For the past few weeks I have been really slacking off on the art side. I have been keeping up with posting on social media and my blog, but in reality I have not been doing as much beadwork as I should be. I finally forced myself to finish the 3rd brain slice and... Continue Reading →
While it can often take me quite a bit of time to come up with a new idea for my next big project, I cannot sit still in the meantime. My hands have to keep creating something. Otherwise, I get restless. Here is one of my "interim" projects that I created while getting ready to... Continue Reading →
The stem cell revolution When I was in graduate school, I had to perform weekly dissections of neonatal rat brains to isolate primary neurons for my experiments. It was not a particularly enjoyable process and an ungrateful one too. After spending 2 – 3 hours meticulously dissecting a dozen brains under a microscope, I would... Continue Reading →
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 →
The secret is finally out! I am so excited to share that one of my favorite works "Fragile Memory", that is based on a microscopy image of the hippocampus of a Brainbow mouse, is featured on the cover of Biological Psychiatry journal! I just received the journal in the mail last week! For the last... Continue Reading →
My interview with Convergence Initiative
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 →
It has been some time since I have finished and sent off “The Brain Project” to Toronto. I typically don’t create art under deadlines, but “The Brain Project” had to be completed in under 2 months. Several weeks after shipping out the brain sculpture I created, I found out that thanks to the coronavirus, the... Continue Reading →
I have been trying to think back to the first time I felt prompted to create art. While definitely not proportional to the number of years, my life seems to be split into 2 parts - before and after moving from Russia to the United States. I believe I became more serious about creating art... Continue Reading →
I was recently asked what my first memory of wanting to create art is. Ever since early childhood, I have greatly admired my father for his artistic abilities. My dad is not an artist, but somehow art seeps through everything he does. He is a very aesthetic person. In his twenties, he spent quite a... Continue Reading →
