two new blue

2 new pieces. The first, Blue Spill, is a re-working of an older piece: Coleman 82 Quart Ultimate Xtreme Cooler. I felt that I had no good justification for the use of cardboard in the earlier piece - at the time I thought of the cardboard in terms of poor materials and thereby as a comment on class. The comment on class didn't come from the material, rather it came from the subject - a cooler (a very vernacular and utilitarian object). This piece is also a nod to a Bill Conger piece from some time ago. The second piece is my toast to the creation of stars. I chose this object because of it's similarity to some gas clouds that birth stars, and because it reflects light. Its a miniature stellar gas cloud and a salute to the creation stars.

Blue Spill (Coleman cooler, lights, extension cord) 2010

Blue Spill (detail)

Celestial Ether (cocktail toothpick and tape) 2010

And the Lord said...

Yesterday I went to the Art Institute in search of the light. Camera in hand, I searched the whole museum. Here is what I found.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres - Untitled (Strange Music) (42 lightbulbs, extension cord, and porcelain light sockets) 1993

This Gonzales-Torres piece is definitely a father to a few pieces of mine (such as 2700°K and My Universe and Yours). I admire the simplicity of his work - in his work very small gestures have grand and poetic connotations. In this piece the poetry is musical; as referenced by the title. The light bulbs act as and are transformed into vertical and piled musical notes on the measure of the extension cord.

Robert Ryman - from The Elliott Room (Charter Series) (oil and acrylic paint, fiberglass, aluminum, and steel) 1985-87

Robert Ryman - from The Elliott Room (Charter Series) (oil and acrylic paint, fiberglass, aluminum, and steel) 1985-87

These two pieces by Ryman do not have light in them, but anyone who has visited this room is at first struck by the lighting; one wall of the room is windows from the floor to the ceiling. These pieces seem to be vehicles for light and light play. I had the fortunate experience of seeing the blinds open once while viewing these pieces. The colors changed and it was like a dawning or enlightenment - both of which were a consistent theme in my search for the light in the Institute's galleries.

Max Ernst - Forest and Sun (oil on canvas) 1927

This one has an obvious connection, sundog - as a phenomenological and mysterious event. But surrealists were all about the magic.

Joseph Cornell - Untitled (Lighted Owl), c. 1949 [from the AIC website - I couldn't photograph this because of a really bad glare on the display case]

Cornell was the reason I decided to dedicate my interests to art. I couldn't talk about light without referencing one of his lighted boxes. The new installation of these are at once problematic and magical. This box and the other lighted piece (Untitled (Lighted Dancer)) are in very tall (too tall to see the things at the top) display cases in the cave area of the surrealist galleries. The darkness in this area is beneficial though. These two boxes are completely dark, to the extent that you can not make out any parts of the image until you manage to make the sensor turn the lights on. So here light is the momentary giver of image.

Georgia O'Keeffe - The Shelton with Sunspots, N.Y. (oil on canvas) 1926

Georgia O'Keeffe - Ballet Skirt or Electric Light (oil on canvas) 1927

I have to say that I've never really like O'Keeffe too much, but there has always been something that has drawn me to some of here paintings. Here these two pieces find their home in this group of 'light' works by their solid (in paint on canvas) representation of ephemeral light effects.

Edvard Munch - Girl Looking out the Window (oil on canvas) c.1892

Soooo awesomely sincere. A person at a window always conjures up notions of longing for me, so here the light is nostalgic, emotional, and hopeful. This piece rings nicely with my piece, Downtown Chicago Nightlight. As note, it is odd that the top two panes of the window do not project onto the floor. The girl looking out the window also seems to be praying, a nice segue into the next image.

John Martin - Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still, from Illustrations of the Bible (mezzotint, on ivory wove paper) 1835

Here it is, light as God. Joshua is commanding the sun to stand still as a display of divine power - but the rays of sun is also a symbol of 'the light of God.' The light rays blast in through treacherous and stormy clouds to illuminate the people below.

Sanford Robinson Gifford - Hunter Mountain, Twilight (oil on canvas) 1866

I ended my search on a type of painting that I was looking for the whole time - romantic landscape. Romantic era paintings were about the splendor and awe of nature and God's creations - light almost always is a major player in these works for that reason. This painting by Gifford shows a beautiful sunset in the Catskill Mountains in New York. The sun bathes the landscape in glowing oranges while the crescent moon and Polaris usher in the night and guide the viewer though the darkness that will in no doubt be just as beautiful - I imagine the night time landscape bathed in blues and silvers.

