as calm as a fruit stand in new york and maybe as strange

SO in the last three months I got married, moved to New York City, started graduate school, and eaten about three thousand avocados. 

After reading relevant literature all day (which included a PubMed search for "human feces"- I'm studying colitis here) I re-discovered secondary structures like this:

which is a piece of this "tertiary structure":

FOR THE NON-SCIENTISTS:

"primary structure" is the RNA sequence (for example: AAAUUGGGGGCGCAU)

"secondary structure" is the way that the RNA can bind to itself to make the types of complex shapes as seen in the first photograph

"tertiary structure" is the way the ribozyme (RNA with the ability to perform tasks like "helping" other reactions just as enzymes usually do) folds in three dimensional space

in other words, I'm back and making work again.

Strawberries in the Summertime

I went gallery hopping in DUMBO with a friend this weekend. To be honest, I didn't expect much... I thought it would be ultra-hip and less than inspiring... but I found an amazing gallery filled with prints and books! I think in the face of contemporary art making practices that I struggle with, prints, and books are a way for me to keep a foot in the traditional while exploring the contemporary. I got to think here. These are some images of pieces that challenged me or made me think more about my own art practices and themes.

Donna Maria de Creeft

Ellen Weiner- Blue History

Emily Martin- Siftings

Sarah Stengle- Five Fragments from a Forest Sanctuary

You looked like a swimmer

After a few twelve hour work days, this is my first chance to post about my trip to the MoMA and The American Folk Art Museum last Friday. As I meandered about and inundated myself with the act of looking (as opposed to seeing, which we do all the time) I did something out of the ordinary for me and my sketchbook: I wrote about it.

I feel compelled to share it with you, if only out of a desperate desire for more honesty and more transparency between artists about their work and their process and their thoughts and their inspirations. Here are mine:

"I'm not sure if I'm on the right track or if I'm light years behind. As an artist, I must take comfort in the inherent uniqueness of my work being that it comes from ME and I DID IT. The things I like in these great works overlap with things I love in my own. Logically, I know this is normal, and possibly even a good thing. Themes and stories and patterns that occur and reoccur in art and history are great -- standing the test of time indicates that the content deals with questions of humanity-- yet, I find myself wondering how I can compete with the likes of ERNST and JESS and DALI? With the bookmakers, printmakers, and drawing-based artists who have years of experience, time, funding, training, patronage, and practice?

YET I CONTINUE TO MAKE.

I take comfort in the inherent me-ness of my work. I take comfort in the practice itself. and I take comfort in the knowledge that great artists make crap too, sometimes."

Here are some pieces I enjoyed and wanted to share:
Mona Hatoum (medium: paper and hair)

Rivane Neuenschwander- I love this. The colors, the idea, everything.

MAX ERNST and a biology poster. one of my most surprising finds. and strangely encouraging. (as in, if he can take an actual biology poster and dissociate it from its content this much, then I can definitely use organic-inspired elements and not have them just be illustrative)

I would love to hear your thoughts.

(all photos from MoMA's website)

this is it

It's so good to be back in a lab again. The first few weeks in a new lab are always tough but nothing compares to that unbeatable rush of doing something for the first time, for seeing something new: the same feeling I had as a kid when I first pulled a worm out of the ground or when I learned why the sky was blue or the grass was green.

Today I spent far too long doing an extremely simple task: move 5 worms from one plate to another. But as I sat there and chased those guys around the plate with my little apparatus, I had some of time to think about the connections between my art and science. It's a topic I'm afraid of in a lot of ways. It's a topic that makes me question everything that I think about myself as an artist and as a person (what are we if not perception-ists?). There are times I don't know if my science influences my work, runs my work, or is my work. I don't know if I should even try and stop it any more. More importantly, I start questioning why I make and why I don't just observe. But I can't stop. and sometimes that in itself has to be enough. 

Here are some images that bring out this apprehension: they are some of the most beautiful images I've collected and ones that I come back to again and again.

DNA at metaphase (when you can see chromosomes most clearly. it's the way we all pictorially think of chromosomes: as little Xs) without the proteins that hold it together. So, all of those loops are DNA strands. The skeleton is what the DNA usually holds onto to look like an X.

C. elegans

  

cross sections of C. elegans (1mm worms)

we confided in science (we can fight our desires)

these are the current models that we believe cells use to transcribe genes (make the information in DNA into a message where things in the cell can then turn them into proteins, which are just entities in the cell that play a role or have some sort of function like being an informant or stopping another protein from being made) when their control elements (the information that tells the machinery that makes these messages whether or not to copy this particular set of info) are far away.

I think these are beautiful.
 

       

geeky geekery

Alright, so after that last post, I've been completely immersed in science, so here's a lovely list of great things that  somehow combine art and science.

Lately, I've been reading "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" by Richard Feynman (physicist, philosopher, innovator, kindred soul) and everything just looks like physics to me.. So first, this nuke hugger t-shirt is environmentally friendly AND under Obama's plans, the creation of nuclear plants could create a ton of jobs. Physics rules.

Want more physics in your life?: try Boomshine. is a chain reaction game, and the colors are fantastic. It also has eaten up a significant amount of my free time lately, so be cautious..

Physics and art?: this illustration by  electricboogaloo is adorable, and makes the scientist in me smile. Plus... who doesn't love elephants? (and juniper, of course!)

Confession: To save some money this year, I spent countless hours giving my sewing machine some sweet, sweet lovin' and  the three of us (Al Green, the sewing machine, and I) hunkered down for a few days to make some fabulous home-made gifts. Although I didn't make this geeky gift set, I wish I had! It's perfect for any geek-chic nerds in your life.

Last etsy find, I promise!: I've finally allowed myself some time to remember how much I love and missed reading. (in addition to Feynman I'm reading "The Holy Barbarians" - Lawrence Lipton... a book by a Venice beach beatnik about Venice beach beatniks AND whose son is James Lipton. How cool!) This adorable poster by dazeychic says it all! The colors are so pleasing and upbeat... and the solid coloring juxtaposed with the subtle details in the books makes the viewing experience complete.

More books, please!: For Christmas, I received a fabulous find from my beautiful mother. It's called Microcosmos, and is filled with these fantastic SEM images (Scanning Electron Microscope) that creates "3D" images of things. They're then artificially colored, and they're just really exciting. This is the officially the newest, and most beloved, addition to my coffee table. (Sorry coasters!)

Coffee table talk: Ted Talks. Some of the world's best thinkers, speakers, and doers can be found sharing their secrets, and successes, research, and/or general thoughts. Isaac Mizrah, James Watson, Richard Dawkins, and others can be found here. Topics range from optimism to climate change, string theory (physics) to Rick Werren, and from bread to glamour. 

Okay, well that's about as geek-focused as I can be in one sitting.. but I'd love to hear what YOU think! Leave any suggestions you may have of other nerdy things to check out (for all those squares out there).. I know I'd love to read them!   Until next Friday...