A Natural Curiosity

Lansing Shepard is a writer who specializes in conservation, environmental policy, and natural history. He is coauthor of This Perennial Land: Third Crops, Blue Earth, and the Road to a Restorative Agriculture and author of the Northern Plains volume of The Smithsonian Guides to Natural America series. He has written for the Bell Museum’s IMPRINT publication, contributed to exhibition scripts, and coauthored the television documentary Minnesota: A History of the Land. Don Luce is Bell Museum Curator of Exhibits. For more than forty years he has curated most of the museum’s temporary exhibitions, including Exploring Evolution, The Lion’s Mane, Wildlife Art in America, and Audubon and the Art of Birds. He initiated the Bell’s traveling exhibitions program, developed and expanded its natural history art collection, and played a key role in the conception and design of the new museum’s permanent exhibit gallery, Minnesota Journeys. Barbara Coffin has promoted the conservation and understanding of Minnesota’s natural world throughout her career. She is the former head of media productions and adult programs at the Bell Museum and played an important role in the design of the new museum’s exhibit galleries. She is executive producer of the Emmy Award–winning television documentary Minnesota: A History of the Land and coeditor of Minnesota’s Endangered Flora and Fauna (Minnesota, 1988). Gwen Schagrin has worked in exhibits research, design, and production at the Bell Museum since 1992, contributing to the museum’s Wildlife Art in America publication and the preservation and management of its wildlife art collection. She served as special exhibitions assistant curator for Audubon and the Art of Birds and was a coauthor of its exhibition guidebook.