Tuesday, November 29, 2022

Barrel Cortex, and more Cyanotypes

Hendrik van der Loos linocut portrait by Ele Willoughby
Hendrik van der Loos, linocut print, 11" x 14" by Ele Willoughby, 2022


This was a custom order I made earlier this fall: linocut of neuroscientist Hendrik Van der Loos (1929-1993) and his discovery (along with medical student Thomas Woolsey), of the barrel cortex, along with the mouse head & whiskers linked directly to it.

Some species of rodents have a region of the somatosensory cortex that was named the #barrelcortex after its shape, and which contains the barrel field. The 'barrels' of the barrel field stain darker than neighbouring regions (within cortical layer IV) when stained to reveal the presence of cytochrome c oxidase. These dark-staining regions are a major target for somatosensory inputs from the thalamus of the #brain, & each barrel corresponds to a region of the body! Most distinctively, the whisker barrels, structures were first discovered by Woolsey & Van der Loos in 1970, come in an array, similar to the way whiskers are arrayed & they hypothesized that they could be matched up & each barrel represents 1 whisker. Due to this distinctive cellular structure, organisation, & functional significance, the barrel cortex is a useful tool to understand cortical processing & has played an important role in neuroscience. The majority of what is known about corticothalamic processing comes from studying the barrel cortex, and researchers have intensively studied the barrel cortex as a model of neocortical column. The whisker barrels are the focus of the majority of barrel cortex research, and 'barrel cortex' is often used to refer primarily to the whisker barrels.


Cyanotype skeleton by Ele Willoughby
Cyanotype skeleton


Cyanotype skeletons by Ele Willoughby

I made several cyanotypes of my skeleton linocut on acetate along with leaves and wildflowers. A couple turned out quite pale and ghostly with the skeleton barely visible. So I made a linocut on top. I like the effect. It's a little eerie or dreamlike.


Folktale Week Prints

 I have been neglecting the old blog of late! It's been a busy fall, but I thought I would update you on some of the work I have been making. This year, I decided to participate in Folktale Week. There's always so much wonderful art posted. You should check out @FolktaleWeek on Instagram, or the hashtag #FolktaleWeek2022 to see all the art artists worldwide have created. They create a yearly prompt list for a week in November every year. 

Here's the art I created!

FOOL


An illustration of the fairytale ‘The Three Feathers’ for the first prompt for Folktale Week 2022: Fool. Retold by the Brothers Grimm amongst others, the story tells of a King who needs to decide which of his 3 sons should inherit the crown. The youngest, Dummling (or sometimes even Simpleton) is considered quite the fool by his brothers. The King sends the princes on a series of quests. He drops 3 feathers into the air, telling his sons to take their landing site as a direction to follow. The elder two go off but the 3rd feather falls straight down. First they are tasked with finding a carpet of the finest craftsmanship. The older prices assume any rug they find can beat what Dummling can find in the pond at the base of the tower. But Dummling meats a magical talking toad (King of the Frogs or Toads, depending on the version) who provides a wonderous carpet that the King declares the winner. The older princes insist on more trials; 3 more feathers are dropped & once again Dummling brings a beautiful ring from the magical toad while his brothers underestimate him with their simple rings from farther afield. Again the King chooses Dummling’s offing. The older princes protest that he can’t choose Dummling the Fool, so the King agrees to a 3rd quest: most beautiful bride. The older brothers go follow their feathers but Dummling’s feather goes straight down to the pond where the magical toad has a plan: select a toad. Place her in a hollow turnip as a carriage, pulled by 6 mice. These of course magically become a beautiful (and winning) princess in horse-drawn carriage. The brothers insist on acrobatic trials for the 3 brides. The Frog Princess wins; Dummling becomes a just and peaceful king.

The story begs the question about who were truly the fools! The frog princess in mouse-drawn turnip was an irresistible image!

TREE

Linocut print of Little Elder Tree Mother by Ele Willoughby
Linocut print on washi paper 8" x 10" of the Little Elder Tree Mother by Ele Willougby, 2022


For the #FolktaleWeek2022 prompt “tree” I made a linocut print illustrating ‘The Little Elder Tree Mother’ by Hans Christian Andersen.

