Headed back home to Hamilton today for a few reasons. 1). I had to pick up materials I had ordered as well as materials I have at home that I wanted to work with 2). I had to work at Grounds for Sculpture tonight. 

Today was filled with a lot of experiments and so far successful results. I had created bead mosaics with the petri dishes and resin that I ordered. The petri dishes were smaller than I thought, I accidentally ordered 60mm as opposed to 90mm, so they were tiny, but I think the worked out perfectly. 

I'm not sure how the paint mixed with the resin is going to work out. I think it's going to have to be a layered process. So I decided to use all ten petri dishes that I had just for the seed beads and my next order I will experiment with paint. I ordered 20 90mm petri dishes (that will be for paint) and 10 more of the smaller 60mm ones for more bead mosaics. These were a lot of fun to make. I'm going to bring them back up with me tomorrow so during this week I can take professional photos of each of them. 

I also got a jump on making my vegetable paper. So far so good. You have to constantly monitor it and change the newspaper to help with the drying process. The paper will dry completely in about 3 or 4 days. This batch of paper is made of zucchini, eggplant, and oranges (zucchini not shown). 

The other night while I was doing research I stumbled upon this art education website where the instructor was teaching kindergarten students about science and petri dishes. They had recreated their own petri dishes using Elmer's glue, plastic lids, and seeds. So I decided to give it a go just for fun. I probably won't use it for anything, but hey maybe it can be a lesson plan for my elementary students. 

I had thrown in some beads, sea shells, and acrylic paint to see how the color would come out. So I have to let this dry for a few days as well and hopefully the glue will come out clear. 

In addition to the small and large sized petri dishes I had ordered some iron-on transfer photo paper to play with. Aside from clothing I think it would be neat to transfer photos onto canvas and then paint over it.

Very happy with how today's experiments came out and I feel this is a great start to get me motivated to continue brainstorming more ideas for future creations. 

Week two has come to a close. Where is the time going? Damn. 

Today was very self-motivated and we could work on whatever we wanted to move our projects along. Professor briefly talked about time lapse video. His friend made this video and it's kinda cool so I figured I'd share. 

My friend Lora also sent me a link to New Jersey based artist Andrew Wilkinson, who I've worked with before, but wasn't aware of his awesome video work. Since class today was dealing with time lapse video I wanted to share this work by him as well. 

I'm also quite a fan of his video titled, "Fish N Chips." Click the button to check out more of his work. 

So today I experimented with my letterpress stamps and wanted to see how they would react to water. I also added beet juice to one of the tests. Didn't come out as I hoped and the letters didn't disappear as I thought they might have. But I'm gonna share my failed experiment with you anyway because that's how we learn. 

We also had a lecture today given by David A. Ross. He is currently the Chair of the MFA Art Practice department at SVA. In the past he has been a curator at Everson Museum of Art, Long Beach Museum of Art, University Art Museum: Berkeley, San Francisco Museum of Art, Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, and The Whitney. He basically told us his story and how he got to the position he is in today. He also discussed the invention of the internet and how it and new media art are changing the way museums operate. He shared personal stories of his friendship between Yoko Ono, John Lennon, and Nam June Paik. Ross was quoted saying, "You don't know when you're going to meet the real mentor or teacher in your life." I thought about that statement on the way home and it's so true. You may meet that person growing up or maybe not till mid-life. Just another reason to value every interaction with people you have because you never know what they may have to offer you. 

The weekend I'm going home and I will be running around like a maniac trying to get a lot of shit done. Lots of experiments to complete but I'm excited because this will help me figure out a lot of questions I'm having at the moment. 

I'm also going to gather materials for petri dish collages or "vanitas," as Suzanne calls them. Vanitas originated in art in the 17th Century with paintings from the Netherlands. Traditional vanitas "contains collections of objects symbolic of the inevitability of death and the transience and vanity of earthly achievements and pleasures; it exhorts the viewer to consider mortality and to repent" (Britannica). I have taken some photos of vanitas completed by Suzanne or other past students at SVA. They necessarily don't have to have the dark theme of death like in the 1700s but it would be interesting to play with that idea. Note that the two on the left (the human figure and the one below it) are not vanitas, those were created using slime molds. The others are created with dried flowers, vegetables, fruits, fabric, pills, gravel, sand, etc. These vanitas are not actually "alive" or growing, they are just objects arranged within a petri dish.  

