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 →
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 →
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 →
After settling on creating “Mapping Manhattan”, this week I finally got a chance to go out and buy some supplies, including a canvas and beads. I painted the canvas with black paint (though it ended up looking a bit like wood in the photo) to create the background that is typical for fluorescence microscopy images.... Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
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 →
Last year, I wrote about my negative view of a large percentage of abstract art (with some exceptions). My view of SciArt has always been that true scientific images/concepts should be accurately depicted (with some room for slight embellishment). While many people show the true natural beauty of scientific images, I also see a lot... Continue Reading →
I have always been a sucker for fancy and intricate scientific devices. I don't want to say instruments, because that would imply electronic equipment. Although even there, if it has to do with imaging cells, I'm in! But I am referring more to items that you can actually touch and interact with, especially on a... Continue Reading →
A while back I wrote about using art to fight disorder-associated stigma. As a preface to this post, I will quote a short passage and you can find the whole post here. A couple of years ago, I attended a large meeting, where people working in the biomedical community were presented with a new potential... Continue Reading →
SciArt that’ll make you feel Smart 