Gateway Exhibition Illustrates Diversity and Beauty of Native California Plants

The statewide traveling exhibition Seeds: Nature’s Artful Engineering explores the diversity, beauty, and critical importance of native California plants and their seeds through a series of vivid photographs by Butte County’s own John Whittlesey. The exhibition is open and runs through December 21 at the Gateway Science Museum.

Whittlesey, a plantsman and naturalist, has compiled over 25 images that vividly portray the intriguing seed structures and dispersal mechanisms of native plants as they enter the final stage of their evolutionary biology: ensuring the survival of plant life. The exhibition aims to increase awareness and appreciation of seeds and their valuable role in California’s ecological systems. Seeds: Nature’s Artful Engineering is curated by Whittlesey and Jennifer Jewell, the creator, producer, and host of local favorite, NSPR’s Cultivating Place.

Jewell will speak at Gateway on October 16 from 5:30–6:30 p.m. about her latest book What We Sow: The Personal, Ecological, and Cultural Significance of Seeds. She will explore the philosophy of cultivating place, based on the belief that gardens/gardeners are powerful agents and spaces for potentially positive change in our world that can help address challenges as wide-ranging as climate change, habitat loss, cultural polarization, and individual and communal health and being. Jewell expands on this, unpacking the power of gardens and gardeners through a lens of seeds and the general state of seeds in our gardened lives: how they grow, where they grow, who grows them, who sells and/or controls them, and their care up and down the seed sheds of our world. Tickets are $5 at the door. The event is free for Chico State and Butte College students.

“We are honored to be both the first and last venue to host this beautiful exhibition,” said Laura Lampe, museum and garden curator. The exhibit made its debut at Gateway in 2015 and has since toured a dozen venues around California. “Since then, our native plants garden has grown to include more than 200 species, including 10 that are featured in the exhibit photos. Visitors can enjoy both the art and real life of these incredible plants.”

About Gateway Science Museum

Gateway Science Museum hosts engaging hands-on traveling exhibitions, features programming about our region, and offers STEM education to people of all ages. With exhibit galleries, a hands-on Discovery Room, and the Gateway Gardens, we provide a quality science education for everyone. With three seasons of temporary exhibits each year, the museum is renewed often, welcoming repeat visitors back again and again. The museum is open Thursdays through Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Visit www.csuchico.edu/gateway for more information.