Long before she started interning with the Western Flyer Foundation Education Program, Monica Loncola was fascinated by the biodiversity of the natural world. As a child, Monica spent summers collecting shells, bones, and other natural artifacts at the ocean’s edge, a passion she carried into her formal study of art in the Graduate School of Science Illustration at CSU Monterey Bay. She’s been delighted to share her love for the ocean and marine science with students on board a vessel so intimately connected to John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts—and we’ve been delighted to have her!
Monica’s art is informed by a fascination with how nature survives cycles of life and death in harmony, destruction and interdependence. “Whenever I look into a microscope,” she writes, “I see the potential for a detailed illustration and an abstract painting simultaneously,” and believes that science illustration offers the perfect marriage between those disparate artistic disciplines, with a tension that allows her to bring the viewer knowledge of the world around us. Just as the Western Flyer Foundation blends marine science and the humanities in all its programs, Monica combines science and art to educate and convey how life forms, sustains, and decays in keeping with our planet’s profound balance.
Thank you for your work and inspiration, Monica!
To learn more about Monica’s work, check out her website, www.monicaloncola.com, and follow her on Instagram @MonicaLoncola
