Friday, September 30, 2016

Cumulative Effect: Cajal Inventory Drawings

     My work has profoundly influenced my artistic practice and aesthetic interests as a medical illustrator for the new edition of Human Neuroanatomy, published by Wiley-Blackwell Publishing in 2017, by Dr. James R. Augustine, University of South Carolina School of Medicine. While creating illustrations for this textbook, I researched the history of brain anatomy illustration and was particularly struck and inspired by Ramón y Cajal's drawings because they possess artistic merit and a particular type of observation.


     I am creating a series of drawings and paintings titled Aesthetic Instincts: the Intersection of Art and Science in Santiago Ramón y Cajal's life. This is a comprehensive biographical creative project that, through visual art, examines and represents the life of Santiago Ramón y Cajal (May 1, 1852 – October 17, 1934). Ramón y Cajal was a Spanish scientist and the first person to demonstrate that the nervous system was made up of individual units (neurons) independent of one another but linked together at points of functional contact called synapses​. Ramón y Cajal illustrated his studies' results with elegant drawings of neurons that he proposed work independently or collectively and that each individual unit can participate simultaneously in individual or multiple neuron functions. Ramón y Cajal was a 1906 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine awarded jointly to another neuroscientist, Camillo Golgi, "in recognition of their work on the nervous system structure," however, their research was mutually exclusive and embraced opposing theses. Santiago Ramón y Cajal is considered by many to be the father of modern neuroscience. 







          Featured in this post are works from my Cajal Inventory. The forty-five drawings are 11" x 14" each and created through a combination of the following materials: graphite, ink, pen, marker, and acrylic. The drawings are biographical of Ramón y Cajal and my creative process within this project, i.e. some works are my notes from Dr. Augustine's Fundamentals of Neuroscience course that evolved into completed drawings. Ramón y Cajal's biographical portraits are comprised of Ramón y Cajal, his wife Silveria, and their children. 


     I view my new drawings and paintings as educational tools that address art, history, and neuroscience. After I read his autobiography, Recollections of My Life, a part of me that felt like some critical aspects of Ramón y Cajal (his humor and how he imagined himself, particularly in his youth), was absent the mainstream discourse patterns about him. My artwork highlights his personality traits and his private value system, essential to his unique scientific insight that led to his great discovery: that the nervous system is comprised of individual, independent biological units, i.e., neurons. The images here are a fusion of surreal and hyper-real portraits, domestic scenes, and recreations of Ramón y Cajal scientific drawings. I have reconstructed his scientific drawings by studying his actual work on display at the National Institute of Health, Bethesda, MD. I have also re-created some of his lost childhood drawings based on the description in his biography.


     When I recreate his scientific drawings, I draw the whole situation of each drawing. Shadows cast from the drawings are included as are the boundaries created by the mats. I do this because his drawings were constructed with unconventional formats. Not only does this approach make spending long hours researching and drawing his works more creatively interesting, but more importantly, it serves to emphasize the content and context of his research. 






               I have been fascinated with the combination of complements in my visual art. I have applied this to the form (color selection and composition) and the content (opposing personalities) in my Cajal Inventory.  In color theory, it is said that complements incite maximum vividness or annihilate each other.


     Ramón y Cajal's marriage to Silveria Fañanás García is an example of a highly functional complementary pairing. Ramón y Cajal, in choosing a mate, selected a woman whose character attributes were what he perceived to be a "perfect" complement to his. In doing so, he believed that their union would be a great accomplishment or matrimonial disaster. He said publicly that he would not be Ramón y Cajal if it were not for his wife, and he credits her much with making his work and the depth of his research possible. She incited his maximum vividness.


     This work celebrates Ramón y Cajal and his birthday (May Day). I am symbolically mirroring Ramón y Cajal's application of complementary contrast in his marital union. Therefore I elected to use (as defined by Johannes Itten) a harmonious hexad comprised of three complementary pairs of hue from the color wheel: blue-violet and yellow-orange, red and green, and yellow-green and red-violet. Integrated within the pageantry of images are Ramón y Cajal's neural drawings, May Day flowers, and Ramón y Cajal's portraits; his wife, Silveria; and their children. 



