Updated Cereal Killer

"Art is never finished, only abandoned." This quote is credited to Leonardo da Vinci and it appears he's right. At the last minute I flipped all the metazoan prey upside down so they looked dead at the hands (er, arms) of Notodendrodes. The piece was gifted to the staff of Health Research, Inc. after giving a talk about our research projects. They are displaying it in their lunch room, which seems fitting. 


Cereal Killer as it appears on display at Health Research, Inc.

 I don't want to abandon "Cereal Killer" until it's in a better frame. And then there's "Cereal Killer II" to work on, now that I've figured out how to make these things ...

Cereal Killers

My colleagues and I give dozens of art/science talks to audiences ranging from 1st graders to senior citizens. They seem to enjoy stories about diving under the ice, watching penguins play, and how we go to the bathroom when it's minus 20. But when it gets to the science, do they really understand the important implications of carnivorous single-celled organisms? Don't ask me where the thought came from, but perhaps a play on words, together with an interesting piece of "art," would help. Ergo, I sat down to illustrate a cereal killer foram. First step: buy a bunch of cereal and resist the temptation to eat it all in one sitting. (I love cereal!)
 


Preparing the palette

I have scads of Japanese rice paper left over from the spitball amoeba project. Might as well adorn it with rice crispy cereal (plus other cerealicious shapes, sizes, and colors). NOTE: I consulted the literature and concluded that this is the first time a foraminiferan collage has been made out of cereal. I hope it becomes a new movement ...




Moving breakfast around

   Artist friends often mention the satisfaction it brings to "push around paint." I fully understand what they mean. It's also rewarding to squirt around glue, and brush around cereal. Lots of fun!

The cereal killer with metazoan prey - just like in nature! (Well, artistic license with the bugs.)

In the end, I depicted Notodendrodes antarctikos with plastic metazoans adorning its branches. It's not accurate, of course, but it was fun to make and serves to illustrate the concept: single-celled carnivores littering the seafloor, eating small invertebrates. Sometimes silly examples can spawn serious discussion that lay audiences can grab hold of and tear apart.

Just like a Notodendrodes with a juvenile starfish. Or me with five boxes of yummy cereal to eat!

Spitball Testate Amoebas





Award-winning amoeba art!