Drawing the Experience

"I am an artist, and I draw every day.  It is how I know and understand the world.  One day back in 2012, I was looking up neuroscience terminology to supplement an article I was reading on the claustrum, I stumbled across Cajal’s scientific drawings.  In the midst of trawling visuals on the web, I was swept away within “gesturely expressive” cellular images drawn in implied space.  I was dwarfed and transported into Cajal’s microscopic world.  Other neuroscience drawings were in the image cache, like those of Camillo Golgi.  However, I was not as taken with them, because Golgi’s illustrations were surrounded by a border that created closure and containment and possessed a topographical mannerism.  Based on those visual qualities, I felt Golgi’s drawings were “designed,” and that construction revealed a particular point of view regarding the role of drawing in his work:  that drawing was a vehicle to guide, transcribe, and organize nature in a manner that demonstrated a theory.  Instead of creating drawing from a designer’s perspective, Cajal’s work in comparison is drawn with a type of perceptual observation, one in which the inherent design of nature is discovered through sighting.  Drawing was a tool to observe, discern and recount microanatomy structure.  Cajal’s drawings are filled with actual lines and drawn with implied space.  I believe they demonstrate a philosophy that he was at the service of nature—recording and reporting the truthfulness of sight’s journey." - Dawn Hunter, November 2017

The above quote is from my piece "Drawn To, Drawn From Experience" written for the National Library of Medicine's, Circulating Now, blog.  It is the first of a three part series I am writing for them about Cajal, the latter two are forthcoming in 2018.

I completed my Senior Research Fulbright Fellowship at the Instituto Cajal, Madrid, España in December, 2017.  It was a remarkable privilege to commune with Cajal on a daily basis through studying and drawing his scientific illustrations.  There is information in those works that can only be accessed by active observation:  drawing.  Drawing provides a type of interaction with the works and entry into information about the maker and his theories that is not possible through passive observation.  Cajal proved to be a great teacher, and my "apprenticeship" yielded a fruitful scholarship of knowledge.  More, of course, is yet to come.  In the meantime, below are a couple of examples of my drawings of his drawings, as well as, information on my writing for the National Library of Medicine.

For more information about my past works on Cajal please visit my web site:  www.dawnhunterart.com or previous posts from this blog.  There are numerous posts about my Cajal project on this blog, here are a select few and some of my favorites to choose from:  Cajal Inventory, Cajal Inventory:  Head Heart and Spine, Sometimes Summer is All about the Work, and Started in the Middle.  

Dawn Hunter's study of Cajal's scientific drawing of pyramidal neurons, FRONT, 11" x 14," marker and pen on paper

Dawn Hunter's study of Cajal's scientific drawing of pyramidal neurons, BACK, 11" x 14," marker and pen on paper

Unfortunately, nature seems unaware of our intellectual need for convenience and unity, and very often takes delight in complication and diversity.

- Santiago Ramón y Cajal from his 1906 Nobel lecture 

"The structure and connexions of neurons."

Draw for a reason, draw for the love of drawing!

Below are posted the drawings from my visit during June to the National Institute of Health.  Rain or shine, for two days I was was gleefully and completely immersed in the activity of drawing.

Dawn Hunter, study of Ramón y Cajal's Calyx of Held scientific drawing, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, study of Ramón y Cajal's Growth Cone scientific drawing #2, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, study that juxtaposes Ramón y Cajal's Calyx of Held scientific drawing with the landscape, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, study of Ramón y Cajal's Growth Cone scientific drawing, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, study of Ramón y Cajal's Astrocytes drawing with Don Quixote, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, National of Institute of Health:  Atrium of Building number 10, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, National of Institute of Health:  view from the John Porter Neuroscience Center during the rain, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Intellectual work is an act of creation.  It is as if the mental image that is studied over a period of time were to sprout appendages like an ameba - outgrowths that extend in all directions while avoiding one obstacle after another - before interdigitating with related ideas.

- Santiago Ramón y Cajal

New studies of Santiago Ramón y Cajal's work

There is a new batch of drawings by Santiago Ramón y Cajal on display at the John Porter Neuroscience Researcher Center of the NIH.  Just like with the previous set, I am spending time drawing and studying his work.  Much insight is to be gained about his creative process from this type of endeavor.  Below are the drawings I made last week:

Dawn Hunter's study of Cajal's Insect Visual System scientific drawing, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter's study of Cajal's Olfactory System scientific drawing, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter's study of Cajal's Calyx of Held scientific drawing, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

“Our novice runs the risk of failure without additional traits: a strong inclination toward originality, a taste for research, and a desire to experience the incomparable gratification associated with the act of discovery itself.” 

- Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Santiago Ramón y Cajal: A symposium honoring the father of modern neuroscience

It was a great privilege to be invited to participate as a speaker at the first collaborative symposium between the NIH and the Instituto Cajal celebrating the father of modern neuroscience Santiago Ramón y Cajal. So much gratitude to Dr. Jeffery Diamond for organizing the speakers and inviting me to present. What a privilege to meet so many great scientists. I am truly honored and my artistic practice enriched.  

For my presentation, Bequeathed Aesthetics: the origins of Santiago Ramón y Cajal's artistic perceptions,  I traced the aesthetic origins of Cajal's scientific drawings.  I examined his childhood experiences and his deep connection as a youth to the novel Don Quixote, and how that novel was seminal in its imagery, romanticism, individuality and philosophy to Cajal's discovery and perception of the neuron as an individual unit.  Through a comparison of Cajal's early landscape drawings to the work of Goya's sensibility, I then further connected Cajal's artistic and specific perceptual influence to the great master - an artist who was from the same region of Spain as Cajal.

Below, title page from my presentation, featuring an image I designed contextualizing Cajal and his neurons in a surreal narrative with Don Quixote de la Mancha, Goya and Picasso:  

It was also an honor to have my artwork selected for the poster publicizing the event and to have my artwork displayed in the John Porter Neuroscience Research Center next to the scientific drawings created by Santiago Ramón y Cajal.

Pinch me, I may not be awake!

All of the presenters were honored with an invitation to a special reception celebrating the event at the Spanish Ambassador's, Ramón Gil-Casares, home.  It was a wonderful ending to a wonderful week.

Front row left to right:
Ana Elorza Moreno, Dr. Teresa Nieves Chinchilla, Dr. Rafael Yuste, Dr. Story Landis, Spanish Spanish Ambassador Ramón Gil-Casares, Dr. Laura Lopez-Mascaraque, Rebecca Kamen, Dr. Susana Martínez Conde, Dr. Bibi Bielekova

Second row, left to right:
Dr. Heather Cameron, Dr. Leo Belluscio, next unknown, Dawn Hunter, Dr. Jeff Diamond, Dr. Walter Koroshetz, Dr. Juan de Carlos, Dr. Chris McBain, Dr. José Luis Trejo, Dr. Alan Koretsky, and Dr. Fernando de Castro

Below are photos documenting the Cajal exhibition currently on display at the John Porter Neuroscience Research Center of the NIH, and a selection of some of my artwork about Cajal and his life displayed on the right.

Man, Sunflower, and Nuclei Nests, graphite, acrylic and ink on paper, 18" x 24," 2014

Man as Sunflower, acrylic and graphite on paper, 14" x 17," 2014

Fledgling, acrylic, ink and graphite on Yupo, 18" x 24"

May Day:  Cajal in Spring, acrylic on Yupo paper, 26" x 40,"  2014

detail May Day:  Cajal in Spring (here with a falcon)

detail May Day:  Cajal in Spring

detail May Day:  Cajal in Spring

Neuron Nests and Branches

When Cajal was a child he would steal and raise baby birds from their nests.  He would also collect baby bird nests and pay his playmates to collect them, too.  He would make detailed drawings and notes about them, and when he was done, he would return the baby birds to their mothers.  These activities were the beginnings and the psychological foundation for his scientific research.  Additionally, birds were important symbols of strength and resilience to him throughout his life. 

New Nests and Neurons, graphite and ink on paper, 16" x 20"

detail, New Neuron Nests

Like an earthquake, true senility announces itself by trembling and stammering. 

- Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Graphite and ink on paper, 5" x 13"

This image portrays the "branches" of the neurons juxtaposed with an image portraying self reflection near the end of his life. Cajal describes in his last biography written at the age of eighty, his fears of neurological deterioration and his self awareness of it in old age.

It is a page from my accordion book project about Cajal.  Each fold out or open page is 5" x 13," and contains a unique drawing. This work is an ongoing evolving work that chronologically through the fusion of Surrealism and Romanticism, portrays his childhood imagination and biographical events from that time.

Other images from the accordion book are featured below from beginning to its current end.  This project is ongoing, so other pages will be added.