This past January, I went to see an exhibition in NY at the Gray Art Gallery curated by a friend named Natasha Boas. The exhibition was about an Algerian woman artist in the early/mid-20th century named Baya, and her work was extraordinary. But at the same gallery upstairs was an exhibition about a Spanish neuroanatomist and artist Santiago Ramon y Cajal. Ramon y Cajal was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on the anatomy of brain cells (along with Golgi), and the drawings he made from his observations are still used in neurology textbooks.
I recently became friends with a neuroscience professor at UC Berkeley, and his book Foundational Concepts in Neuroscience and the drawings by Ramon y Cajal inspired me to get this tattoo, which is based on Ramon y Cajal’s drawings (tho not an exact copy.)
Eric Siegel is the Director of the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley.
Want to share your own story and tattoo?
Email Beth: bredmondjones (at) sdnhm (dot) org or Paul: info (at) orselli (dot) net.
