On Oct. 12, several BYU artists arrived at the BYU Bean Museum to participate in the museum’s “Drawing Dead Things” night.
Warm yellow light cascaded down on the different animal displays and students milled around them to find their next drawing subject.
The "Finding Nemo" theme gently sounded around the halls as the students sketched, setting a calming tone for the night.
Some students sat on the floor, others on benches or chairs they had wheeled around. Some had clipboards and others used sketchbooks. All were bent over their drawings, occasionally glancing up at their subjects.
Ryan Clayton sat in one of the rooms drawing a bird perched near some flowers. He spoke of how different drawing at the Bean Museum is from other places.
“The things you’re sketching have been propped up in a way to be presented as an art piece … This has been purposefully planted as a way to catch beauty,” Clayton said.
Clayton continued to reflect on the specimens, remarking how when things were displayed in such a way they also lose “that sense of true nature.” He continued to sketch the bird on his paper.
In another room, glass cases were filled with different specimens of birds. A few students sat next to each other on the ground, sketching, and Taylor Christensen whispered about her reasons for attending.
“I found out about it from a flyer, and basically we’re just drawing different specimens in the museum after hours,” she said.
For Christensen, it was an opportunity to focus solely on art, a hobby she loves but hasn’t had much time for recently. She spoke of her love of sketching in particular because of how free-flowing it is.
She enjoyed that for the art night, people were coming together with a common interest, but at the same time were able to do it in their own way.
One of the staff members supervising the event and giving art tips was Audrey Gordon. She is one of the student educators at the museum who teaches guests about ecological topics, animals and more.
When asked about the purpose of the event, Gordon said it was "to get people excited about the Bean Museum … during museum hours and after museum hours.”
She also spoke of the effort to get students to be creative, because of how creativity is needed in the scientific world.
“We need to be able to hypothesize and think of different things that we can do to help the environment,” Gordon said.
She mentioned how the overall mission of the Bean Science Museum is stewardship on earth, something that was touched on by student Seth Hoffman.
“I’ve … been reading more about these animals as I’ve drawn them and I’ve gained a little bit more respect for certain animals that I didn’t really know much about,” Hoffman said.
This is reminiscent of the purpose of the museum mentioned by Gordon. But along with this, the Museum hopes people walk away with a few more things.
According to Gordon, his hope from the drawing night was to promote student excitement about being in the museum and encourage future visits.
“It’s fun to connect with students on campus, together in a place that a lot of people don’t actually know about,” Gordon said.
