After finishing the SciArt Center residency with Darcy Johnson, I eagerly returned to this project. It is based on a pretty well known sciart image of a mouse retina, which is much more complex than those on which I've based most of my previous work. I knew that this project would take a very long time to... Continue Reading →
Evolution of ideas
The original idea for my current project was inspired by a specific series of events in my life last year. To me, using the layers of neurons in this work represents certain layers of my knowledge, interests and passions, which have been temporarily covered up and moved to the back burner. Looking through my... Continue Reading →
Propping up the cells
I am falling a little behind on posting these here, so I will put this blog post from the SciArt Residency program in quotes. Last week, Darcy, Kate and I had a very productive Skype call, where I expressed my concern about the technical challenges of attaching the beaded cells to the canvas in a... Continue Reading →
Creating art using the STEAM method
Last weekend, I mostly finished sewing the first layer of yellow rondelle beads. In the original microscopy image, the cell nuclei were colored bright blue, due to being labeled with Hoechst stain, which labels DNA. In Darcy’s version of the image, she switched this color to pale yellow, which makes them look more delicate and... Continue Reading →
Mapping Manhattan
Darcy and I have decided to move forward with the image she called “Mapping Manhattan”. From the beginning of our collaboration, I told Darcy that I would like to create something that would represent the synthesis of the field of neuroscience and the context of New York. Initially, I sent her a sketch that I... Continue Reading →
Is art creation logical or intuitive?
Several years ago, as I was working on developing my scientific career, I was presented with the Myers-Briggs test. Myers-Briggs test is a widely accepted assessment of one’s own personality. It is meant to provide information to begin understanding your own qualities. This includes identifying your strengths and weaknesses and finding ways to take the... Continue Reading →
Why I am interested in cross-disciplinary collaboration
Now that I have joined the SciArt Center Bridge Residency program, I will be writing weekly blog posts about my progress in collaborating with Darcy Johnson. The posts will be published on the program website and I will be re-posting them here to continue using my blog for tracing the development of my art over... Continue Reading →
Learning some new beading techniques
While in between projects, I decided to learn some new beading techniques. I recently came across some amazing beadwork on Instagram by Julie Mars (@jamfinearts) and got inspired. I have a ton of multicolored beads that I don’t use for my main projects, so I decided to use them for learning how to bead around a... Continue Reading →
“The Mind” – an artistic experiment – Part II
This work and its counterpart started out as a little sketch in my bullet journal. I had the idea of creating two "identical" pictures. One showing empty space in the shape of a neuron and the other being its mirror image that is filled with an actual cell. Here's the birth certificate of this idea.... Continue Reading →
“The Void” – an artistic experiment – Part I
Following my "Stages of Grief" series, I have set out to create a piece to represent the very first stage - DENIAL. While in my earlier pieces I did my best to stay true to scientific form, here I have come to border abstraction. This piece turns the biology on its head, showing the outline of a... Continue Reading →