I noticed this cute subway ad today which reminded me that I have to student teach this fall. Haha, forgot about that. Whoops. 

And on that note, I'm going to chill out for the remainder of the evening and go to bed early. New York City is wearing this suburban girl out. Commuting, long classes, and hanging out with friends makes me sleepy. 

Today was more botany slides. Finally finished going through the set of 100. I also looked at the zoology and human tissue slides briefly, but their imagery didn't interest me as much as the ones I've previously showed. 

So what's the plan for all of these you may ask? Excellent question. Still figuring that out myself. A lot of the materials I want to work with: paint, beads, the petri & resin I ordered earlier are all at home in Hamilton. I'm going home this weekend, so hopefully I can bang out some experiments and figure it out from there. I did a lot of research on stained glass today and it just seems too in depth/ I would need to purchase a lot of materials. So kinda bummed about that. I'm hoping to one day dapple in stained glass though and I can refer back to these images for design ideas. I'm not going to dismiss the idea completely.  

For some reason I'm really interested in transferring these slide patterns onto clothing/ fabric. I'm contemplating ordering some iron-on transfer sheets to try it out. I can see half of these slides on a dress or shirt or even reupholstering a chair or something. Definitely going to create these into a fabric form- maybe not for the show but just for the hell of it. 

I also want to create a mosaic, but I'm not sure in what form. I don't want to do it on the wall because I have a pretty solid idea for my wall installations, but at the same time I don't want to make it too "crafty" (coasters, vases, trays, etc). Ugh I don't know. 

I feel like bio art is such a vast subject matter it's so hard to narrow things down in this short amount of time. Or maybe I just have too many ideas with these slides that I can't figure it out/ don't know how to execute these projects I'm coming up with. I feel so lost with my focus of this class. I'm just kind of winging it. I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I wish I had a more solid direction of where I want to go for the remainder of the class. 

On another note, I bought myself this bad boy today. I've always wanted a mandoline, but never went out and actually purchased one. But of course I now have a great excuse. I stumbled upon the idea of making paper out of vegetables. Basically I'm going to thinly slice the vegetables, arrange them/overlap them into a pattern, and then dry them out over a period of days. I found some instructions online and it seems fairly simple. I'm going to start out with carrots, beets, cucumbers, and squash. So add that to the list of weekend projects/experiments. 

Today we were also introduced to strobe photography using liquid. Not really scientific in nature but awesome nonetheless. I didn't get a chance to play around with it today because half the class was lined up to try it. I'm hoping tomorrow I can use it. I'm thinking about messing around with beet juice in water. I also really want to find a cool object to drop into the glass and capture that along with the droplets, but I'm at a loss for objects. I really want to find a mini gnome, but so far no luck. This is an example of strobe photography with water (I didn't take the photo, but I'm hoping to have photos similar to this either tomorrow or Monday). 

I stayed in the city for dinner today and went to Peacefood cafe. 100% vegan & 100% delicious. For those of you that know me, I don't eat out unless the place is purely vegan, so this was a rare treat for me. Finding a true vegan restaurant is always difficult, but when you do they don't disappoint. 

Also in case you're wondering what in the world is going on in my studio, here's an updated photo.....Still not much haha. 

Happy Wednesday.
 
I got to school early today to grab a microscope before everyone else got there and get to work. When I got there however, I found that all the sea critters from yesterday were dead :( Sad face. The algae was the only thing still living. Kinda bummed because I really wanted to get footage of the star fish in motion. I did however get some great shots of the brown sea urchin like I wanted. 

I then took a break and headed over to Chelsea Markets to see what kind of goodies I could round up to look at under the microscope. I got this cockel shell, but it wasn't exciting. I did however take some images of a shell the professor had brought with him. 

Finally a compound microscope became available and I was able to check out some more of the botany slides. I got through about 50 more today. Have about 25 more to go. I'm in love with these slides. I cannot stop thinking about stained glass while looking at them. Also kaleidoscopes, and rose windows. I was more organized about taking notes when checking them out, so I labeled them this time!  

