Caryn Babaian: Leonardo and I

- When I was like a teenager, I had heard of Leonardo DaVinci and I knew of his name, but, you know it was sort of old, you know, I wasn't into it.

And then I got a hold of the book and I looked at it.

There was all this great stuff in this notebook about plants and animals and horses and optics and lenses and people and body parts.

I read through his biography and that kind of just like made me fall in love with him.

What a unbelievable human being that would be so involved with their planet and be so passionate about wanting to show that art was part of learning science, part of learning about nature.

It was a validation of what I did.

Well, I kind of wanted to just kind of get a little more feel for DaVinci.

I wanted to go to Florence and I wanted to see what he saw.

When I was in Florence I took a drawing class.

I thought, well what I'll do is, I'll make kind of a tribute to him.

I'll copy a couple of his drawings.

I made a big horse poster of all, 'cause he loved horses, so I did all their anatomy, just like he did.

I really felt like, wow, I know him now, that I not just went there, but I drew his stuff.

You know, a lot of people say like, oh you can think like Leonardo.

No you can't.

He comes from another period in time.

What you can do, is you can look at the way he approached his relationships with the planet.

And if you get really close to subjects and you study animals and plants, they become your teachers.

So that's the lesson I took from him.

You know, my best teachers were snails and slugs and ants and snapping turtles and robins and dirt and water.

And they all have something to teach you.