     A selection of seven works from an earlier phase of this series is currently on view alongside Ramón y Cajal's scientific drawings at the NIH's John Porter Neuroscience Research Center. Learn more about that exhibition here: National Institute of Health Santiago Ramón y Cajal exhibition and symposium.

           




























































Friday, July 29, 2016

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


Thursday, June 2, 2016

Sketchbook Biography

I have had an opportunity to draw just about everywhere, everyday.  Below is a sampling of drawings from travels and at home during the spring and summer of 2016.

Dawn Hunter, Utah, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Berkeley Marina, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Riverbanks Zoo, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Columbiana, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Babette Cafe, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Sea Lions, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, NIH Building #10 Atrium, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, NIH, view from John Porter, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"


Dawn Hunter, Berkeley Marina, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Lake Murray, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Kitchen Window featuring the Boov, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Bedroom Window with Sleeping Cat, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14" 

Dawn Hunter, Aquarium, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Botanical Gardens, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Gazebo, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Summer Highlights, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Botanical Gardens, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Backyard, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Casa Latina, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Berkeley Marina, marker and pen on paper

Dawn Hunter, Backyard_2, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Botanical Gardens, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Aquarium, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"


"The dawn laughs out on orient hills 
And dances with the diamond rills; 
The ambrosial wind but faintly stirs 
The silken, beaded gossamers; 
In the wide valleys, lone and fair, 
Lyrics are piped from limpid air, 
And, far above, the pine trees free 
Voice ancient lore of sky and sea. 
Come, let us fill our hearts straightway 
With hope and courage of the day." 

-excerpt from A Summer Day by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Every birthday should be a blast...


...and today it is a blast from the past.  In celebration of Santiago Ramón y Cajal's birthday I decided to feature one of my oversized drawings from my graduate studies at UCDavis:  Butterflies in Her Stomach.  For Cajal, the father of Modern Neuroscience, the intricate components of neurons and nervous tissues were  “the mysterious butterflies of the soul… whose beating of wings may one day reveal to us the secrets of the mind.”  The full quote is featured below.

Like the entomologist in search of colorful butterflies, my attention has chased in the gardens of the grey matter cells with delicate and elegant shapes, the mysterious butterflies of the soul, whose beating of wings may one day reveal to us the secrets of the mind.

- Santiago Ramón y Cajal 

Dawn Hunter, Butterflies in Her Stomach, charcoal and conte on paper, 120" x 150"

Dawn Hunter, detail, Butterflies in Her Stomach


Dawn Hunter in front of artwork in her studio, UCDavis, 1992

Thursday, April 28, 2016

"Springing" into Action

Despite being punny and funny, it should be said that springtime is always my most productive studio time. This past April's studio time has once again demonstrated my creative pattern.  Below is a sampling of some works completed and some works in progress.

The brain is a world consisting of a number of unexplored continents & great stretches 
of unknown territory.  - Santiago Ramón y Cajal 

Dawn Hunter, study for Cajal inventory, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, studio shot featuring Cajal Inventory in progress as well as other works, April 2016 


Dawn Hunter, Resting Butterflies study for Cajal Inventory, acrylic on paper

Dawn Hunter, Cerebellum study for Cajal Inventory, acrylic and marker on paper

Dawn Hunter, Fons Via Retiro Gardens study for Cajal Inventory, marker and pen on paper

Dawn Hunter, large painting based on sketchbook page, acrylic on canvas

Dawn Hunter, detail of large painting based on sketchbook page

Dawn Hunter, detail of large painting based on sketchbook page

Dawn Hunter, sketchbook page for large painting, marker, acrylic and ink on paper



To learn more about my handmade sketchbook book, please visit this previous Blog posts: 


 And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

- Percy Bysshe Shelley from The Sensitive Plant 

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Domestic Bliss, Immediate Observations

Here are a few of my daily sketchbook drawings from the last month.  Spring is in the air and the season has obviously influenced my use of color and subjects selected.

Dawn Hunter, Kitchen Window featuring the Boov, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14"

Dawn Hunter, Barbie Tots for Darcy, marker and crayon on paper, 8.5" x 11"

Dawn Hunter, Bedroom Window and Sleeping Cat, marker and pen on paper, 11" 14"


April Poem

In April fleecy clouds float by
Like cotton candy in the sky
April is tip-toeing into the land
Touching each leaf with her delicate hand.

~ Author Unknown ~