In the story a little boy has caught a cold and is sick in bed and his mother brings him a pot of elder tree blossom tea. A kindly old man visits and the boy asks him for a story. The man says he has no stories to tell, and that the stories must come to you. When the boy is impatient the man reassures him that there's a story in the teapot. As they look an elder tree grows out of the teapot, full of blossoms. In the tree appears a kindly looking elderly woman whose dress looks like the blossoms and leaves. The old man tells the story of an elderly couple meeting under an elder tree and revisiting their long life together. The boy complains that this was no fairytale, so the old man suggests he ask the elder tree mother. The elder tree mother takes the boy up into the tree and he experiences the entire dream-like story of life and love of the old man's life. Afterwards the boy doesn't know if he was told the story or dreamed it. His mother says he slept while she argued with the old man about whether the tale was a fairytale. When the boy asks where is the elder tree mother, his mother says she is in the teapot, where she'll remain.

The idea of the Elder-mother, a guardian of elder trees, comes from English and Scandinavian folklore, known as the Danish Hyldemoer ("Elder-Mother") and the Lincolnshire namesake Old Lady and Old Girl. You must ask her permission before using the elder and sometimes she is benevolent but sometimes she is a witch. The elder wood in some folklore is able to ward off lightening or evil.

STAR

Linocut with collaged washi, 11" x 14", 'Kolędnicy' by Ele Willoughby, 2022


My linocut embellished with collaged washi paper for the #FolktaleWeek prompt: Star. This is a procession of Kolędnicy, or Kolęda carollers going through the woods to honour the sun at Winter Solstice. The tradition, also known as Koliada or kolędowanie, dates to pre-Christian times but is now become associated with Christmas and usually celebrated Christmas Eve to Epiphany. This print is inspired by Polish festivals but there are different versions of this across a wider region. It is known for instance in Ukrainian ("Коляда", Kolyadá), Belarusian (Каляда, Kalada, Kaliada), Polish (Szczodre Gody kolęda), Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian (Коледа, Коледе, koleda, kolenda), Lithuanian (Kalėdos, Kalėda), Greek (Koleda, Κόλιντα, Κόλιαντα), Russian (kolyadovanye, Колядования) and Czech, Slovak, Slovene (koleda). Groups of carollers go singing from house to house with a homemade star on a pole held high and in several traditional costumes.

In Polish folklore, the Turoń, which is the black, horned and shaggy animal with a flopping jaw is common at folk events including Kolęda, in times of Carnival and before Lent begins. The name comes from the word tur, meaning aurochs, an extinct ancestor of modern cattle. Carolling with the star on a pole was called “gwiazdory” from the word for star. Other common costumes include forest creatures like the bear and bird here and devil, and other characters (like Death, Angels, Goats, Foxes, Dziad - an old man, Wise Men and modern ones associated with Christmas).

Each print is 9.25" by 12.5" on Japanese washi paper with collaged paper for colours. You can find both the print and sets of cards with this image in minouette.etsy.com.

REBEL

Sun Wukong linocut by Ele Willoughby
Sun Wukong and the Peaches of Immortality, linocut on washi 8" x 10"


For #folktaleweek2022 prompt “rebel” my favourite irrepressible, chaotic hero of folklore: Sun Wukong, the Monkey King himself!

This is a linocut print of the Monkey King, Sun Wukong, hero of Chinese folklore (and throughout Asia) as well as the 16th century novel by Wu Cheng’en, ‘Journey to the West’.

Before embarking on his humorous epic adventure (and ultimately helping to recover Buddhist sutras) this irrepressible was born from a stone, becomes a King of monkeys, acquires immortality through Taoist practices and his staff-like weapon, phoenix-feather cap, and cloud-walking boots (through extorting the Dragon Kings) and wrecks a lot of mayhem. He defies a death sentence and Hell’s attempt to gather his soul by wiping his name (and those of his monkey friends) out of the Book of Life and Death (once again gaining immortality).

