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So this last week I’ve started working, well more or less studying at an ornithology lab in the University of Minnesota. I’m trying to build up my scientific illustration portfolio and the lab has been more then helpful by allowing me to come in and sketch. Its been absolutely amazing and I feel quite at home among all the books, specimens and intellectuals.
Recently I’ve been sketching hummingbirds and grosbeaks, hopefully I’ll have some time to explore several other species.
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Laura Splan, from the series Doilies, 2004 (source)
“Doilies is a series of computerized machine embroidered doilies. The design of each doily is based on a different viral structure [SARS, HIV, Herpes virus, Influenza virus, and Hepadna/Hepatitis B virus, respectively]. The lace doily has traditionally referenced designs and motifs from nature. Furthermore, these decorative objects would be heirlooms, handed down from one generation to the next. The work explores the “domestication” of microbial and biomedical imagery. Many recent events, epidemics, and commercial products have brought this imagery into our living rooms, kitchens, and bathrooms. Bio-terrorism, SARS, and antibacterial soaps alike have all heightened our awareness of the microbial world. Doilies serve as a metaphor for the way we have adapted our everyday lives to these now everyday concerns. Here domestic artifacts and heirlooms manifest the psychological heredity of our cultural anxieties.”
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Camillo Golgi, Olfactory Bulb, 1875.
“This 1875 drawing of a dog’s olfactory bulb by Camillo Golgi is but one of the many astonishing architectures that were revealed by a staining method that bears his name. Its application to the study of nervous tissue marks the beginning of modern neuroscience.”
— Carl Schoonover, Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st Century
