➤ 一個好奇心驅動的十年旅程
✤ https://parkerhiggins.net/2025/04/10-years-of-pomological-watercolors/
本文回顧了作者 Parker Higgins 十年前發起的倡議,呼籲美國政府公開其收藏的果物水彩畫作。這項名為「果物學水彩畫集」的珍貴收藏包含超過 7000 幅 1880 年至 1940 年間繪製的果物及其他生物標本畫作。作者透過資訊自由法 (FOIA) 申請取得了數位化的圖像,並發現銷售量微薄。因此,他積極推動將這些高解析度圖像上傳至維基共享資源,並創造了相關的社羣媒體機器人,進一步推廣這項收藏。此舉不僅使公眾得以欣賞這些美麗的畫作,更激發了書籍出版、學術研究、明信片製作以及藝術品販售等一系列活動,並受到《紐約時報》等媒體的關注。作者感嘆,追隨好奇心和興趣,最終帶來了意想不到的驚喜和收穫。
+ 真令人驚訝,一件小小的倡議竟然能帶來如此廣泛而深遠的影響!
+ 這篇文章讓我意識到公共領域的重要性,也激勵我更積極地探索和分享自己感興趣的事物。
#藝術 #公共領域 #數位典藏 #個人成長

10 years of pomological watercolors
A decade ago today I published a blog post calling for the US government to release its paintings of fruits. The Pomological Watercolor Collection, as I had recently come to know, is a beautiful and remarkable corpus of over 7,000 pictures of fruits and other biological specimens, made between the 1880s and 1940s. Through a handful of FOIA requests I’d learned that the images had been meticulously digitized and put online for purchase, but that less than 100 pictures had been sold that way — not nearly enough to justify the paywall.