Artist - Lynn Rathbun

Work Available at Amphora
Paintings

Artist Statement
I am originally from Washington, D.C., but spent a good part of my youth in Lebanon and Europe (Italy, Switzerland, and England). My first jobs were at various government agencies, and later at Harvard University in the Department of Architecture. After a while, I realized I was deeply interested in biology and became a biological technician at the New England Primate Center, testing vision in monkeys. Later, at the National Zoo, I studied the behavior of a rare Brazilian marmoset and the feeding habits of Panamanian sloths. Both jobs were challenging and exciting.

While at the zoo, I was asked to illustrate scientific papers, and became more interested in art. I felt very comfortable around the scientists, and loved creating illustrations for their publications, as well as doing research myself. The zoo is also where I met my husband, Galen, who was doing post-doctoral studies on elephant-shrews or sengis, an unusual little African mammal that few people knew about at the time.

Galen and I married, and then moved to Gainesville, Florida, where he headed the Manatee Research Project for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and I lived my dream of having a farm, but also worked at the Florida State Museum as a bio-tech and a scientific illustrator. Eventually Galen and I moved to the Central Coast, where we've lived for 30 years.

I feel very fortunate to have been able to work in science and art, and to have experienced adventures in exotic places that were just as good as any of those I read about as a child.