Since last semester I have taken a profound interest in the neural pathways of the body. My mom has had lots of weird residual effects from chemotherapy, including shocks and tingling sensations from her shoulder (on the side where she had a partial mastectomy) down to her fingers. She is currently in physical therapy to treat soreness on that side, but the doctors say she will likely feel nerve effects for years to come.

Over the winter break my father (who is a professor of electrical engineering) and I created Lichtenburg Figures on wood panels in our basement. We took apart an old microwave and hooked up the transformer (power source, roughly 2000 volts) to power clips and shocked wood to create the figures below. (The images are kind of stretched from the scanner: better images to follow shortly). The wood was dampened with a mix of baking soda and water to increase conductivity, and sprayed periodically to prevent fires (when the burns meet and complete the circuit, the panel would burst into flames). The only downfall of this technique is that the baking soda seems to have stained the wood a yellowish color that I find unattractive. I will experiment with some fine grain sandpaper to see if I can remedy this without re-staining the wood.

I am now planning my woodburning illustrations on the shocked panels using acetate to plan where the sketches should be. Using this technique I can plan the layouts of my panels without damaging them incase I change my mind. More images to follow!