copper
oracknows | May 14, 2014Sometimes, when you're blogging, serendipity strikes. Sometimes this takes the form of having something appear related to something you just blogged about. Yesterday, I discussed one of the biggest supporters of quackery on the Internet, Mike Adams, a.k.a. the Health Ranger, proprietor of NaturalNews.com, one of the quackiest, if not the quackiest site, on the Internet, NaturalNews.com. This time around, I was simply using one of Adams' wonderfully incoherent defenses of alternative medicine thinking to demonstrate how much magical thinking exists at the core of alternative medicine and how…
dblum | March 30, 2010A couple days ago, I wrote a post (Tyger, Tyger, Copper, Copper) about the theory that the late, great British poet William Blake (1757-1827) and been killed by copper poisoning due to years of acid-etching copper plates as a print maker.
One chemist promptly wrote to raise the possibility that it might instead have been acid poisoning. Blake used nitric acid to etch his plates and exposure to that corrosive compound, he pointed out, turns the skin yellow. One symptom of Blake's final illness was his deeply yellowed skin.
Nitric acid - sometimes called engraver's acid - has a long and…
dblum | March 25, 2010Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
William Blake, the brilliant British poet, published "The Tyger" in 1794 and it's always been one of my favorite poems. I studied him during a brief period when I thought I might want to be a poet, a career plan undone by the fact that I hated it when others actually read my poetry.
Blake, obviously, didn't have that problem. But he had plenty of others. He struggled for recognition during his lifetime. He was plagued by chronic illness and also by apparent hallucinations. He…
bioephemera | June 2, 2009
Evolve
Electroformed Copper, Vitreous Enamel, Sterling, Pearls, Lens, Feathers, Steel, Worm
Photo: Courtney Frisse
Last week I featured electroformed copper pendants by Kristina Glick Shank. I also found another outstanding electroformed copper artwork, this one by Kristin Mitsu Shiga. I think it's a wonderful idea to portray a chrysalid, the very symbol of transience, in metal - one of the most permanent materials possible. I am sorry it's titled Evolve - I don't love it when the concept of evolution is conflated with the concept of individual development. But this piece is so interesting…
bioephemera | May 25, 2009
This is. . .
A. The surface of one of Jupiter's moons
B. Thermophilic archaebacteria in a hot spring
C. The pigmented iris of a Madagascar gecko
D. An electroformed enamel and copper pendant
E. Multicolored lichen at Enchanted Rock, Texas
Answer after the fold!
D* is correct: it is actually an enamel and copper electroformed pendant called "EyeSpy" by artist Kristina Glick Shank.
Shank's series of electroformed pendants impress me with their blend of controlled detail and organic (well, technically, mineral) textures. The electroforming gives an uncontrolled, natural feeling to the pieces…