Watching Mandelbrot sets in Jim's studio. Counterclockwise from Jim, in foreground: Meredith, Henry, Anwyl, and Dawn. Photo: Ari Frankel

The gift of time becomes evident when you step out of your familiar routine.  Time approaches the fluid state, evolving from the linear progression in which we normally view it.  I have been given the gift of time while at a residency at Djerassi, the time to "just be".

At breakfast an engineer tells me about his plans to write a book on the science of art materials, observations that will influence the way many of us think about art. While hiking in some of the most beautiful hills in California, a poet, originally from Sri Lanka, explains how poetry can help heal the wounds of war.  It gets me thinking of a new way to approach my patients who suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome.  Over dinner, a geologist describes her work in Antarctica, studying the bacteria found deep in the ice-encrusted lakes and their amazing art forms.

Dawn working on Dream Vortex Prototype 4 in her Middlebrook Studio at the Djerassi Resident Artists program.

Let the cerebration begin! I have only experienced 3 of the first 72 hours of Scientific Delirium Madness but the words and ideas and laughter are flying. A dream since I first took this job, since I first met Carl Djerassi (the Program's founder), since I first experienced the work of Nina Wise and Ralph Abrams vis The Kepler Story, I was overwhelmed by emotion during yesterday's orientation.

I use life forms as artistic media to comment on their phenomenal nature, bring intrigue to the species at hand, and illustrate the diversity of life. I propose the following  questions: How does human manipulation of life impact the viewer’s perception of  themselves as a species and the organisms involved? Will working with living media  with relation to their environment call the viewer’s attention to environmental fragility? How does human manipulation of the natural environment affect the function, structure, and aesthetics that each species displays?

Image: Blair G. Bradshaw, Periodic Table 49”x90”, 2002