Brain fiber Artist explores neural images in tapestry

Lia Cook’s most recent self-portraits go beyond surface appearance – they look into her brain.
Cook is weaving images of her brain fibers into her most recent tapestry.
Cook, who has three tapestries on view at River House Arts gallery in Perrysburg, has been working with
neuroscientists and psychiatrists to find out how art affects the brain.
And some of those findings are finding their way into her art.
This is the latest turn for the artist whose works have found a place in museums around the world
including the Smithsonian and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
In some shows she has photographs of the same images depicted in her tapestry. Cook said Friday in an
interview in the gallery that she realized that viewers had very different reactions to the woven images
than to the none woven. She speculated it had to do with viewers’ connection to the tactile nature of
both the finished tapestry and the process that created it.
She found that the woven pieces tapped something deeper, more primal, "more reptilian" in the
viewers. Not satisfied with these subjective observations, she realized she’d have to engage the
scientific community in finding answers.
Cook started working with Dr. Greg Siegle at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine’s TREND
(Transdisciplinary Research in Emotion, Neuroscience and Development), in the emerging field of
neuroaesthetic.
She’s "spent more time in a MRI machine than anybody else," said Sandra Jane Heard, her former
student who curated the exhibit "Transforming Touch" at River House.
Some of those images have found their way into her work. The Perrysburg exhibit has her most recent
tapestry "Doll Brain Tracks." The piece has a doll face looking out at the viewer through a
thicket of brain fibers. Those are images from a scan of the artist’s own brain.
They are not, she said, actual pictures of her brain matter, but rather digital representations of the
fibers that connect various parts of the brain.
Cook is interested in producing science as well as art. At a current exhibit in Pittsburgh, viewers are
asked to give open ended responses to two images – one a photograph and the other a woven image.
Cook said she’s just started reading the responses and finds them fascinating. One person noted that no
one has ever asked her about her perception of art before.
She’s working with other people as well, but before she can integrate their brain imagery into her work
she must come to know them. "I’m in the process of interviewing people who have agreed to let me
use their brain image."
Her questions probe their childhood memories as well as background in art.
Cook’s desire for familiarity is not surprising given her use of old family photographs of herself. One
of the other tapestries on display has a childhood photo over which Cook overlays a maze pattern.
Another is a large self-portrait that prominently features her broad, strong hands.
Cook, who has a bachelor’s degree in political science, was inspired in the 1960s to study weaving by the
work of Mexican women. She traveled to Europe where she started her studies. She did graduate work at
the University of California, Berkeley.
Over the years she integrated painting and photography with her weaving. One tapestry series involved her
painting details from drapery in the work of Old Master’s, tearing the paintings up and weaving them
together to form a larger image.
She works on a large loam that has 2640 individually programmable warp threads across.
She uses a digital version based on the classic Jacquard technique to create highly detailed images made
of strands of thread.
While the loom is digital, the work is still done manually, Cook said. "It’s still a very hands on
process."