Species

Week 2 of SciArt September 2025

Sep 14, 2025

You can see Week 1’s posts here. Week 2 is on the theme of Species and I definitely played with the prompts for this one. Mostly embroidery and one videopoem.

Day 8: niche

A stem-cell niche is a microenvironment where stem cells are found. Here's my autumnal mitosis sampler of a human reproductive cell (2024).

Autumnal Mitosis Sampler (2024). Two cells dividing embroidered on off white linen. A circle of brown stem stitch is the cell membrane, the corona radiata is in bright orangey yellow zig zag chain stitch. The edges of the dividing cells are in bright orange split stitch. The nucleolus of each cell is in bright yellow bullion stitch. The cytoplasm is stitched in variegated orange/brown thread in a mix of seed stitch and French knots. Lia’s initials are stitched in off white whipped back stitch.

Day 9: vanishing

The term Millions Missing is used for ME/CFS advocacy since most people with the disease—like myself—rarely have energy to leave their homes. My SciArt embroidery body map (2016) illustrates the invisible symptoms I experienced at the onset of ME/CFS.

Body Map (2016). An outline of a naked woman is embroidered on linen in the same bone white colour as the linen. She stands legs together, her right hand covering her groin, her left hand, palm up, extended slightly to her side. She looks to the right. Her entire body except for her belly is covered in intricate markings representing different neurological sensations. Her face is a mask of green lines, feathery grey lines cover her shoulders and chest. There is a thick band of intricate burgundy stitching around her waist. Her forearms and hands are covered in thick blue undulant lines. Her right leg has bands of burgundy along the muscles, with small dots around them. Her inner left leg has a thick line of blue running up it, with thin branches spreading towards her outer leg.

Day 10: tawny

My symptomatology embroidery—stars within, stars without (2017)— is stitched on tawny linen.

stars within, stars without (2017). An embroidery on ochre linen, there is the outline of a head and outstretched arms. Tiny blue filigree decorates the face and hands and there are light coloured stars on the chest area and around the neck.

Day 11: venomous

This excerpt from my videopoem ossa. ora (2015) features a bumblebee. You can watch the entire videopoem here.

(Alt text: A bee lies in a white oval shell. Two human baby teeth lay one to each side of the shell. Animated text reads: cuspid-framed bee bed. a dry wind. stinging things gone still.)

Day 12: wandering

My SciArt embroidery the wandering ghost (2024) is of the vagus nerve. Vagus is Latin for wandering. You can read more about this piece here.

An image of a vagus nerve embroidered on green cotton. The main nerve lines, brain, and face are in blue. A bright red anatomical heart is below the blue nerves. Around it is a bright golden yellow halo in a vesica piscis shape. Three sets of ribs are in bright green/yellow. There are some tiny details in different colours along some of the nerves. Burgundy roiling with sparse tiny black knots are in the gut. The nerve endings in the diaphragm area are lengthened.

Day 13: bottleneck

This Sciart embroidery WIP detail is of the stent in my left iliac vein. I have May Thurner's syndrome which compresses & creates a bottleneck in that vein so a stent was placed to remedy it: deep dilation (2025)