dna drawings from a week in the Lab

The  week just passed was my second week in the Lab... I introduced this current residency in a long post at the Homage blog and also at the studio blog in a brief summary last week.

a new visual journal

If you wish to know why I've been drawing DNA then a visit to either blog will provide the context.

Tonight I have loaded up these black ink and watercolour drawings to give you a view of the latest work in preparation for a show on the 18th of May. Much more on all that soon!

I worked on these drawings whilst figuring out what large paintings I wanted to go ahead with. With the limited timeframe it's been a very useful process to think it through via the drawings from a series of photos Ive been taking over the past 2 weeks of graphs and other material in the Lab Journal of my collaborating Scientist Joshua Mylne. 

I've been offered demonstrations and instructions on many aspects of the work being carried out in the lab... Joshua and assistants have been incredibly obliging and thoughtful. Given I was starting with an empty slate in terms of my prior knowledge I expect to leave better informed.

This Gel slab which I photographed, about 12 x 8cm, might appear very low tech... 

but this image below gives a better idea of this stage on the process.

image found here :  Scientist loading a Agarose gel for electrophoresis

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Viewing DNA set in gel, one of the things that can be seen at the Darwin Centre of the Natural History Museum in London. Image from here

Short notes here if really curious: Principles of DNA Gel electrophoresis

Ive been using two journals in the past two weeks... both have been stored away waiting for a reason to be used. 

Curious how certain shapes keep drawing one in... some of these ovoid shapes turn up over and over in my work... and the Lab provides yet more opportunities for viewing patterns in nature... even if at a Micro level.

Check out other blogs for updates and I will add details about the coming Viewing of this residency work.

Click here to go to the information page at my website!

guess who's coming to dinner?

Well your guess is as good as mine... but doesn't it look spectacular?

I love long tables...




this long you ask?

 as long as Im not waiting on the table I guess it could be that long!



This food just has to be fresh.... look at that field of vegetables.


Arugula's Star Farm, Columbia, TN



Shady trees ... looks idyllic

I found all these pics at the outstanding outstanding in the field's picture gallery.

What they do at Outstanding in the Field:

Our mission is to re-connect diners to the land and the origins of their food, and to honor the local farmers and food artisans who cultivate it.

Outstanding in the Field is a roving culinary adventure – literally a restaurant without walls. Since 1999 we have set the long table at farms or gardens, on mountain tops or in sea caves, on islands or at ranches. Occasionally the table is set indoors: a beautiful refurbished barn, a cool greenhouse or a stately museum. Wherever the location, the consistent theme of each dinner is to honor the people whose good work brings nourishment to the table.

Ingredients for the meal are almost all local (sometimes sourced within inches of your seat at the table!) and generally prepared by a celebrated chef of the region. After a tour of the site, we all settle in: farmers, producers, culinary artisans, and diners sharing the long table.

OK...I showed this image already



...but read this:

Sunday June 6, 2010

Secret Sea Cove, Bay Area Coast, CA

PRICE: $240.00

GUEST CHEF: Mourad Lahlou, Aziza, San Francisco

TIME: 3:00PM

Mourad is back. Past Iron Chef winner and returning Sea Cove chef Mourad Lahlou took to the sand in 2009 providing a fantastic meal right on the beach. The scenic California coastal surroundings will compete for attention as waitstaff bring out courses composed of the best ingredients of sea and shore. Fisherman, farmer and winemaker join us on the sand. Our long curving table will be positioned to take advantage of the afternoon sun and incoming tide. Those seated closest to the water might experience a wave or two!

Whilst viewing this sandy dining location the sand drawings of Jim Denevan came to mind. Last year I posted on both his large scale sand drawings and his foodworks - Jim Denevan is both sand artist and the man behind Outstanding in the Field.




The world's largest single artwork, Black Rock Desert in Nevada made by Jim Denevan

Big enough to contain over 176 Wembley Stadiums, the giant drawing by Jim Denevan is visible from 40,000 feet up in the sky.

Taking 15 days to complete, Mr Denevan and a team of three colleagues worked day and night on the stunning piece in May of this year, which has a diameter of just over three miles.

Containing more than 1000 individual circles, Mr Denevan, 48, built up the giant circle using a roll of chain fencing six feet across pulled by a truck round repeatedly to dig into the desert sand.

Based on a mathematical theorem called an Apollonian Gasket, the design is set around triples of circles at tangents to others.

"I set out to build the largest artwork in the world and I am extremely proud that I have managed to do this," said Jim from his Santa Cruz home.

"This individual piece is larger than the famous lines of Nazca in Peru and that is something that excites me.

"Me and my long time collaborator Caleb Cole have been planning this for over two years and it was a pleasure to complete it."

The largest lines etched into the sand of the drawing are 28 feet wide and almost three feet deep in places.

