Close your eyes and imagine you’re a wealthy collector who’s just entered a gallery in an art museum. On the wall facing you there are two gigantic canvases, each more than 10 feet tall. Both paintings depict a harbor at sunset. From across the room, they look identical: the same ships, the same reflections on... Continue Reading →
Attracting more people to find treatments for devastating diseases
If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I used to work as a neuroscientist at a neurology-focused biotech company. Coming from an insulated environment of academic research, it was a truly eye-opening experience for me on many levels. While academic biomedical research is often driven by natural curiosity about... Continue Reading →
An embarrassing story of how it took me 20 years to interpret an abstract sculpture
The myth behind the sculpture When I was applying to colleges, I went on a campus tour at Columbia University. Columbia campus is gorgeous and I was drinking it all in. When we approached Columbia Law School, the tour guide drew our attention to the odd sculpture in front of it. We stood there for... Continue Reading →
How important is artist’s purity of technique?
Several weeks ago, my husband and I got a rare opportunity to spend the whole day together - just the two of us. With full time jobs (despite COVID-19) and the "second shift" of raising two kids, it really feels like a luxury. Ever since we met in graduate school 15 years ago, we have... Continue Reading →
Why is art so rewarding to the brain?
Several years ago, I received a comment on my website stating that: Work and chores get done, because the world needs them to be done. #Art gets done because there is an internal need for it to happen.Tweet I grew up doing a lot of arts and crafts, which did not necessarily stem from the... Continue Reading →
“Sanguine Expectations” in the time of COVID-19
The Corona Virus pandemic has upended our lives. We were already facing global climate change and increases in the number of nuclear weapons. Now this virus, and others that may follow. Most of us who are fortunate enough to be artists don’t usually need to confront such realities. We survived 9/11 and Sandy. We have... Continue Reading →
Stages of grief in times of COVID-19
When somebody mentions the "stages of grief", what comes to mind? Is it necessarily death or the loss of a loved one? Is it necessarily tied to losing a person (or perhaps pet), or can it be applicable to inanimate things as well? For example, could it be related to a certain stage in your... Continue Reading →
How can art help us deal with stress, get through COVID-19 and come out on the other side?
The Corona Virus pandemic has upended our lives. We were already facing global climate change and increases in the number of nuclear weapons. Now this virus, and others that may follow. Most of us who are fortunate enough to be artists don’t usually need to confront such realities. We survived 9/11 and Sandy. We have... Continue Reading →
What inspires my art
It may come off as an unexpected way of starting an artist blog post, but truth be told, art mostly helps me stay sane as a mother. This is one of the many reasons I brought it back into my life after letting it fall by the wayside for more than a decade. It helps... Continue Reading →
Using SciArt to battle stress and find hope
This blog post was originally published on Lifeology on 5/10/20. Art has at least seven different functions, according to Alain de Botton and John Armstrong’s “Art as Therapy”: 1) Remembering, 2) Hope, 3) Sorrow, 4) Rebalancing, 5) Self-Understanding, 6) Growth, and 7) Appreciation. Art helps us to remember the past, hope for something better and process our feelings. Last year, before hearing about... Continue Reading →