In an attempt to make him more manageable the Jade Emperor invites him to Heaven as ‘Protector of the Horses’ but Monkey realizes he’s being patronized and this just means stable boy, so he sets the horses free and declares himself The Great Sage, Heaven’s Equal. Gold Star advises the Jade Emperor accept the title and try to placate Monkey with another job: Guardian of the Heavenly Peach Garden. Peach-loving Monkey accepts. The Queen Mother’s maidens come to fetch peaches for her Royal Banquet for gods and goddesses to which Monkey was not invited and he turns defiant. He not only eats the Peaches of Immortality, he crashes the party and steals and eats Laozi’s Pills of Immortality. And he’s just getting started! Between his guile and martial prowess, whole armies fail to stop the Monkey King. Being cooked in a crucible for 49 days only makes him stronger. Finally Buddha imprisons him for 500 years, until he is given the opportunity to be let out as protection for the monk Tang Sanzang making a pilgrim to India for the Buddhist sutras (the Journey to the West). 

COSTUME

Selkie linocut by Ele Willoughby
The Selkie, linocut on washi, 9.25" x 12.5", by Ele Willoughby


I like the idea of a selkie for the #FolktaleWeek2022 prompt costume because selkie folktales turn the idea of a costume on its head: this is a mythological being (maybe a fairy or elf, depending on whether you’re in Scotland or Iceland) which disguises itself by removing its skin, rather than covering it up.

This is a hard-carved and printed lino block print of a selkie shedding her skin, seated on rocks, surrounded by harbour seals. Each print is made on lovely Japanese washi paper, cream-coloured paper with bark inclusions, 9.25” x 12.5”.

In Celtic, Norse, Faroese and Icelandic mythology, selkies (also spelled silkies, sylkies, selchies) or selkie folk meaning 'seal folk' can change from seal to human form by shedding their skin. The legends tell of seal fairies or elves who choose to come ashore in human form, and sometimes have human families. Like the swan maiden stories, if a human hides the selkie's seal skin, they cannot return to the sea, but if they find their skin, nothing, not love, nor their own human children (with telltale webbed feet, and sometimes a greenish tint and fishy smell) can keep them on land and they will return to the sea. There are stories of men stealing selkie skins (left ashore, for instance when selkies come to dance naked under the moon) and compelling the female selkie to marry them, but she always longs for the sea (and ultimately escapes when she or her offspring finds her skin). One story though tells of a selkie-wife by choice, who loves her fisherman husband and life ashore. But, when he doesn't heed her advice and ventures out in a storm, she is forced to resume her seal form to rescue him, even though she knows she will loose her comfortable human life on land. Male selkies were known as handsome and seductive, who sought out dissatisfied and neglected human women like fishermen's wives. Women could summon their silkie-husbands by shedding seven tears into the sea.

POTION

Potion Brewing linocut by Ele Willoughby
Potion Brewing, linocut on washi 8" x 10" by Ele Willoughby, 2022

For the 
#folktaleweek2022 prompt “potion” I couldn’t find a folktale potion I wanted to illustrate so I imagined a scene with a hedge witch and her familiars as she brews a potion

I put some of the research I did to illustrate ‘Death by Shakespeare’ to work. Behind the cat you can spy a Renaissance style medicine cabinet, and the cauldron, jars and bottles are also like some I found of that era. Also the plants and mushrooms used in medicine and poisons or generally seemed to fit the theme and be associated with magic: Amanita, witches cap mushroom, mistletoe, mandrake, vervain, and lady’s mantle. The unicorn skull is for a hint of #magic and the familiars, barn owl, black cat and rabbit all have rich folklore

I embellished this print with some hand painted India ink details. 

