This is an artwork I made a while ago, but never showed it.
I think it is my favorite sculpture. I even wrote a little poem about it.

5 Points Gallery is in a historic spot in Durham that has held many different businesses and started out as a barn. Around the corner WAS the iconic South Bank building that was demolished over the past month. It is gone now. A new 27 story building will take its place. I have been working on one of my largest fused glass art works about Durham for a few months. Each small piece and building had to be fused separately before building the whole piece and fusing it all together. Even though the tiny pieces are glued before fusing, sometimes they jump around and have to be ground off and refused. My new piece is “Bull Durham.”

Recently I was fortunate to see some little bats (long nose bats, I think) sleeping in a tree near a waterway by the Panama Canal. I love the pattern on their backs and the way they line up on the trunk of the tree. So, I decided to try to create them in fused glass. I made the bats out of glass powder wafers, and the leaves out of glass clay. The tree is made of glass powder too.

I will have my first way outside the area solo exhibit at the Glass Axis Gallery in Columbus, OH from Dec 10,2021 to Jan 29,2022. As both a scientist and an artist, I feel that I am in pursuit of some kind of order. I hope I convey that in an interesting way in my exhibit.

Usually we have had a few cold nights by now. While it still seems like second summer, Christmas decorations are already in the stores. That’s scary! Speaking of scary, I have two recent art pieces in our new exhibit at 5 Points Gallery that might make you think of Halloween! Let’s think Halloween! Please, NOT Christmas yet!

I have many reasons to tear up with this anniversary even though I didn’t personally know anyone who died that day. I am from NY, and NYC is one of my favorite places to visit. 9/11 also happens to be my birthday. I knew the world had changed on that day. It was like our innocence was gone, and we would never be the same. In addition, two weeks after 9/11 I ended up in the emergency room with a pulmonary embolism. Here are two artworks I created with 9/ll in mind: one a few years ago, called, “Out of the Fire”, and one this summer called “Summer in the City” (One World Trade Center in the background) with hope for a better time.

A few weeks ago I happened on an article mentioning Neurospora, a bread mold fungus, and I remembered using it in a college biology class. It is so interesting and beautiful to observe through the microscope. In 1958 Beadle and Tatum won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in the 1930s on the relationship between genes and enzymes in the non-pathogenic Neurospora. These early studies on Neurospora initiated the important development of biochemical genetics and molecular biology. The properties that make Neurospora a good model for scientific studies are its fast growth rate, ease of culture, simple nutritional requirements, regular Mendelian genetics, susceptibility to mutagenesis, and other factors. Neurospora is beautiful to observe and fun for experimentation. Left and right brain collided in creating this artwork.

Ever since the fitness center closed last march, I have been trying to walk almost every day. I’m always looking for inspiration for my glass art. I love trees with interesting lichen and fungal patterns, and I have been looking more closely at the bark patterns too. These are my first attempts to create the feeling and look of the woods.

Last weekend we were at the NC coast along Emerald Isle and found beach renourishment in progress. I question whether these projects paid for with our tax dollars are really going to hold back the sea water rise caused by global warming or the beach loss after more numerous and stronger hurricanes. The natural beach shifts back and forth so much each year in this area that I think this effort would be comical if it weren’t so sad (and expensive).

Here are some of my artworks that make me think about issues we are facing with climate change and global warming. Also, here’s a link to an article by an interesting company “Sofar” that collects and provides data (wind speeds, waves, etc) from spots in oceans around the world for businesses like shipping and others: https://www.sofarocean.com/posts/how-does-climate-change-affect-the-ocean.

Beauty and the Beast and Glacial Melting represent global warming and glacial melting. Beauty is what we see, but the Beast is Climate Change.

The Fukushima earthquake and tsunami occurred in 2011, and Pacific currents brought tsunami debris to the US northwest coast. In June of 2012, a 66 ft long concrete dock from Fukushima washed up on Agate Beach, Oregon. The dock harbored about 100 Japanese marine species, and scientific study of floating debris from the tsunami commenced. A study published in Nov, 2017 described some of the impacts of the tsunami on the environment of the US pacific coast. 280 Japanese species, mostly invertebrates, 2/3 of which were new to the US, were found on floating debris at the US coast.
A major factor in this tsunami dispersal is the replacement of wood in coastal development with non degradable synthetics. Now plastic junk can take invasive species on a 5000 mile journey without sinking.
Part of the concrete dock is now on display in front of the NOAA building in Newport, Oregon. I took photos of it and created the art piece seen here as a marker of what is happening to our ocean environment.

The Gulf Stream is the most important current in the north Atlantic. The warm salty current rushes north along the US east coast, crosses toward Scandinavia and northern Europe, and dives down as it cools in the north to a southerly direction along Europe toward Africa, where it emerges and completes the circle back toward the Gulf of Mexico. It is a major warming influence for Scandinavia, the British Isles and all around the north Atlantic. Because of Global warming, the major ice fields of Greenland and the Arctic are melting and mixing that fresh water with the Gulf Stream causing it to slow down. This is thought to potentially cause major shifts in climate in the region. “The Current Situation” is my artwork that reminds us of this issue. It will be very difficult to address without major shifts in international policies regarding climate change.

Low Tide at dusk is my ideal beach. Beautiful calm clean water and a nice sunset. How much longer will we see beaches like this?

As the days are getting longer and more people are getting vaccinated, I am hopeful for the opening up of our lives and livelihoods.
Here is one of my new artworks called the Bird Watcher. After seeing very few birds in my back yard over the winter, I decided to wash out the bird feeders and set them up with new food. After about 2 weeks they are finally finding the food and visiting my area again.