Mandala of Hearing 2 (Hair Cells), ink, gouache and graphite on paper, 2013
This is one in a series of mandalas that I drew in 2013 featuring motifs related to hearing loss and the electronics used to address it. This particular one represents the hair cells of the inner ear. When I lost my hearing, the doctors explained to me that we have these highly specialized cells called hair cells that are receptors for sound. I imagined them floating happily in a kind of inland sea in the inner ear – dancing to the vibrations of sound they receive from the outer world. In my case, my hair cells had mostly been damaged or destroyed by autoimmune inner ear disease and in humans they don’t regrow (they do in some waterfowl, which offers hope that there may someday be more effective treatments for hearing loss), but that didn’t stop me from imagining how beautiful the healthy ones must be. In 2019, Cochlear Americas, which is the company that manufactures my cochlear implants, put out a call for art to decorate their headquarters campus in Lone Tree, Colorado. I submitted a number of pieces, including the mandalas, and was so pleased when they were accepted. Cochlear created a beautiful website which shows all of the artwork that was accepted:
Morrow Art Productions 