Blood was first used as a medium in the piece Shell Game in 2005. While experimenting with binders to hold the blood in suspension for this piece I was surprised at how beautiful the blood was when dispersed on a surface. The patterns it made were reminiscent of stars or galaxies, satellite photos of forests or deserts and, of course, cells and tissues. These literal pictorial patterns were directly related to the implied patterns explored in the sculpture: a visual representation of the patterns that everyone experiences throughout life.