Day 9 #artAdventCalendar my linocut of 4 Nixie tubes spelling the word “Neon” on lovely Japanese paper, 8” x 8”.
Nixie tubes , also known as or cold cathode display, are electronic devices used for displaying letters or numerals or other information using glow discharge. Introduced in 1955, they are prized today for their vintage aesthetics. Inside a glass tube, there’s a wire-mesh honeycomb-shaped anode,🧵
Mercury, final prompt for #printerSolstice2425, made me think of #alchemy. It is an element the alchemists favoured & felt was fundamental in their efforts to transmute base into precious metals, both in western & Chinese alchemy (from whence western alchemy emerged).
This is my #linocut portrait of an #alchemist known as Master Geng (before ~975, 耿先生; Gěng Xiānshēng, sometimes Kêng Hsien-shêng). 🧵1/n
For the #printerSolstice2425 prompt silicon my #linocut of brilliant trailblazing US #geologist & prof Florence Bascom (1862-1945) who championed women’s education, & used polarizing microscopes for detailed petrographic analysis to show that rocks previously identified as sedimentary were in fact metamorphosed volcanic rocks she called aporhyolite (implying a change in rhyolite, a silica rich igneous rock, as in her 🧵1/n
#printmaking #womenInSTEM #histsci #sciart #geology #MastoArt
Since silicon is a common element in the crust, for the #printersolstice2425 prompt silicon I’m making a portrait of trailblazing geologist Florence Bascom (1862-1945), complete with geological cross sections and thin sections from her publications.
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#wip #linocut #printmaking #sciart #histsci #womenInSTEM #geology #mineralogy #geologist #FlorenceBascom
The last of my older prints which would fit #printerSolstice2425 prompt silicon: four radiolarians of the of the spyroidea family on handmade Japanese paper. Radiolarians (or radiolaria) are a type of tiny creature -amoeboid protozoa - which produce silica mineral skeletons. They occur as zooplankton throughout the oceans and their tiny skeletal remains can be used as diagnostic fossils to date submarine sediments.
#linocut #printmaking #sciart #radiolarian #microbiology #fossils #MastoArt
So here’s another existing print which fits the #printerSolstice2425 prompt silicon. Later this week, I will share a newly created silicon themed print!
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The next prompt from #printerSolstice2425 is silicon and as a geophysicist I am always going to think of SiO2, quartz, one of my favourites and the first mineral I printed in this older #linocut. Quartz was the first mineral I learned to identify as a child. Rhapsodizing about the averageness of its physical properties might sound like a strange yet boring thing to celebrate but physicists love using the power of approximation. 🧵1/n
For the #printerSolstice2425 prompt sodium, my #linocut of Marie Meudrac (c. 1610-1680), a woman in science right at the transition between alchemy & chemistry. Born to a land-owning family, she moved to the Château de Grosbois after marrying, where she became good friends with Countess de Guiche. She wrote ‘La Chymie Charitable et Facile, en Faveur des Dames’ [Easy Charitable Chemistry for Ladies]. She had her own lab where she tested all 🧵
The next prompt for #printerSolstice2425 is sodium, which had me thinking of salt. To the alchemists (following Paracelsus) matter was made of various concentrations of three elements: salt, mercury and sulphur. So, for my next print I am working on a portrait of an alchemist who worked right at the transition from alchemy to chemistry (and pharmacy). 🧵1/2
#linocut #printmaking #sciart #wip #alchemy #chemistry #womenInSTEM #MastoArt
Here’s an older print which would also have been a match for the #printerSolstice2425 prompt copper: my lino block print of the beautiful green mineral malachite. Malachite is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral, with the formula Cu2CO3(OH)2. This mineral has been mined for thousands of years. It has been used as a source of copper and as a mineral pigment since antiquity.🧵1/2
Ele Willoughby, PhD