School:

. . . the ideal place to hide from the real world.
Today marks the end of the first week of grad school at the University of Utah. So, to commemorate the occasion with a blend of art and scientific education, here are some of the chalkboard drawings I did for the zoology lab I taught during my M.S.

They're in no particular order

More ants

To anybody seeing these posts that doesn't really know me, I study ants. I find them inspiring marvels of evolutionary innovation and they tend to have an impact on my artistic endeavors, hence many an ant post.

Today - Ant sculptures given to the members of the Ward lab at UCDavis when I volunteered there:

Click the genus names to see images of the actual ants they're based on.

Crematogaster

Eurhopalothrix

Mayriella

As with any sculpture involving many intricate appendages, the creation of these ants involved making all of the legs, stings, mandibles, antennae, and even spatulate hairs ahead of time. These were then all baked so that they would retain their shape when inserted into the main body. The legs in particular had wire running through the middle terminating with an exposed hook to ensure they would stay attached (baked clay doesn't bond very well with unbaked clay). Each head and main body segment had balled up tinfoil as a core to conserve clay and make the sculpture lighter. I do that with pretty much everything.

I also tried to make an Amblyopone almost twice the size of these while in Panama, but the humidity made the clay flaky and the the smaller parts got burnt and brittle especially due to being baked twice.

Music Monday - Take IV

The Old Box Under the Stair:


This is a scrap of a song that I wrote a couple of months ago and had the wonderful opportunity to record with the aid of Keith Bracy, a drummer of outstanding talent. He has a jazz background but plays in a number of southern-metal bands in North Little Rock, and has a penchant for recording, mixing, and producing as well. His curiosity for my concertina led me to laying down tracks of anything I could play and this song ended up emerging in a fashion I'd never played before but really liked the sound of. The working title was "Cock Mongrel" thanks to my friend Jonathan, but I feel like that didn't really suit the mood of it.
I like to imagine something like this playing as someone is exploring an old abandoned house and stumbles across an ancient box with something devastating inside.

I'd like to expand upon it, ideally laying down some drums, and strings/electric guitar where it picks up towards the end.