VICTORY

The Morrigan linocut by Ele Willoughby
The Morrigan, linocut 8" x 10" by Ele Willoughby, 2022


For the final #folktaleweek2022 prompt victory I chose The Morrigan, the tripartite Goddess of Irish mythology. The Morrígan or Mórrígan, also known as Morrígu or as "the three Morrígna" in her form as the three sisters (often Badb, Macha, and Nemain or sometimes Badb, Macha, and Anand). She sometimes appears as an individual, sometimes as three sisters. She was a shape-shifting goddess associated with fate, doom or victory in battle. She incited battle, inspires bravery and can bring victory over the enemies of warriors. She was the wife of The Dagda, the "good god," a father-figure and king, god of agriculture and fertility. She could inspire fear and be a symbol of impending death, often as a crow or raven but she could also be seen as a protector, associated with land, livestock and fertility. She is also the goddess of death and purveyor of prophecy. She sometimes appears in multiple forms within the same story, most commonly a beautiful maiden, a fierce warrior-queen, an old crone or washerwoman washing the blood-stained clothes of the dead, and a raven. The ominous shriek of The Morrigan at battles means she is sometimes associated with banshees.  

It was close to the wire and I finished this print last night, having lost a couple of days I had planned to work with my 8 year old home with a cold. This one might have turned out differently if I had time to linger on decisions but I think it works. There’s something to be said for working intuitively.

It was a challenge to create this week of art but huge thanks to @folktaleweek for organizing this annual event! It’s been a huge treat to see how some many talented artists illustrated these prompts. I loved finding new to me artists and illustrators, checking the hashtag daily, seeing their magical work and learning many myths, legends and folktales. This is a truly international event with posts in my languages and great variety in tales and style of work and I will definitely return to this again next year. If you haven’t already, you should check it out!

Thursday, July 21, 2022

Early Photographic Methods: Anthotypes and Cyanotypes

Anthotype of raspberry leaves made on paper coated with juice from day lily petals
Anthotype of plants made on paper coated with older day lily blooms

Making art using plants lead me to experimenting with anthotypes, an early photographic method of coating paper with juice from photosensitive plants and then exposing them, for hours or even days, to sunlight. I've had varied results. It can be a little unpredictable. Some argue that this medium is always ephemeral, and always subject to fading, but some anthotypes exist which were made a century ago. So if carefully stored or displayed (away from direct sunlight and/or under UV-resistant glass), they can be long-lasting. 


Reading up about the method I learned that it was invented by none other than great mathematician, writer and polymath, Mary Somerville (1780-1872). 
My linocut portrait of Mary Somerville

She wrote about her findings in a letter to Sir John Herschel (nephew of Caroline, also in my women in STEM series). Herschel presented her results to the Royal Society* & did a lot of further research on early photographic methods, so he is often credited with this invention too. 

Sir John Herschel's own accomplishments include the discovery of the cyanotype method to make images first used in 1842, which produces a cyan blue print used today for monochromatic art or blueprints. It is made using a slow-reacting, photographic printing formulation sensitive to a limited near ultraviolet and blue light spectrum, the range 300nm to 400nm known as UVA radiation. Two chemicals are mixed: potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate, and coated on a surface.

The first person to publish a book with photographs was botanist and scientific illustrator Anna Atkins. A friend of both William Henry Fox Talbot, who invented the salted paper and calotype processes, and Sir John Herschel, she was well positioned to understand what these methods could mean to scientific illustration, and as such she was acting as a science employing the high tech imaging of her day. When I made her portrait, I carved her as a linocut and then combined that with a blue screen print of fern leaves to mimic the look of the cyanotypes that she used in her books on seaweed and ferns. I have long wanted to make her portrait with actual cyanotypes so, that was my first goal when I started experimenting with making cyanotypes on paper and fabric.

Anna Atkins portrait by Ele Willoughby
Anna Atkins, linocut and cyanotype by Ele Willoughby, 2022

I have also been making a number of cyanotypes of plants and sometimes incorporating my linocut images on acetate. These are mediums which have a lot of potential and I'm experimenting!

Cyanotype of Queen Anne's Lace by Ele Willoughby

Cyanotype with linocuts of moths, flowers, grasses, and narcomedusa by Ele Willoughby

Cyanotype of my Narcomedusa linocut




*On the Action of the Rays of the Spectrum on Vegetable Juices. Extract of a Letter from Mrs. M Somerville to Sir J.F.W. Herschel, Bart., dated Rome, September 20, 1845. Communicated by Sir J. Herschel. Received November 6, -Read November 27, 1845, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 136 (1846), p. 111-120.

