ADAGIO -Photomicrograph of crystalline acetaminophen
View from the Vashon Studio/Lab
The killdeer are back.
After wintering in Mexico and Central America, these small shorebirds have returned to the beach in front of my studio. Each spring one or two pairs find the perfect place to nest among the driftwood and beach grass. Their nests are almost impossible to see—until I wander a little too close.
Then the performance begins.
From fifty feet away they erupt into noise and motion, calling loudly and circling in an effort to lure me away from the nest. Day after day we repeat this ritual until the young have safely hatched and grown strong enough to disappear into the wider world.
All of the “View from the Studio” photographs in my newsletters are taken along the quarter-mile stretch of beach just outside my door. I’m fortunate to live and work in a place where stepping outside for a few minutes of sea air can reset the mind after several hours peering through a microscope.
Ideas often arrive when you stop trying so hard to find them. A walk along the beach is a remarkably reliable catalyst.
This month I’m sharing several new crystal photographs made from acetaminophen, along with an Art & Science story about the mysterious 17th-century painter Johannes Torrentius and the secretive methods that still puzzle historians today.
— Lee
Vashon Island · March 2026
SECRET GARDEN -Photomicrograph of crystalline acetaminophen
ART AND SCIENCE: Secrets in the Attic
With its climate of intellectual tolerance, the Dutch Republic of the 17th century became a gathering place for scientists, artists, and thinkers from across Europe.
Among them was Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, one of the earliest microscopists. Through the precise grinding of tiny lenses, he built instruments powerful enough to reveal an entirely new world—the first observations of bacteria and other microscopic life. What he saw he shared freely with the scientific community. How he made his microscopes, however, remained a closely guarded secret.
In the same city of Delft lived Johannes Vermeer, now considered one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age. Vermeer’s luminous interiors possess a clarity that can feel almost photographic. For centuries scholars have debated how he achieved such remarkable realism. Some suggest he may have used mirrors or lenses as observational aids. If so, Vermeer kept those methods to himself.
Another painter of the era, Johannes Torrentius, was equally celebrated in his day. A charismatic and controversial figure working in Haarlem in the early 17th century, Torrentius was widely admired for his still-life paintings.
Yet today he is almost unknown.
The reason is startling: only one of his paintings survives.
Torrentius’s reputation collapsed when he was accused of belonging to the Rosicrucians and promoting atheistic or even satanic ideas. Convicted of blasphemy in 1627, he was imprisoned and tortured, and many of his paintings were destroyed.
His lone surviving work, Emblematic Still Life with Flagon, Glass, Jug and Bridle, painted in 1614, resurfaced centuries later under unlikely circumstances. In 1910 it was discovered in the attic of an Amsterdam grocer, where it had been used as the cover for a barrel of currants.
The painting astonished historians. Its surfaces show almost no visible brushwork. Light glides across the metal, glass, and ceramic objects with extraordinary realism. The paint appears to have been blended to a smooth, enamel-like finish, possibly using an unusual binding medium.
Torrentius left few clues to his process. At one point he cryptically described his method by saying that while he worked, “a sweet musical sound is heard above the panel as if a swarm of bees were hovering over it.”
Modern science has tried to unravel the mystery using chemical analysis and advanced imaging techniques. Yet even with today’s technology, the exact method Torrentius used to create his remarkable surfaces remains uncertain.
Secrets were not uncommon in an era when artists and scientists alike were experimenting with new materials, new instruments, and new discoveries.
Four centuries later, artists and scientists are still experimenting with novel ways of seeing, interpreting and communicating the world around us.
As Torrentius himself once remarked:
“I am not the one who paints — I use another science.”
This month’s stories share something in common: much of what fascinates us is hidden at first glance. Whether along the shoreline, inside a crystal array, or on the surface of a centuries-old painting, discovery often begins simply by looking a little more closely.
Follow along on LinkedIn
I’ve begun posting my crystal images, new discoveries, and short videos each week on LinkedIn. If you’d like to see additional work as it emerges from the studio, I'd love to have you join the conversation.
For Designers and Architects
I’ve recently added a small Trade Program to the website that provides trade pricing and project support for design professionals specifying artwork in residential, healthcare, or commercial interiors. Learn more here.