Things I'm inspired by right now/ want to try to explore further:
- rose windows
- kaleidoscopes
- stained glass

For the next week we will be under the instruction of biologist Joe DeGiorgis, and today he brought in a bunch of marine life for us to look at under the microscope. A few sea urchins, starfish, sand dollars, small crabs, algae, barnacles, etc. My favorite was the sea urchin. I got a few images of one type of sea urchin and even a video today. It's not the best, but it's definitely something I want to use in my final project. I took images of a black sea urchin but we also have a brown one that looks beautiful under the microscope. I hope tomorrow I can get my hands on that one. 

A classmate of mine got great footage of the star fish and it's suction cup legs. I'm going to try to gather similar footage this week. I'm thinking it would be a great contrast to the slow moving star fish legs with the busy foot traffic of New York City. 

We only have these critters for the remainder of the week. Joe had collected them this weekend in MA where he lives. They will survive for the remainder of the week, but once Friday rolls around they won't be living anymore. So it's crunch time!  

This is the video footage I got of the sea urchin. Next time around I need to make sure all of it's spikes are submersed in the bowl of water, because the bright white/purple spots are where it sticks out at some points and the microscope lens reflects off of it. It's also difficult to keep it in focus since these are living creatures and they are constantly in motion. 

Ordered 10 petri dishes off Amazon tonight. Not 100% sure what my plan is for them yet, but I'm thinking something collage-y or maybe paintings. If I get decent results with them I will add them to my studio exhibit. But these 10 dishes will be strictly art materials mimicking bacteria- no actual bacteria.

I also stumbled upon the artist Klari Reis and her petri dish paintings. Amazing. She uses resin and paint to make these. Looked up a bunch of info about resin. If anyone has any resin experience please contact me! I'm thinking about trying a similar method. So hard to believe these are just resin and paint. Gorgeous.

Textile artist Elin Thomas also creates these adorable petri dishes. Just might have to brush up on my crochet skills.

John Delaney created this mosaic petri dish which I absolutely love. I think I could use resin as the base for this as well and then add the beads. I have so many seed beads just laying around I will definitely have to try this with at least one of my petri dishes.

Also found on Etsy, Kathryn Shutler does these ink and resin petri dishes. I think I need to pick up some resin and mess around with it. Some really great results with the material.

& because this is too damn cute.

So after I posted today's earlier post, my professor left early because she has to leave for Berlin tomorrow. The lab was also open for a few more hours, so I decided to pull out the compound microscope and test out the pre-made botany slides they have. I only got through about 20 today, but I got some great images. These are just a few of my favorite. I wrote down all the ones I liked, but I'm not 100% sure which is which, so for now I'll leave them untitled. This was just a test, I still have to go through the rest of the collection to see what I like. But at least I have an idea of some images I can use for my projects. These photos are also unedited and I can go back into Photoshop and edit them further. I also wasn't too comfortable using the camera on the microscope so I'm not sure why they have have that circle around them. I'll definitely solve that next week with Joe DiGiorgis because he is the microscope guy. But I think I fell in love under the microscope today...I mean look at some of these images!

Today not much happened...again. I'm started to get discouraged honestly. The only thing we did today was go to a lecture by our professor. In the lecture she basically gave a brief overview of what bio art is and just different examples of what artists are doing out there. The remainder of the class period we are supposed to "work" in our studios. How in the world are we supposed to get work done if we need to work in the lab?! None of my classmates are happy about it either, and we feel we are wasting time considering we are only here for four weeks. Hopefully next week gets better because we will be under the instruction of Joe DeGiorgis and he said we would teach us about the microscopes and how to make slides as well as he will bring in marine "critters." 

But until then, I have been researching some botany slides and I'm really interested in their shapes and colors. They remind me of stained glass. I sketched up a few ideas for my studio installation this morning and I've decided I want to devote an entire wall and partial floor space for a vinyl piece. I'm thinking it would be neat to create a larger than life image of a specimen under a microscope or even take a source image that I did not create inside the lab and use that for the wall installation. I'm thinking lots of color for my projects. 

I googled botany slides and here are some images I was attracted to. Not really sure what they are, maybe I should figure that out haha but it's a start to get me thinking about images. I would prefer to use my own slide photo for my art but just for now these are some fun things I found. 

