under the microscope

I have no idea what these are. They are from a plant but I don't know what kind. I think these are the leftover support structures of poppy seed pods, if anyone knows, please tell me. My wife found several of them mostly intact and they remind me of radiolaria, my own drawings & wax work, and some of Anna Hepler's sculptures.

soap

drift

out for a walk

rare glimpses inside the ACME SPECTACLE FACTORY!!

Microscope Era

Yesterday I was given perhaps my coolest Christmas present ever from my brother in law Rob Sylvain-- a stereo microscope. It is small, lit by LEDs, and is rechargeable and portable, so I can take it into the "field".  It has magnifications of 10x or 30x, unless I change the eyepieces, but this is suitable for my purposes, mostly to look at 3d objects and textures in more detail. This morning I was messing around with it and I discovered that I can hold my little Fuji Finepix J10 camera up to the eyepiece and actually focus on the magnified image, and take fairly decent pictures. So I pulled out my box of oddities-insects that died in the car, bones I found in a friend's garden, seaweed pods, things lots of people like me have around, and I went at it.

the new chemistry including thermostat

Some mushrooms (out of HUNDREDS) I found in the woods this morning

Still Salty

I got some really nice cubes, almost 1/4" square, on this piece of paper I had suspended in a pint glass. I dyed the solution green, which didn't affect the salt as much as the paper itself. I broke these off and I'm currently using them with all the other crystals I grew as seeds for something more arranged. We'll see if that works out...

Salty

I couldn't wait any longer. I had to empty the French press filled with saline solution and see what I had. The bottom was filled with a layer of evenly spaced salt cubes or clusters thereof . These are about 1/8" on average, and can be use as "seed" crystals later on.
I really got excited about the steel wire structure I had suspended in the solution. There are dozens of perfectly cubic crystals growing right around the rusty wire! I like the rust, but I'm not sure yet how it's affecting the crystals. This form is definitely going back into a solution so these and more crystals can grow. The cubic crystals only grow within the liquid, not at the top where the water evaporates, leaving white powdery crystals. These cubic crystals are solid and translucent.



And here's the sugar crystal cluster formed in the bowl sitting on my workbench. These crystals are shaped like peaked rooftops.

Happy. Sad.

Opening night at Four Walls was amazing. For the first time, I showed my drawings to droves of a discriminating, responsive public. My friends and family came. Artists I spammed came. I sold a drawing, and many people wanted to know the details of my process and inspiration. Meanwhile, I was wondering where Kate was. She was taking Henry, our kitty, to the vet because she had lost weight over the past couple of weeks, and had been to the vet a week ago and sent home. They said she was fine, and they didn't know why she was so skinny, because they said they could tell she was eating. That week home she deteriorated. She became very lethargic and at times spacey, staring off into the distance. We waited too long. Kate had to put her to sleep during my opening, and I didn't know until I got home.

You probably thought I disappeared, but no, here I am. I hope you all haven't given up on me. I have been plugging away in my studio, and now I'm getting back to the point where I can step back a little bit to post on the blog. Kate and I are now happily married, and are so relieved to not have to get married again. The wedding was great! It was a sweaty day, but it sure looked pretty in the pictures. Here's a photo of the wedding party:
All you people who want pictures will get a "greatest hits" disk, don't you worry; however, I won't post any more here. This is my art space!

My drawing show will be up in November! Yay! It's a two person show with Matthew Mahler at Four Walls Gallery, 564 Congress Street in Portland. Please do check out www.fourwallsgallery.com I'm not listed on the website as one of their artists yet but I will be. The show will be a part of the First Friday Art Walk on November 2.

I just finished the drawing I posted on August 3rd. I said it would take between 13 and 106 days to finish, it took 69. I titled it Vessicle because it was modelled after cell components. Basically a cell wall without all the stuff inside (organelles) is a vessicle. These can be made in a lab. It's a tiny lipid bubble that separates watery liquid. Here's the drawing:
So that leaves one more drawing to finish, get photographed by Jay York, and get framed by November:
You thought the other ones were crazy. Sure, what's so crazy about a spiral? Well, the linear structure is organized into 4 sided polygons and grows from the center out in a spiral. The Innermost polygon is divided into triangles and each adjacent cell has one less triangle until the outermost big polygon is its own undivided cell. So the density within each big polygon increases as you enter the vortex. The area of each big polygon varies with the width of the band as well and this contributes to some pretty interesting value changes. The thin black spiral just counters and slices through the main spiral, dividing it into tasty croissants. The whole thing will be filled in.


I'm experimenting with crystal growth. I have no positive results yet, and I blame it on the humidity. Or better yet--I blame the internet. First, I heated up some water and then I mixed in some demerrara sugar until it would no longer dissolve. I made a super-saturated solution. Then I set a bowl of it on a bench and waited. It has been about a week and no real crystals yet. There is some crystal-like residue where some of the water evaporated, but I want rock candy. I might need to dangle string into a larger container full of sugar water.
I'm trying the same thing with a salt solution, but in this I suspended a steel armature, that in my wildest fantasies will become encrusted with huge square salt crystals. There is some small crystal growth, but this could also be called white residue. The steel is rusting, which may inhibit crystal growth. I'm worried that as salt crystallizes and is removed from the solution, the solution left with be less saturated and melt the crystal in a vicious cycle. This is why I hope my basement gets less humid so evaporation will get those freakin' crystals growing.I need to go to bed....later.