Microscapes

I have always been excited exploring unknown spaces.  As a child I would walk through the woods exploring small brooks or the gnarled stump of a dead tree. Always looking closer, as if somehow I could uncover some of nature's hidden secrets.  Eventually this sense of wonder changed into a desire to create and I began making art.  It was my way of sharing some of that excitement I felt.

My art always reflected nature, landscapes, still lifes and the like, but gradually I became dissatisfied and began looking closer.  Eventually, I became interested in macro photography and while walking through the woods one day I rediscovered that sense of wonder I had seemingly lost.  Everything began to take on a new dimensions.  I found myself lost in fantastic landscapes of mosses and lichens which in reality only occupied a few square inches. 

​

A year latter I enrolled in a scientific illustration class at the Field Museum, in Chicago, where I encountered a scanning electron microscope.  I was immediately fascinated by the bizzare images of the microscopic world, and eventually I gained access to a scanning electron microscope at Northern Illinois University where I was studing art. Electron microscopes have enabled us to see many objects we could not have otherwise.  They use an electron beam instead of light for illumination; thus no color is involved.  As this electron beam strikes the surface, it knocks electrons out of orbits of the atoms of the surface of the specimen material and by electronic means these "secondary" electrons are collected and converted into electronic signals which are reassembled on a computer screen where they are ready to be viewed or photographed.

​

This portfolio of micrographs focuses mainly of plants and insects.  They illustrate the great variety of design found in the microscopic world.  While some of them bring to mind surrealistic images and others seem vaguely familiar, they all evoke a certain sense of wonder knowing they truly exist.

​

​