I forgot to post my studio on the first day. I've changed my studio three times since Monday. I only have a table and chair in there so it's not like I have to move much. But I cannot decide which architectural elements will work best for my installation. As of now I'm happy with where I'm at because I am at the end of a hallway and don't have someone across of me, so I'd like to extend my vinyl floor installation past my "box" of a studio. 

I've never had a studio ever being an art student, so this is pretty exciting having a space to call my own and work. Although I think the majority of my work will be in the lab. But it's 6'x7' and this is the area we will be showing our work at during open studios. Open studio is June 19 from 6-9pm at the School of Visual Arts, 335 West 16th between 8th & 9th. The sculpture residency will also be having their open studios the same night so you can see what they are up to as well. SVA sends out invites to their entire mailing list which is about 30,000. Of course that many people don't come, but you never know who might show up! IF YOU ARE READING THIS YOU ARE INVITED! COME! SEE WHAT FUN THINGS I MAKE! 

So it's super boring right now. I'm making myself a note to bring tape on Tuesday when we come back to class so I can at least make some lines in there or something. It needs character. I'll also print out some inspiration images and tape em up on the wall just so there is something to look at. 

But today is the last class for the week. No class till Tuesday because of Memorial Day. Not sure if I will post each day over the long weekend. I suppose if I stumble upon something interesting I will. But over the break I plan on solidifying my studio installation plan and ordering materials if I need to. 

Today we had our first hands on experience (finally). We made Scobie (or Scoby)! Scobie is a gram positive bacterium that has the ability to synthesize and secrete the biopolymer cellulose. It's an acronym that stands for Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast. Basically if you've ever had the drink Kombucha- it's the scabby thing floating around in there. 

There are two types of scoby, lab grade & food grade. We made the lab grade in class, but I had used the previously made food grade for my mixture. 

Lab grade: yeast extract, bacto-peptone, mannitol & distilled water.
Food grade: sugar, green tea bags, water.

Harmless. 

So after we mixed up the medium we put it in the autoclave to sterilize the mixture. After cooling it down we could then pour the liquid (lab grade or food grade) into our desired container. The larger the container the longer the bacteria takes to grow. We then took already cultivated scoby and poured some of the liquid into our lab/food grade medium and we could have taken the scoby disc and placed it in our container as well. The disc speeds up growth, but it also leaves a circular dark mark and that may interfere with your design. 

Essentially after this grows and does it's thing (not quite sure what that entails yet) it will form a thin sheet of "paper." The paper is similar to a vellum or parchment paper and can be dyed different colors if you add pigments to your lab/food grade medium. 

We have to seal the container with mesh and tape all the edges securely to prevent fruit flies and keep it at room temperature for at least three weeks. So by sometime in the middle of June I will have this bacteria paper that I can print on or use to make something with. Hopefully...Because sometimes it can contaminate and grow mold. So let's hope  I did it right!

After that workshop we had some free time because there was another safety orientation for metal today. So I got to chat with Suzanne Anker to figure what my project will consist of. I think it will consist of a lot of microscope photos and then complimenting those photos with 3D elements. She also saw some of my video work the other day and ordered these small Pico projectors for me to experiment with. There like 3"x6". I have an idea for them but still working it out. Also, she likes my appreciation for space and installation and showed me a separate room in the building that I could do an installation in as well as show work in my studio. So I gotta think of something for that as well, can't let that opportunity slip past.

Welp, today was a very mundane day. In order to use the facilities we have to take these 3 hour training courses for each department (digital, wood, and metal). So we had to sign up for the ones we were interested in and go to the safety training course. And basically that was what the entire day consisted of. 
If you weren't in the training you just kinda hung around the professors tried to show us stuff without getting too ahead of the other students.

& I'm convinced SVA doesn't believe in lunch breaks. 

&& I made it to and from school without getting lost. Win.

&&& I'm going to try to do some research tonight to figure out what I want my project to be based around. As of right now I'm interested in using the dissecting microscopes and taking photos of what I see under the lens. But I just don't know what materials/specimens to use. I think it would also be neat if along with the photos I had a 2D/3D element to my project as well. So maybe ceramic, or wire, or maybe even paintings. I'm not sure but I think I would want to add on a physical element to this as well. 

Also, this image is how I'm feeling. I experience all 6 steps on a daily basis in this class.