December update

First issue of my newsletter!

Welcome to the December update!

First of all, I can’t thank you enough for being here. I must admit I was nervous about starting this, and even after deciding to go for it, it took several weeks to build up the courage. So when I made the announcement on Instagram and immediately notifications about new subscribers started rolling in, I was shocked. Over 40 people signed up in just the first few hours, and now we’ve passed 60. This is so far beyond my expectations I can hardly wrap my head around it.

Thank you, truly, for this incredible support. It means so much to me.

The comments and messages on Instagram were reassuring too. I’m relieved to know that I’m not the only one who has been feeling let down by Instagram lately, because it was definitely starting to get in my head.

But in a way I’m glad this happened. It’s nice here! I can communicate more naturally, without worrying so much about what’s appropriate for the platform. This space can be what I need it to be, instead me trying to fit myself into it.

So here we are, at the beginning of a new chapter. I have a good feeling about it, and I hope you do too.

Now, let’s get into the first update.

Newest artwork

This drawing was inspired by a video I took in the microscope while looking at a sample from the small lake near us. I was mesmerized watching this huge amoeba slide through the debris, and suddenly noticed a flagellate, Peranema, struggling inside a pocket that the giant amoeba had formed. As the amoeba changed direction the hole opened up again and the flagellate was able to escape.

I finished this in September and shared it on Instagram. You can see the post here, in case you missed it.

Peranema’s Escape

It’s always fascinating to think about a microbe’s will to live. These are single cells with no brain or nervous system, but they have a clear motivation to stay alive and take care of themselves. I often see flagellates struggling with debris stuck to their tails, and the way they fight to free themselves makes me feel genuine empathy for them.

This new piece is available in my print shop.

I also finished a new “doodle page”. Doodle pages are an exercise I do as a warm up or in between other works, or when I just feel like drawing very casually without a plan or expectations.

Basically, I start at one corner and gradually fill out the page bit by bit. It doesn’t matter if the perspective gets weird or anything like that, I just keep going. It’s very relaxing, and these sessions are very often interrupted by a stroke of inspiration for a new project, or an idea for how to continue something I’ve been working on. If you ever feel stuck on a creative project, I highly recommend trying this!

Current work in progress

Here’s something I’ve been working on recently as a personal project. The idea is to feature fungal hyphae binding soil particles together. This is something we talk about all the time with soil life, but I don’t have any drawings yet that specifically feature it, so it’s about time!

A similar scene in the microscope would look something like this:

I’m feeling a little stuck on how to proceed from here. I need to finish detailing the hyphae of course, and that might be all it needs, along with a sprinkling of bacteria and protozoa. Or maybe it needs more hyphae? I’m not sure! Will just have to keep pushing forward and see what happens.

Recent events

Here’s an overview of some of what’s been happening this fall. Things were relatively quiet in September, but October until now has been very busy!

School microscope workshop

A quiet moment before the chaos

I was invited to do a volunteer soil life workshop for a school in Ulefoss, here in Norway in October. I brought living root slides and a variety of soil and compost samples to explore. We also had earthworms from my compost pile, and the students even met a tardigrade from a fresh moss sample.

Teenagers are hard to impress, so I was nervous that this would be a quiet session, but wow, they were INTO it! The tardigrade became a mini celebrity, and some of the students became almost obsessed with trying to find their own. They quickly learned how to handle the microscopes and make their own slides, and only one slide was crushed in the microscope. Not bad!

As someone who doesn’t normally work with kids, it felt like complete out of control chaos, but the teacher reassured me that things were going very well. He said this group was normally quiet and it was unusual to see them so excited. I think a lot of that energy comes from the surprise of microscopic life being so unexpectedly interesting. I loved this experience and hope I’ll get a chance to do it again.

OSEH Environmental Diversity Now

Back in spring I was hired to to do a small workshop for Master students of the University of Oslo’s Oslo School of Environmental Humanities (OSEH). It was part of a series of excursions for the Environmental Humanities and Sciences Honours Certificate which had the students engage with environmental issues through “place-based learning”. A big part of this was to explore different perspectives on environmental topics, including a mix of arts and sciences.

We met at Bygdø Royal Farm in Oslo and took a walk around, comparing soil in different areas while discussing ecological succession and how human activities impact soil. Then we took some soil samples indoors, where the students had an opportunity to try sketching the soil from the perspective of microbes.

Since I was part of the program, I was also invited to join OSEH’s 5 year celebration event in Oslo in October. The excursion had been such a great experience, I was glad to have the chance to meet with this group again, even though it was over 3 hours each way by train.

It was a cozy evening with thought-provoking discussions and an inspiring presentation by poet and nature writer Camille Dungy. It was wonderful to reconnect with the students and professors, but also bittersweet because the event marked the closing of this program, hopefully just temporarily.

This was also where I met Gavin Lamb, who told me about Substack when I mentioned I was considering starting a newsletter. He was so enthusiastic I had to look into it, and I’m so glad I did! Gavin writes about ecolinguistics and environmental communication over at Wild Ones.

A trip to Canada with a surprise gallery talk!

Later in October I became an aunt for the first time, so I traveled to Canada for three weeks to visit with family and meet my new nephew. The first day after my arrival, my mom and I went to see a photography show at the local art gallery in Wasaga Beach, Ontario. The show was called “From the Forest Floor”, and focused on experiencing biodiversity and connection in forests.

We met the photographer, Xan Lazaridis, and she and I connected instantly. After only a brief conversation, she invited me to come back on Monday and give a talk to help her close the show. What!

Normally I’d have several weeks or months to agonize over a speaking engagement, but this time I had only two days to prepare so there was no time to be nervous. Xan and I had great chemistry despite having just met, and the evening was a success with only minor spacing out from jet lag on my part. This was also a unique opportunity to have some of my family in the audience, since I’d only done presentations in Norway before this.

Jordløftet Seminar

Jordløftet is a soil health and sustainability initiative run by Viken county here in Norway. It’s an impressive project; you can read more about it here in Norwegian (or use google translate). It was an honour to have one of my drawings used to introduce their closing seminar in Oslo in November. There is a report with a summary coming, so I’ll link to that in a future update once it’s available.

Nostalgic lab work

I got a dose of nostalgia for my old job when VitalAnalyse needed some lab work done to wrap up a project. We used a temporary lab space, so I was touched to see that my former colleague had hung some of my artwork up on the wall. Even though it’s been a few years since I did this procedure, much of it was still in my muscle memory after having done it thousands of times before.

It’s been a few years but I could still do this in my sleep!

The tests were for VitalAnalyse’s reference farm project, which is a regenerative agriculture experiment that has been running for many years now. You can read more about it here (in Norwegian), or check out the project’s earlier report from 2018-2020, which is also in Norwegian, but the abstract is in English.

Other projects

3D modelling has mostly been on hold while I’ve been busy with other things. However, I did briefly jump into Shapelab in VR and modeled this testate amoeba just for fun, then printed it. These would be fun to have in future workshops!

Open for commissions!

I am currently open for commissions. If you’re interested, you can reply to the newsletter email or write to post@mikroliv.no.

That’s all for now

This post is getting long so I’ll wrap up here. The next newsletter will likely be in late January or February, but in the meantime I might make some smaller posts that don’t go out as emails. I’m still finding my way around this new platform and learning how to use it. So far though, I’m really loving it and glad to be here.

I hope you are well and wish you all the very best for the holiday season. Thank you again for joining me here and sharing this new experience!

All the best,

Kate