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

Scientific Intuition: Lessons in Fundamental Neuroscience, the landscape and Ramón y Cajal

A busy and an inspiring month in the studio.  I am advancing many works while simultaneously enriching my practice by auditing a Fundamental Neuroscience class.  The drawings I am posting are comprised of completed works and drawings that are in progress.  I continue to increase my understanding of Ramón y Cajal and his work by intertwining my study of neurons, the landscape and the portrait.

Fundamental Neuroscience class notes, ink and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Landscape study at the Nelson Atkins Museum, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Silveria Ramón y Cajal bathed in Goethe Color Theory, acrylic and ink on paper, 11" x 14"

Fundamental Neuroscience class notes, ink and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Landscape study by Cooper Library, marker on paper, 11" x 14"

Santiago Ramón y Cajal bathed in Goethe Color Theory, acrylic and ink on paper, 11" x 14"

Drawing in progress:  Fundamental Neuroscience class notes, ink and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Drawing in progress:  Fundamental Neuroscience class notes, ink and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

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

Drawing lessons with Wilbur Niewald and Don Quixote

I spent the afternoon drawing with (& drawing) Wilbur Niewald in Loose Park after Lloyd Schnell's funeral. Later, I met with Don Quixote in the PA Gallery of the Nelson Atkins. A comforting respite to the afternoon's events.

Dawn Hunter, "Wilbur in Loose Park," marker on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, "Wilbur in Loose Park, 2," marker on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, "Don Quixote, PA Gallery - The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art," graphite on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, "Don Quixote, 2_PA Gallery - Nelson Atkins Museum of Art" marker on paper, 11" x 14"

Sometimes summer is all about the work!

Spending days immersed in the subject of Santiago Ramón y Cajal.  Long days in the studio, coupled with visits to the NIH, has brought forth a flourish of creativity.  Examples of new work posted below.

New image on accordion book cover.

New accordion book pages below:

New drawings created by me through the study of Ramón y Cajal's work at the NIH:

Marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14" 2015.

Marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14" 2015.

More Summertime Drawings

My accordion book is becoming more developed in the narrative, color and cover.  There is also a continued intensive investigation with Cajal's drawings.  Each day in the studio brings deep thought and greater understanding of Cajal the subject.  I end each day feeling enlivened and inspired.

Below is my artist book on Cajal in progress with some of samples of the recent pages:

Study of Cajal's work, marker and pen on paper, 16" x 20"

Study of Cajal's work, marker and pen on paper, 16" x 20"

Summer Sun

Bend low again, night of summer stars. 
So near you are, sky of summer stars, 
So near, a long-arm man can pick off stars, 
Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl, 
So near you are, summer stars, 
So near, strumming, strumming, 
So lazy and hum-strumming. 

-Robert Louis Stevenson

Summertime drawing board with Ramón y Cajal

My drawing of Ramón y Cajal's drawing of the retina June 9, 2015, ink and pen on paper, 11" x 14."

My imaginative and surreal portrait of Ramón y Cajal Summer Solstice, June 18, 2015, ink and pen on paper, 11" x 14."

Summer Solstice details below:

Summer Sun
by Robert Louis Stevenson (1885)

Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic spider-clad
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy’s inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.

Picking up where the previous pages left off...

New images within the visual narrative of my ongoing accordion book project about the life and times of Santiago Ramón y Cajal.  The process has been immersive, so for today there will be more images than words.

Accordion book pages open, graphite and ink on paper, 5" x 13"

Accordion book pages open, graphite and ink on paper, 5" x 13"

Collective detail of accordion book pages, graphite and in on paper, size variable

Accordion book pages open, graphite and ink on paper, 5" x 13"

Collective detail of accordion book pages, graphite and in on paper, size variable

If a photographic plate under the center of a lens focused on the heavens is exposed for hours, it comes to reveal stars so far away that even the most powerful telescopes fail to reveal them to the naked eye. In a similar way, time and concentration allow the intellect to perceive a ray of light in the darkness of the most complex problem. 

- Santiago Ramón y Cajal