to do. I probably did in my younger years, actually, is create for praise. But now it just spills out of me, you know, just the excitement and doing that through photography and through visual
00:27:36
Speaker
visual work, bringing together the years of as a photographer and as an artist and this fascination with the marine life and bringing those two elements together. I think I've just found the perfect fit for myself in my life right now. And I feel very, very privileged and very lucky to be able to have got to that point to go through the things that I've been through to get to that point.
00:28:02
Speaker
Yeah, and I really appreciate your comments and your sharing of the gift, honestly, because it's a struggle probably for, you know, each human, but for each human who kind of just trying to figure out what do you share with others, right? Like, what do you what do you show and how you show it?
00:28:20
Speaker
But I believe it can create those connections that are important, not only to you as the artist, but for me, some guy up in the Pacific Northwest who sees these images and say, oh my goodness, look at this, right? And by seeing that, you have to see it in order for you to do something different than you were doing. So I think it's always worth making the mistake on showing towards that side rather than not, because there's just options there.
00:28:50
Speaker
The big question, why is there something rather than nothing? Is there actually nothing? No, yeah. I mean, even nothing is something, I think. Even nothingness. There is something in the nothingness. That's really confusing. It makes sense in my head. I think there is something because by random chance,
00:29:18
Speaker
Us humans exist and we are the universe made conscious. We are part of the universe. The universe isn't something else. We are part of it. And we have these amazing brains that allow us to observe and to interpret and to explore. And the fact that we can say that there is something, that these brains exist that enable us to say there is something.
00:29:45
Speaker
is why there is something. If humans didn't exist, would there still be something? I don't know, that's kind of a philosophical question. Is there only something because we can call it something? Yeah, yeah.
00:30:02
Speaker
I think I'm properly stymied at this point. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. I loved your answer. I want you to share with the listeners how to come in contact with you, what you share, the oceans, the photography. Tell the listeners where they need to look.
00:30:28
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, come find me on Instagram. I'm at Elizabeth Besten, B-E-S-T-O-N, that's all one word, Elizabeth Besten. And I share about the intertidal marine life of the North Norfolk coast. So Norfolk is in East Anglia in the UK. And we are part of the North Sea.
00:30:48
Speaker
And I visit this rock pool in North Norfolk. It's actually the only rock pools in Norfolk because it's quite, I don't want to say barren because obviously there is a lot of life. We have this amazing chalk reef off the North Norfolk coast, which is full of life. But I share about my life here on the North Norfolk coast.
00:31:13
Speaker
mainly about the marine animals and the marine algae that I find. And also my microscopy, so the things that I see under the microscope, which are absolutely fascinating and so exciting. So please come and join me and get excited about marine life.
00:31:34
Speaker
Yeah. And thank you for sharing that. I know if listeners are interested, they'll find a lot. Just beautiful things you might not have known to be there before. I wanted to thank you, Elizabeth, for helping me have, for meeting you and really encountering your amazing work.
00:31:55
Speaker
Also for me to be able to connect with the oceans themselves, which are extremely important to me. And I actually, you know, probably know what this means. The ocean's about an hour west of me that when I need to flee to the ocean and get what I need there, because it's a magnificent world.
00:32:17
Speaker
that I was shown appreciation for as a little kid, and that excitement like yours never wanes. So I wanted to thank you for sharing in that with me. It's such that the ocean is such a special place. It makes my head feel right.
00:32:35
Speaker
Because I want to acknowledge that I am I feel very privileged to be able to have access to that Because not everybody does I mean, you know, there'll be people who who never get to to visit the ocean And I wish that wasn't so because it is such a place where It right-sizes me, you know, I can look out on the ocean and I can see how Small I am and that for me it might scare some people but that for me just makes me feel
00:33:06
Speaker
Really great. I love feeling small and insignificant. It's an awesome feeling. Well, and on that, you know, there's so much to talk to about this. And I don't know if I can anoint you as our oceans correspondent, but if I can, I will. And I know there's a whole bunch
00:33:29
Speaker
you know I'd like to talk to you about you know some more but so hope to chat again in the future but for now thank you Elizabeth Best and Elizabeth it's thank you for sharing with us and spending the time on the podcast. Thank you so much for asking me Ken it's been absolutely delightful. I really appreciate you inviting me.
00:33:59
Speaker
This is something rather than nothing.