The Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose recently invited me to do an installation project and children's activity based on the theme, "inspired by nature." I've always been awestruck by the microscopic cell patterns hiding deep within plants, and used these organic (but also somewhat geometrical) arrangements as inspiration for an artistic ink stamping concept.
Don't these images look a bit like stained glass windows in an old cathedral?
Cross-section of a sunflower stem under a microscope.
Stamping the Walls
Using these wonderful sunflower stem cell patterns as a starting point, I custom designed a set of ten new ink stamps that closely mimic the look and feel of the cell structure. I then got to work stamping out giant cross-sections of sunflower stems on the large white walls of the Art Loft.
Three of the ten custom stamps.
Making something really small into something really big!
Kids Are So Creative
While I covered the walls with giant-sized cell structures, creative kids made their own colorful cell inspired patterns to take home. The activity was a huge success - lots of kids (and parents) had a great time learning about plant cells and making their very own one-of-a-kind artworks.
The kids stamped in all kinds of colors to make really unique patterns.
A proud moment!
Getting a feel for the artistic wonders of nature.
Lea finishing up one of her many larger than life cell arrangements.
Thank you to Lisa and the Children's Museum of San Jose for letting me stamp all over your beautiful white walls! If your museum, library, or other institution is interested in having Lea develop a similar activity-based program (for kids or adults), we'd love to hear from you. You can email Lea directly with your idea and she'll get back to you right away!
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I feel fortunate that I either gravitated naturally towards science at school or something about the teacher(s) made it an attractive subject, but I can only imagine how positive an influence this kind of project would have on a young person. I'm actually a little jealous of what their memories will be. Bravo!!
Thanks so much for the enthusiasm!
I'd love to make more stamps and sell them, but custom ink stamps are pretty pricey (over $100 for the set of 10 stamps I made!) If you know anyone that might want some, though, I'd be happy to make arrangements for them to obtain a set. It would also be possible to create a smaller set where the final plant stem diameter isn't so huge and this would be much less expensive.
The children did pretty well with the microscopes, largely because there was adult staff there helping them focus them. Hooray for a well-staffed museum!
This is very cool – nice work! Plant cells really are so remarkable looking, and your wall installation of giant "cells" looks fantastic – I'd love you to post more pictures! And do you have any plans to make more stamps and sell them? As the previous poster alluded to, there might be a market among teachers and parents alike. How did the kids do looking through the microscopes? I recall hating scopes when I was a kid (even though I grew up to be a scientist!) because I could never see through them properly. Keep up the great work!
SO gorgeous lea!! Thanks for sharing, love it.
Beautiful! I just love it!
I really could have used those stamps in second year plants lab. I had to draw out plant cross sections! Would rather have used stamps!