Employee art show reveals hidden talents
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by Eva Kiesler, managing editor
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- In addition to receiving the Lewis Thomas Prize on March 18, Sacks spoke on “Narrative and Science.”
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- Professor Titia de Lange (left), Agata Smogorzewska and Jan Karlseder propose that old cells stop reproducing when their shrinking telomeres become too short to function – not when they completely disappear, as scientists previously believed.
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- Professor Titia de Lange and colleagues discovered that TRF2 can allow cells with abnormally short telomeres to live just as long, and sometimes even longer, than normal cells. Above: Aged cells with critically short telomeres contain chromosome damage, such as end fusions and breaks (left). When these same cells are made to overproduce TRF2, they no longer exhibit this damage (right), indicating that TRF2 protects the ends of chromosomes.
Late one evening last fall, Rockefeller postdoctoral associate He Tian was setting up her camera on a tripod in the North Welch Garden outside the Markus Library. With a telephoto lens aimed toward the sky, and the exposure parameters carefully adjusted, she stood back and waited.
It was September 27, and a full lunar eclipse was about to emerge. “It happened to coincide with the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, and I had decided to take some photos to celebrate,” Dr. Tian says. The night was cloudy, but the wind chased the clouds, and she stayed patiently to catch glimpses of the moon. “It took me more than three hours to assemble a time series of photos,” she says, “but the process totally paid off!”
The pay-off eventually took the shape of an exquisite multi-panel print, which went on display for two weeks last month as part of Rockefeller’s annual Employee Art Show. For the past 17 years, this Human Resources initiative has been inviting staff to contribute art pieces that are mounted in the lobby of the Weiss Research Building to be admired by the entire community.
“We always have a great response to our calls for entries,” says HR administrator Anne Debassac, “and we receive some really amazing pieces from employees—everything from paintings and photography to ceramics, musical instruments, and handmade textiles.”
Inspired by nature
Dr. Tian was one of 46 community members whose creativity helped shape this year’s show. Another contributor was Bruce McEwen, Alfred E. Mirsky Professor and head of the Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology, who discovered the joy of painting while vacationing in Maine ten years ago. Since then he has continued painting in his New Jersey home on weekends, “first in water colors,” he says, “but then acrylics. I have gravitated more and more to animals, although I also do landscapes and scenes of other kinds.”
Dr. McEwen lent to the exposé a series of animal portraits he created on a trip to the Cayman Islands. “What gets to me when I do an animal is the look in the creature’s eyes,” he says, “or some other aspect of the animal, like the stately giraffes, one with a bird on its back. Color is also very important.”
Development officer Ben DiMatteo contributed four photos, including one titled Lady photographer and cool guy, taken during a trip to the Robert H. Treman State Park, in Central New York. “I was experimenting with a ‘posturize’ filter on my camera,” Mr. DiMatteo says. “I like how it makes people become part of the natural landscape. I was inspired by the notion that when we’re out in nature, we can be absorbed by it, and yet remain foreign in our humanness.”
Explore the slideshow above to see these and other highlights from the Employee Art Show. If you feel enticed to participate next year, look for a call for entries from Human Resources in the early fall.