Thursday, July 7, 2022

Rusty patched bumblebee, In The Landscape and These Are a Few Of Our Favourite Bees

 

View through viewing portal into Ele Willoughby's rusty patched bumblebee lambe lambe box

In the Landscape, multimedia by Ele Willoughby and Sarah Peebles, linocut, painting, video projection, branch, wire, DNA bar codes, sound

Top of Ele Willoughby's rusty patched bumblebee lambe lambe box with view through skylight, paper flowers, twig chair, dandelion stem woven table, hand bound tiny book with linocut bee

Shot of Ele Willoughby's rusty patched bumblebee wooden lambe lambe box on legs, short table with other artifacts and bumblebee specimen

Some photos of my pieces in our art show, These are a Few of Our Favourite Bees, with my diorama like lambe lambe theatre box for a rusty patched bumblebee, and rusty patched bumblebee print along with the In the Landscape multimedia collaboration with Sarah Peebles.


Come see the show at the Campbell House Museum until July 16! Hear our artist talks this evening at the Canadian Music Centre, 20 St Joseph St, at 7:30 pm. Or you can watch the webcast here!

Wednesday, June 8, 2022

These are a Few of Our Favourite Bees





So I haven't been posting much recently, but I've been busily preparing for this collective art show about bees. If you're in Toronto, I hope you'll come check it out!


Exhibition
Campbell House Museum  
June 22 - July 16, 2022 

160 Queen Street W.

Opening event 
Campbell House,
Saturday July 2,  
2 – 4 p.m.

Artists' Talk & Webcast
The Canadian Music Centre, 
 
20 St. Joseph Street Toronto 
Thursday, July 7
7:30 – 9 p.m.
(doors open 7 pm)

Co-presented by Art-Sci Salon & The Canadian Music Centre

These are a Few of Our Favourite Bees investigates wild, native bees and their ecology through playful dioramas, video, audio, relief print and poetry. Inspired by lambe lambe – South American miniature puppet stages for a single viewer – four distinct dioramas convey surreal yet enlightening worlds where bees lounge in cozy environs, animals watch educational films and ethereal sounds animate bowls of berries (having been pollinated by their diverse bee visitors). Displays reminiscent of natural history museums invite close inspection, revealing minutiae of these tiny, diverse animals, our native bees. From thumb-sized to extremely tiny, fuzzy to hairless, black, yellow, red or emerald green, each native bee tells a story while her actions create the fruits of pollination, reflecting the perpetual dance of animals, plants and planet. With a special appearance by Toronto's official bee, the jewelled green sweat bee, Agapostemon virescens!

These are a Few of Our Favourite Bees Collective are:

Sarah Peebles, Ele Willoughby, Rob Cruickshank & Stephen Humphrey
The Works

These are a Few of Our Favourite Bees

Sarah Peebles, Ele Willoughby, Rob Cruickshank & Stephen Humphrey
Single-viewer box theatres, dioramas, sculpture, textile art, macro video, audio transducers, poetry, insect specimens, relief print, objects, electronics, colour-coded DNA barcodes.

Bees represented: rusty-patched bumble bee (Bombus affinis); jewelled green sweat bee (Agapostemon virescens); masked sweat bee (Hylaeus annulatus); leafcutter bee (Megachile relativa)

In the Landscape

Ele Willoughby & Sarah Peebles
paper, relief print, video projection, audio, audio cable, mixed media  

 Bee specimens & bee barcodes generously provided by Laurence Packer – Packer Lab, York University; Scott MacIvor – BUGS Lab, U-T Scarborough; Sam Droege – USGS; Barcode of Life Data Systems; Antonia Guidotti, Department of Natural History, Royal Ontario Museum

Thursday, April 28, 2022

Virginia Ragsdale's Conjecture

Virginia Ragsdale linocut by Ele Willougby
Virginia Ragsdale, linocut, 11" x 14" on cream coloured washi, by Ele Willoughby, 2022



One of the unexpected delights of making a series of portraits of people in STEM is that people are interested in subjects because of their personal relationships. In hindsight, it should have been obvious; I am a scientist and have family and friends! But, it didn't occur to me that these "famous" (in some circle) great scientists would appeal as images of family members, or friends, and it's actually pretty touching when people contact me and tell me they are buying a print because the subject is someone they knew personally. This is a mathematician who was introduced to me by a repeat customer, because this is one of her ancestors. So not only to I get to learn of a new-to-me historic women in STEM, but I have a commission to make her portrait for someone's own personal connection to her.