Using high tech GPS technology to organise their co-ordinates to create a perfect circle, the team braved the intense desert heat and night-time cold to construct their masterpiece.

"We began at what we termed our centre point and worked out diametrically from there," Mr Denevan said.

"We had to dig out each line four or five times to mould it into the sand. It was tough, tiring, but of course it was ultimately fun."

He has been creating beautiful sand art for the past 17 years and sees this piece as the next step in his ultimate plan to work with NASA to draw on the plains of Mars.

Mr Denevan discovered his talent for sand art when he idly picked up a stick and drew a 12ft long fish.

"In the future I would love to see if NASA would let me use their Mars rovers, so that I could attempt the first interplanetary artwork," explained Jim.

"That would be fun."       Daily Telegraph 16 dec 2009

 where did those things come from??




loved these images of life on the road... travelling around from place to place to hold these amazing dinners. Images form 2008 blog.... oustandingontour.blogspot.com

Today...

... actually yesterday now... last thing before bed a quick little post on my day...and wouldn't you know it... its after midnight!
Q: So why this first photo below?
A: Because I live next door to a school tennis court and this morning when I was trying to catch a little more shut eye I had to listen to the very loud, surprisingly competitive conversation of two tennis coaches. Let me tell you ... this was louder than usual...and I heard every word... did I want to? NO! And the sky wasn't blue either like the day I took this photo!
Not to worrry! It was a painting day in my home studio and nothing was going to put me off. I had my porridge with bananas and currants and headed out to my fav Cafe for a delicious coffee and chat and bought some of their amazing organic sourdough rolls to bring home.

Here you can see my shot of a recent visit there... with toasted organic roll, buttered and spread sparingly with much loved australian condiment -vegemite. For me too salty when its lathered on!
Simple... coffee 3/4 full...not too much milk and strong quality Italian style brew! Brewbakers is the best by far in my area for this sort of thing! And conversation abounds here... good people coming by!

Home again and to the back verandah is where I paint when I want good light - this time of year its heaven...cool but never too cold. Even with a bit of rain its still a wonderful place to work. Summer-time it can be  ridiculously hot... so one makes the most of this time of year!

I like this quote below... I have posted it before... ages ago... but its never  a waste of time to be reminded of this! Today though it was a matter of simply getting on with what I'm working on... with some time given to going back through the wonderful book I have dipped into quite a bit this year -"Rainforest fruits of Queensland" by William and Wendy Cooper. I keep borrowing it from the Botanic Gardens Library - at $300+ its not something you rush off and buy BUT I will say its spectacularly worth it!

One does not just dip into this book ... one kind of climbs into the rainforest layers of it its so dense and magnificent. On reading of a species that may be found in the Clarence valley of NSW where I grew up I go off into a reverie of trying to recall the bush and places where I might have seen this or that.

...work in progress and the Homage to the Seed journal I'm keeping above and below - the Cooper rainforest book I mentioned is also open above. I was very keen to get on with painting but felt the need to go back through the Cooper book, freshly documenting, with very quick sketches and brief notes, some interesting forms in the the capsules and seeds of various species. I'm loving this way of becoming more familiar with the biodiversity of the rainforests and similarly rich habitats... recognising the enormous numbers of species and seeing the variations that can occur just through this simple research is so fascinating to consider. Tonight, noticing an indigenous version of nutmeg and reading that it has little scent led to wondering about the extraordinary discoveries that people made through Millennia, the risks when identifying if something was edible, what properties it had and so on.

I'm finding ethnobotany more and more fascinating and realising that its piecing together some of my own various passions for knowledge that to date didn't seem to link that well.

I also came across a fascinating read Hybrid: the History and Science of Plant Breeding by UK based Noel Kingsbury that was published only last year by University of Chicago Press at the Garden's Library this week.

 I'm still hardly scratching the surface of this no doubt timely book - all 492 pages of it. Its contains a series of topics that as they get closer to the present day heat up in terms of potential for controversy. I am noticing the writer's sustained attempt to address these topics with thorough research and due consideration. Still too soon for me to have formed a strong view of his take on current political implications of what is occuring in the complex field of genetics, patents and such. I will say that his coverage is immensely broad  but there is some clearly controversial material which I just noticed on his blog Noel's Garden Blog he owns as "unfashionable ideas".

The sense I did get in reading his book is that there is perhaps not a huge amount of material around that seriously attempts to cover this broad spectrum of human history on Plant breeding. So whilst some things made me sit up sharply and want to pick a fight I was having to address how little I knew of what was being raised and I found it a welcome book for bringing to the table a great many enormously relevant topics.

Well...so much for a quick post...still its been a great way to wind down, and reflect a little on this day just passed.

Ciao! S x

You may click on the image below to enlarge.