Thursday, July 9, 2009

Twombly

Cy Twombly Untitled 2001

this sculpture is a recent obsession of mine. it's currently on display in Cy Twombly: The Natural World at the Art Institute of Chicago. for me, the merging of conflicting ideas in this piece are really what interests me: celebration/funeral, death/life, and the acceptance of this conflict as part of being human.



this last photo is of some scraps in my studio: a found and faded piece of a lei or streamer, 2 used gold twist-ties, splatters of acrylic paint and a candy flower made by my mom

Friday, July 3, 2009

Wandering Light

A person walking rapidly through a heavy rainstorm with the drops falling straight downward, will have to tilt his umbrella slightly forward to compensate for his own motion. In the same way and for the same reason, an astronomer on a rapidly moving Earth must tilt his telescope slightly forward in the direction of the earth's motion in order to have the starlight fall exactly down the center of his tube. As a result of this motion, the apparent position of a star does not ordinarily coincide with its true position. We term this phenomenon the aberration or "wandering" of light. The maximum shift from true to apparent position is 20".47.

from A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets by Donald H. Menzel

Like Shooting Stars (digital photograph)
taken on the first Chicago snow of 2009