How Art History and the Moon, In This Moment, Intersect

In the early 2000s, I attended a lecture by Robert Sobieszek, the Director of Photography at LACMA, about the “Ansel Adams at 100" exhibit he curated. I remember he said that adding “-scape” to a word—like landscape or moonscape—is a human invention. It stuck with me.

A mountain range isn’t a landscape until we frame it as one. The “-scape” signals more than just what’s there; it marks how we choose to see it. We’re not just observing—we’re interpreting, shaping, and naming what we see. That small suffix reminds me how much of the world becomes visible only when we decide to see it a certain way. Framing each moment sets up our mindset, our vision, and our actions.

Moonscape, near midnight, Humboldt County, Nevada | backcountry camping | 2025

When the Road Starts Crawling

Photo of my field notebook in the left corner; right corner faded with a ray of orange sunlight against navy pants. Exploring remote Nevada. 2025

Mormon cricket migration…umm...

Mormon Crickets in Motion

Driving across northeastern Nevada, we crested a rise and slowed. The pavement was peppered with a reddish something. Was it leaf litter or cinder scattered across the road? Some of the reddish-withering bodies moved, while others did not. Thousands of Mormon crickets swarmed across the asphalt like some post-apocalyptic trail crew for about 100 miles.

So, what causes this biblical-style migration?

Turns out, it’s not just wanderlust. It’s hunger and fear.

The Science Behind the Swarm

Mormon crickets (Anabrus simplex) are actually flightless katydids, native to the western United States. Every few years, their populations boom, and they start moving in bands that stretch for miles and can travel up to two kilometers a day.

Here’s the weird kicker: they’re cannibals. If a cricket slows down, the one behind might bite its abdomen or legs for a protein-rich snack. This constant threat of being eaten keeps them moving forward in a tight formation. One study described it as a forced march driven by protein and salt deficiency, with cannibalism as both carrot and stick.

If the landscape is drying out and protein is scarce, they march. If another cricket’s back looks juicier than the cheatgrass around them, they bite.

Two open-access studies to explore:

  • Bazazi S, Ioannou CC, Simpson SJ, Sword GA, Torney CJ, Lorch PD, Couzin ID. The social context of cannibalism in migratory bands of the Mormon cricket. PLoS One. 2010 Dec 14;5(12):e15118. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0015118. PMID: 21179402; PMCID: PMC3001859.

  • Simpson, et al. Cannibal crickets on a forced march for protein and salt, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.103 (11) 4152-4156, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0508915103 (2006).

Why the Road?

The answer’s not mystical: blacktop gets warm, holds heat, and stretches uninterrupted across the barren landscape. They follow the cricket ahead of them. The result is a pulsing movement that blankets (in depth!) along the highway for miles.

When vegetation dries out and predators are scarce (following wildfire, drought, or overgrazing), these migrations become even more intense. It’s ecological choreography, tuned to drought cycles, heat, and opportunity.

Why It Matters

Mormon crickets might seem like a curiosity, but they impact everything from rangeland health to road safety. Ranchers watch them strip fields bare. Highway crews struggle to keep roads passable. Hikers (and explorers), like me, watch—horrified and fascinated.

In a world obsessed and glued to scrolling social media, this living river of insects is a reminder that nature still moves on its own terms.

the fire deep within

The “tropical habitat” deep in my brain is to run far (in the forest and mountain trails, preferably). Humans are made to run. Scientists call it the “endurance pursuit (EP) hypothesis”. (See the Eugene Morin (anthropologist) and Bruce Winterhalder (anthropologist and ecologist) Nature Human Behavior article from May 2024.)

For the past decade, when given time away from work, I have consistently opted for outdoor activities (i.e., running, hiking, camping, backpacking, skiing, dog walking, roaming, etc.), regardless of the weather. (Essentially, REI loves me.) Such time well spent has also diminished my output for all things creative, original, and publishable. So, I’ve made a pact with myself to start a Creative Energy Map that summarizes and categorizes all of my starts, stops, and pivots from the last decade or so of content stored in my journals, field notebooks, and brain.

I consistently encounter the writerly advice: if you know what you’re going to write about, don’t do it; only write about what you don’t know is coming. So, that’s the plan: no plan on knowing what I’m going to write about. This ushers in organic flow and hot impulses to follow.

Let’s see where all of my sporadic randomness goes into a larger work. And as humans, we also look for patterns. So, here’s to pattern-looking, then, the OG AI - the human brain.

Photo from me while in backcountry Idaho near the Snake River. 2025

When Sunday Is Enough

A winter road in the PNW.

I run, no matter the weather. Snow crunches beneath me, and my breath rises in steady clouds that hover in my face. The cold doesn’t deter me; it sharpens. Each mile carves space in my mind, like footprints marking the path forward.

The afternoon arrives slowly, settling like snowfall or deep rain. A hot cup of tea in hand, I watch the world outside shift from day to dusk. Sunday, in all its simple rituals, feels like enough.

All copyright Tricia Louvar. No reproduction of contents without written consent from Tricia Louvar.