the elements of a feather

8/12/2019 The Elements of a Feather

1/16

Elements of Me ID.indd 1-2


2/16



3/16



4/16

This is the story of thefragility of the seahorse.The greatest aquariumadventure I ever partook

in, started when I was in highschool. It began when my mombought me a year membershipto the Long Beach Aquariumto feed my love of fishes andI saw a seahorse for the first

time. I immediately went homeand learned all about seahorses.They were fish. They weregraceful. And they resembledhorses. I was mesmerized.

Keeping domestic seahorsesin home aquariums, let alonelarge, public aquariums, is verynew. Seahorses in the wildwere becoming dangerouslyover-poached in the last 50years and were on the verge ofbecoming an extinct species. Itwasnt until the mid 90s thatit was a big enough problemthat people tried restoring theirnumbers. Seahorse trade (liveinstead of jewelry finally) hadbecome popular especially inthe US and with my previoussaltwater experiences, I gladlyaccepted the challenge.

However, the average survivalrate of a seahorse in an at homeaquarium was 2-3 months. Butthere were others out there who

had tremendous sucand had their seahorsfor almost 8 years anwere even reproduciseveral times a year. SI did months of researand custom built thown tank perfectly for seahorse life. I eplanted and grew Cau

prolifera; the seanative seaweed thefor food and protsoon found a seahorin Montana who shibeautiful seahorse spmail a few months latyear of preparing, the

They were both a gorgyellow color and Ifor them by logginday, hatching live sfood, and cleaning thwent on for approximalready amazing amopractically a hero onuntil I made a great ma new, custom stand had a compartment dto hold a second tanmostly but it also promRegardless of what was for, the stress froworried them so mucIn the end, after all tpreparing, hours ohundreds if not th

Fisharefriends,notfood!

-FindingNemo,2003



5/16

dollars spent, I learned that it is justas rewarding to view seahorsesin a public aquarium. And thatis how I learned how fragile theseahorse really is.

One does not create a simpleaquatic ecosystem when youare building an aquarium, youare trying to get a fish to live in

a box. Fishes may make greatat home pets to enjoy, but thisis the story of why I learned notto have favorite fishes in myaquarium. At the beginning of the2013 school year, I had a beautiful10 gallon freshwater aquarium in myapartment on campus that I spent a

lot of hard work on. One

day when I came home from class, my roommatetold me shes been hearing a loud noise from my

bedroom that sounded like my fish filter was suckingup air. I went to my bedroom door only to find the carpet

just below soaking wet. I knew what had happened butI couldnt believe it. Aquariums cracking and completelyleaking out only happened in cartoons right? Nope.Apparently, random aquarium-cracking is a serious issueand is a threat to indoor fishes everywhere. It had beenseveral hours since the glass mysteriously cracked (on its

own during the day) and leaked 10 gallons of water allover my bookshelf ruining my books, movies, makeup,my laptop, and not to mention ruining the carpet thatwasnt mine. I immediately got a cup of water and

tried picking up my fish from the dry sand to revivethem. Amazingly, all of my favorite fishes that I

liked most had dried out. My favorite and onlymy favorites! The ones that were just part

of the ecosystem or not really that prettywere still flopping around gasping for air.

Perhaps natural selection was at work,but I saved those and threw them

in water and rebuilt the sameaquarium and didnt buy

any new favoritef i s h e s

I might like. I learned to never again choosefavorites among my fishes because they might dieby a random, terrible aquarium cracking incident.

My last story is actually has a more cheerfulending. A few years ago I went to this eventcalled Reefapalooza which was held locallyhere in Southern California and I went with oneof my best friends, Wendy, and my mom, as wewere all into keeping fishes. This specific event was

mostly held for the hobby of reef keeping or saltwaterlife and although I no longer was into that anymore, Iloved going anyways. My friend and I got lots of freebiesfrom vendors as we walked down aisles and aisles of fishcompany representatives, demonstrations, sales tents, anmerchandise lining the walls of a very large warehouThere was one special vendor I was extra excited for; the cfrom Animal Planets tv show Tanked made an appearanand were hosting raffles. They were from a tv show that wabout building and setting up crazy, unusual fishtanks foboth personal and commercial use like in restuarantsor stores. So they were giving out big raffles andsigned merchandise too. We both gotautographed tshirts from thehosts of the show thatI watch frequently.Long storyshort,

lasom

pictsignher As

het



6/16Elements of Me ID.indd 11-12


7/16


8/16



9/16

Both traditional and digital llustrationhave always been a natural way toexpress myself. This aspect of my lifeactually stems from my passion for

horses. As silly as it sounds, when I couldnt

be with horses in person, I was indoorsdrawing them on paper. Ive spent most of mylife studying equine anatomy and practicingthe art of illustrating the living horse. Fromthere, I noticed I developed a keen eye, beinga strong visual learner helped, for drawingfrom life so I quickly branched out to animals,humans, buildings, nature, and everythingin between. I think art owes me my juniorhigh school GPA back. I spent all of my timein my regular classes drawing on anythingmy teachers gave me. Handouts, worksheets,

fl

Art is the most intensemode of individualism thatthe world has known.-Oscar Wilde



10/16



11/16



12/16



13/16



14/16

THEEND



15/16

The Elements of a Feather, volume 1, was produced bythe author Ashlynn Feather at California State PolytechnicUniversity in Pomona, California and was printed by theauthor, Ashlynn Feather, in Pomona, California. The coverwas designed by author, Ashlynn Feather, and used a 4color print process on a private inkjet printer. The books30 pages were printed on Epson Presentation PaperMatte in 44lb. weight in Epson CMYK ink.

All body copy was set in Avenir LT Std #65, Medium 10pt.Caption fonts included Futura Condensed Extra Bold20pt & Comic Book Regular 17pt. Headline fonts includedAvenir Black 30pt and RACE1 Brannt NCV Regular 150pt.Book spreads & layouts were sent to the printer in AdobeCS6 InDesign from a MacBook Pro OS X with RetinaDisplay.

The book was assembled at 3400 Poly Vista, Pomona,California in March 2014 and included 1 final copy.



16/16


the elements of a feather

Documents