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Dennis Kunckel's microphotograph of the silk gland spigots of a spider inspired this painting. The corrugated tubular parts are the spigots; the smooth, hose-like parts are actually the silk threads themselves. From the silk spigots in the bottom of the painting, silk threads rise up, braid themselves and meet ..... the brain, itself made of long thin filamentous neurons. Here the neurons extend outward, their branching dendrites receiving those neurotransmitters that allow us to think, feel and act.

In 1906, Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramon y Cajal both shared the Nobel prize in medicine for their research on the nervous system. Golgi saw the nervous system as a network -- thus the spider web (and its pink spiders). Cajal recognized it as a branching structure with neurons not touching each other but communicating via chemicals. His was the correct interpretation.

Like a chimera, this painting depicts parts like silk spigots, spider web, brain, and neurons, that...

"My painting takes off from nature inspired by science, especially from cell biology and botany. While much art depicts the world at the human scale (landscapes, portraits, apples in a bowl) I often start with cell membranes, the inside of cells, the silk spigots of spiders, lichens — the world of the tiny. By depicting natural forms in an imagined, mythical world, my paintings reveal the human psyche and its capacity to go beneath the surface of things; to experience beauty and awe and even fear; to understand that we humans are connected to all the other creatures on earth and even to the cosmos. I enjoy observing and reading about nature, but I am not a scientific illustrator in the conventional sense. I do study my subject matter...