This is a linocut portrait of mathematician Virginia Ragsdale (1870-1945) who is remembered for the Ragsdale conjecture (shown in the upper two inequalities). I'm always wary of including equations in talking about the history of math and science. What's important is that she proposed a way of approaching a difficult problem that was an inspiration for a lot of other mathematicians. The problem (which remains unsolved!) was included in David Hilbert's famous set of problems, namely, what are the possible arrangements of real algebraic curves embedded in the projective plane? She decided to set an upper bound for certain type of such curves. She proposed that they consider algebraic curve of degree 2k which are all topologically circles (or ovals) where some ovals are nested inside each other; others are not. An oval is defined as even if it is contained an an even number of other ovals of the curve, otherwise the oval is called odd. She conjectured that for an algebraic curve which contains p odd and n even ovals:


 equation.pdf


and

equation.pdf.


It was a very useful insight to consider even and odd ovals separately; the difference p-n is the Euler characteristic of a region bounded by the even and odd ovals. The Ragsdale conjecture, made in her 1906 dissertation, is amongst the earliest and most famous on the topology of real and algebraic curves, which stimulated a lot of 20th century research and was not disproved until 1979. A correct upper bound has yet to be found. I have also included an inequality she posed:


equation.pdf


later proved by Ivan Petrovsky. The diagrams of algebraic curves also appeared in her dissertation "On the Arrangement of the Real Branches of Plane Algebraic Curves," was published by the American Journal of Mathematics in 1906. In it she tackles the 16th of David Hilbert’s famous 23 unsolved problems in mathematics - one of only a few which remain unresolved today. 


Born in Jamestown, North Carolina just after the Civil War, she was class valedictorian at the Salem Academy, where she excelled at math and piano. She was went on to Guilford College where she helped set up a YMCA, and establish an Alumni Association as well and worked to expand college athletics. When she graduated with a B.S. in 1892, she won a scholarship to Bryn Mawr for the woman student with the highest grades, so she continued on, studying for her A.B. degree in physics. She won a fellowship to study in Europe for the class of 1896, which she delayed for a year, working as a physics demonstrator and beginning graduate studies in math. She then spent 1897-98 attending lectures by the renown mathematicians Felix Klein and David Hilbert at the University of Göttingen.


Upon returning the the US, she taught math for three years in Baltimore before another scholarship, awarded by the Baltimore Association for the Promotion of University Education of Women, allowed her to return to Bryn Mawr to complete her doctorate with Charlotte Scott. 


She moved to New York and taught at Dr. Sach’s School for Girls until 1905. She became the head of the Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr from 1906-1911 and worked as Charlotte Scott’s reader from 1908-1910. She accepted a mathematics position which brought her back to North Carolina in 1911 at the Women’s College in Greensboro (now UNC at Greensboro) where she stayed for almost two decades. She was department head from 1926-1928 and left a lasting impact, insisting on investing in a telescope and adding statistics to the curriculum. She held high standards but was known for her patience for students.


She retired to care for her ailing mother and run the family farm in 1928. When her mother died she built a lovely house at the edge of the Guilford College where she gardened, restored furniture and researched her family’s genealogy. Upon her death she left the home to the college and serves now as the home of the college president. 


References

Virginia Ragsdale, On the Arrangement of the Real Branches of Plane Algebraic Curves, American Journal of Mathematics, Volume 28, 1906

Virginia Ragsdale, Wikipedia, accessed April 2022

Ragsdale conjecture, Wikipedia, accessed April 2022

De Loera, Jesús; Wicklin, Frederick J. "Biographies of Women in Mathematics: Virginia Ragsdale". Anges Scott College. Retrieved April, 2022.