When Dr. Wesley Memeger Jr. started at DuPont in 1964, he was only the fourth African American with a doctorate in chemistry to join the company.
Over the course of a thirty-two-year career, Memeger amassed fourteen patents and left his mark on some of DuPont’s most famous products, like Kevlar, the synthetic fiber found in bulletproof vests. His passion for chemistry has also influenced his career as an artist; Memeger’s pieces often explore geometrical themes reminiscent of molecular models.
On February 24, Hagley Library, in partnership with Clark Atlanta University and Bloomfield College, premiered Dr. Wesley Memeger, Jr., Science Into Art, a special documentary chronicling the life of Dr. Wesley Memeger, Jr. Now, we’re please to announce the debut of a digital exhibit to accompany that work.
The exhibit, Dr. Wesley Memeger Jr.: Scientist, Artist, Activist, covers key points of Memeger’s life story and makes use of archival photographs as well as clips from an oral history of Dr. Memeger conducted by Dr. Jeanne Nutter in 2020, which also served as the primary source for the documentary. Visitors to the exhibit can listen as Memeger recounts his journey, beginning as the son and grandson of farmers in St. Augustine, Florida during the era of Jim Crow laws, following his interest in science to Clark College, a historically Black university in Atlanta, at the height of the movement for Black civil rights, to his career at DuPont and his intriguing transition from scientist to artist.
It’s #womensday so let’s talk about Concetta Castilletti e Francesca Colavita - the two Italian scientists weren’t even employed when they first isolated COVID-19. What about the 70% women (out of the 444k people) who’ve lost their job during 2020 in Italy? Well done, keep fairing women, and among them who can give us hope, like Concetta and Francesca.
9000 year old Neolithic Spirit Masks, the World’s Oldest Masks.
These masks were unearthed in the Judean desert around Jerusalem and were sculpted by some of our earliest ancestors who decided to give up the hunter gatherer lifestyle to instead settle in the Judean hills, beginning a farming lifestyle.
It is thought that this change in existence sparked more organised religious beliefs and a worship of ancestors, prompting a necessity for artifacts such as these.
Numerous masks like these have been found in the region. Sometimes, they are found as a result of an archaeological excavation in areas with thousands of other objects. Things such as rope baskets, beads, shells, flint knives, bone figurines and decorated human skulls. Some of these stone masks even had hair attached as beards and moustaches.
In other cases though, these masks have been found by accident. One such case was an accidental discovery by a farmer who was tilling a field in the early 1970s. From there, they fell into the hands of an antique dealer. Sadly, after changing possession numerous times, the precise location of where the masks were found is unknown.
