Working on a spiders heart now... I think I will eventually overcome my strange anxiety for spiders. Beautiful creatures. Their heartbeat is the same as with us, humans. (30 to 70 beats per minute) and when they'reexcited, their heart beats as fast as 200 times per minute...
They carry their heart on their back. The blood is called hemolymph, it's color is bluish because of the copper-containing respiratory pigment hemocyanin. It has the same function of hemoglobin, but instead of iron, it contains two atoms of copper in the center of the molecule, which bind to oxygen. ('Biology of spiders', by Rainer F. Foelix) You can find the book online... very very interesting stuff! On the sketch you can see the heart and vessels. It is an open circulatory. I'll make the heart not in wax, as I first thought, but in sculpey. It will probably give me the opportunity to work faster and smaller... I found three out of four Bell jars! Good news. The stone hearts will be resting on a silver foot. A friend and collegue artist is working on that. Her site: http://www.ingridadriaenssensedelsmid.be/
Meanwhile I mamaged to visit 'La carriére de Luget', en France. The owner of the holiday house happened to know the owner of the carriére. Very interesting, since the take the stones out of a gigantic 'pit'. Never saw that before! |
blogWork in progress, Thoughts, ideas with no particular shape, exhibition setups and photos of openings, nice visits to interesting colleagues and scientists... Archives
May 2023
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