Laura Splan is an artist who is also a certified phlebotomist. Her two fields intersect neatly, if that is the right word, in Blood Scarf, a project from 2002, in which she knitted a scarf from vinyl tubing which then filled up with blood from an IV inserted in a person’s arm. According to Splan, “The implied narrative is a paradoxical one in which the device keeps the user warm with their blood while at the same time draining their blood drop by drop.” (source)
No word on how many cookies that model needed afterward (or if it was in fact the artist herself), but wearing your blood on the outside never did catch on as a fashion statement. Prints of the work will appear in an upcoming exhibit of her work called “Gone Viral: Medical Science and Contemporary Textile Art” in the Cathy and Jesse Marion Art Gallery at SUNY in Fredonia, NY from March 8 to April 7.
There’s an old saying that we never step in the same river twice, but the relentless pace of change in something we see every day still has the power to startle. In 2009, artist Spencer Finch captured a 700-minute period in the life of the Hudson River in New York City. The resulting artwork was called The River that Flows Both Ways.
“From a tugboat drifting on Manhattan’s west side and past the High Line, Finch photographed the river’s surface once every minute. The color of each pane of glass was based on a single pixel point in each photograph and arranged chronologically in the tunnel’s existing steel mullions. Time is translated into a grid, reading from left to right and top to bottom, capturing the varied reflective and translucent conditions of the water’s surface. The work, like the river, is experienced differently depending on the light levels and atmospheric conditions of the site. In this narrative orientation, the glass reveals Finch’s impossible quest for the color of water.” (source)
In 2011, Finch did a similar project in Folkestone, on the southern coast of England, taking photos of the sea over a period of weeks and using them to create a color wheel and 100 flags dyed in the various shades of the water under different conditions of light and weather.
Finch’s work, poised between scientific and artistic documentation, invites us to reflect on change as a constant. It also reminds us that virtually all of the seemingly fanciful shades that artists use to portray the earth, sea and sky are, in fact, found in nature.
More at Spencer Finch’s website.
Most cats don’t especially love to get decked out for the holidays, and this kitty in his spectacular “Solar System Cat Fascinator” by NotSoKittyShop on etsy, appears to be no exception.
But a friend of the Finch & Pea, physicist Sarah Kavassalis, has managed to dress up her cat, the remarkably patient Felis Klein, in a holiday outfit every day this month. (Here she is looking adorable in her Santa suit) You can see all the outfits so far in @FelisKlein’s twitter stream.
photos via Cheezburger.com and Sarah Kavassalis
The Finch and Pea 