Robert Luddy Haining (Rob) was born in Seattle, Washington on July 27th, 1964. He attended Cedar Park Elementary, Jane Adams Jr. High, and Nathan Hale High schools in Seattle. From an early age he focused on science and understanding the way things work. He left Seattle to attend Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington in 1982 and graduated in May of 1986 with a bachelor of arts degree, majoring in chemistry with a minor in biology. Following a year of work in the chemistry field, he decided to further pursue his education and entered the Ph.D. program in biochemistry and biophysics at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington in the fall of 1987. In his thesis work Rob studied the effect of amino acid substitutions in the active site of the enzyme ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO). He learned the techniques of molecular biology which allow one to conduct genetic engineering studies. Following his Ph.D. studies, he put this knowledge to use in understanding the effect of genetic substitutions within the genes encoding critical drug mebaolizing enzymes found in humans. These so call pharamacogenetic changes influence the ways we individually respond to drug therapy and help explain numerous adverse drug reactions. During this postdoctoral stint within the University of Washington's Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Rob applied for and was received a major federal grant (R01) to study such pharmacogenetic changes. He subsequently accepted a position at West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV in the summer of 2000 where he performed research and taught until 2007.

 

So where then, you ask, did the mirror etching and woodworking come from??   Good question. (switch to first person)

 

In short, my chosen career took something of a turn for the worse over a negative tenure decision, a decision I felt was unwarranted based on departmental precedence. I felt I had no real recourse through the appeal proces, given that the dean of my school, the dean of the broader health sciences, and the university president all resigned or retired during this period. Neither did I wish to make news as the sour grapes I would invariably sound like no matter how justified my case. And having moved my 5 children to Morgantown 7 years earlier but now divorcing on top of the tenure decision, I was reluctant to move away to another university to repeat the process I had just undergone. Until funding in non-terrorism related fields bounced back, I reasoned, I was likely to encounter the same politics-and-money game all over again. And I did not become a scientist to play games surrounding politics or money.

 

No, I became a scientist to work with my hands, to perform experiments which no one else had ever done. I wanted to try new things and to occupy my mind with testing new ideas. From an early age I knew I did not want to end up in a job in which I repeated the same procedure over and over again for years on end. Science was a profession where I could focus my talents on what I did best (so I thought). To be sure, I had and still have some brilliant ideas regarding Parkinson's disease, if I may say so myself. It is a terrible shame that they may never see their true potential given the amount of training I have in this area. But I had to conclude that the career had lost much of its appeal. Instead of exciting days in the lab, I found thankless days in the classroom and depressing days in the office writing grant proposals:

 

Sooo.....rather than pick up a bottle or worse, I decided to focus my time experimenting with some crafts to get through the negativity. An artist friend made soy wax candles at the time, and convinced me to purchase some materials to maintain his fledgling candle business. In the hands-on process, I found not only a great deal of stress relief but also an outlet for the creative energies which had been stagnating as a university faculty member. My children's karate instructor was actually the first one to suggest glass etching as a way to label the glass jars I was making candles in. Oddly enough, the beginnings of my new career were born right then as I rushed off to buy some etching cream and then sat down to cut some templates of feng-shui symbols out of contact paper. My chemistry skills and my laboratory instincts kicked in as I pondered what else I could do with my new techniqe. What I could do was take a recognizable face that didn't have too much detail in it and etch it onto glass. What I didn't realize was that the contrast would be backwards (see Bob Marley tabletop below) if I tried to 'darken' the glass by etching. But when I put a white piece of paper under Bob, his image jumped right out at me! I subsequently hand-coppered this glass over the etched surface to get the end result shown to the right below--the image looks backwards in some lighting conditions but then appears in bright sunlight. Still pretty cool! However, I realized that I could use this to my advantage by using a mirrored surface to provide the naturally dark background to my etching. Furthermore, the ambient lighting conditions cause the etching to 'glow', rendering the use of expensive backlighting setups unnecessary.

 

And the rest, as they say is history.

 

 Below are a few downloadable attachments which highlight my scientific career. I have not yet put together an artists c.v., but intend to do so in the near future as I have now garnered at least three awards and have presented at numerous juried exhibitions.