Program cover, ConText XX
ConText is an annual speculative fiction convention that has a heavy writing focus. I loved it. I got to do the program covers two years in a row. This was the second year.
This year was a memorial cover, commemorating the death of one of ConText’s founders, Liz Gross, a biochemist and professor at Ohio State.
See larger image.
For those interested in that kind of thing, here’s the symbolism applied in the picture, after discussion with one of Dr. Gross’s friends and fellow ConText supporters.
- I used three test tubes in a rack to both indicate science, and three areas of her life suggested by her friend: science, science fiction, and Christianity.
- White lilies emerge from one tube (digitally adapted from one of my own photos). Death and Christianity.
- Elements and proteins emerge from another. The protein is plastocyanin, and all the elements & molecules listed are involved in cytochrome f. Investigating Dr. Gross online I found her particular areas of research involved plastocyanin and cytochrome f, so I hope she would appreciate this.
- Science-fiction imagery and books spill out from the third test tube. One of the books reads ELeGy; her initials were ELG.
