Here’s the finished result, Mother and Child (responses to the Boyd Collection) hung on the studio wall just to see how it looks. I’ve enjoyed doing this work. Getting the transvers to bond and melt into the canvas without breaking up was initially a bit of a problem, and was oddly similar to problems I initially had when I learnt to make slides from frozen endometrial biopsies. Getting  slivers of tissue to lie flat and whole on the glass surface of the slide took a bit of patience, practice and frustration!

Each image, apart from the first, is of the part of the slide where the maternal uterine wall is in close proximity with the placental tissue of the child. The first image is of uterine glands, these produce substances that nourish the very early implanting embryo before the placenta is fully established.

There are multiple images because the source is a collection, and the images are enclosed in circles or microscope fields mainly because that felt right, but also circles have a completeness, the field of vision is concentrated and the baby is enclosed within a circular structure as it develops.

Then a little bit of synchronicity, I’d no sooner pinned the canvasses up on the cellar wall and grandson number three arrived. Here he is. Hello Joshua.