Sanford Robinson Gifford - Hunter Mountain, Twilight (detail) (oil on canvas) 1866

Polaris and the moon here are the guiding light for what will come. I left the museum and headed home.

Polychromatic Cloud

I found a new use for my opalescent tissue paper: Cloud. The previous piece using this material was The Mystery of Sprites and Jets. I don't think of this as a bettering of this idea - it is more like a piece in conversation with my other atmospheric pieces (a new 'body of work' or group is developing along this). The photos do not really do it justice, there is a lot more amazing color play in the reflections and projections (onto the wall behind the paper) that are hard to document) - it also is really light and airy, so it moves when you walk past it.
This came from my interest in an image of a polychromatic cloud and my want to make a piece with this material for the upcoming exhibition with Erica Moore called Polaris.

Cloud (tissue paper, rare earth magnets, and screws) 2010

(detail)

Kay Ryan
Cloud
-

A blue stain
creeps across
the deep pile
of the evergreens.
From inside the
forest it seems
like an interior
matter, something
wholly to do
with trees, a color
passed from one
to another, a
requirement
to which they
submit unflinchingly
like soldiers or
brave people
getting older.
Then the sun
comes back and
it's totally over.

the sky on fire

14 additions to things that happen in our atmosphere, after previous posts of mine that focused on moondogs, aurora borealis, and upper-atmosphere lightning. Most of these effects are caused by ice crystals in the earth's atmosphere. Some events happen high in the stratosphere and some happen close to the ground. Each of the links provides the source and further information on the photo. I feel like any of these may spur further playing and making in my studio - especially the green flash and sundog (parhelia).

green flash - NASA picture of the day March 21, 2004 (link)

(link to many more)

stages of a green flare (link)
(funny Pirates of the Caribbean link on the green flash at the end of At World's End)

double rainbow, west Iceland (link)

polychromatic cloud- Hidden Dunes, Death Valley National Park (link)

a sundog and it's reflection, Arches N.P. (link)

sundog in Malaysia (link)

parhelia (link)

sun pillar and sundog in Aftenposten, Norway (link)

NASA photo of the day January 23, 2003 - sun pillar in Caledon, Ontario, Canada (link)

light pillars (from street lights) on the University of Waterloo campus, Waterloo, Canada, Feb. 8, 2007 (link)

NASA picture of the day March 5, 2006 - light pillars from an ice skating rink in Fairbanks, Alaska (link)

light pillars from street lights in Sigulda, Latvia on Dec. 20, 2008 (link)

spiral over Norway caused by a failed Russian missile test on Dec. 9, 2009 (link)

supposed UFO over Phoenix, USA (link)

Aspen Mays and the Stars

"To find your way among the stars, choose some familiar pattern
as a starting point and gradually work your way from one star
group to another."
Menzel, Donald H. A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964, p. 104.

Aspen Mays - Jellybean Universe (jellybeans and jar, on a locker) from her exhibit "From the Offices of Scientists" at the Hyde Park Art Center

The work in Aspen Mays' exhibition "From the Offices of Scientists" at the Hyde Park Art Center comes from direct observations she made at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago while presumably making the video, Larry. The pieces in this show (Jellybean Universe seen above) depart from Mays familiar medium of photography. Sculpture, installation, and only one sculpture-like photograph, You're Next populate this show. The pamphlet accompanying the exhibition states,
"By applying creative license to astral discovery, Mays emphasizes those moments where humor, humbleness and big ideas meet and restores the basic sense of wonder the cosmos have instilled in humans since the beginning of time."
-Allison Peters Quinn, Director of Exhibitions, Hyde Park Art Center.

As I organize and write for the two person (me and Erica Moore) exhibition "Polaris" at Ainsworth Gallery in Joliet, IL I can't help but think that Aspen Mays has beat me to my own punchline. In the "Polaris" exhibition Erica and I are focusing on the mystery and draw of space as inspiration, and as a metaphor for creative practice in relation to the above quote from Donald Menzel. I loved this exhibition for its attempt to represent the grand and phenomenological in human terms and its attention to objects and their meanings and I can only hope that Aspen may read this and want to be my friend.

Aspen Mays - Planet Boxes (cardboard document boxes) 2009

I have only a few questions or critiques of Aspen Mays' exhibition: what is up with the dolphins in The Moon and where is the monitor and CPU in Boulder Desk? As well as ask, do these pieces generalize the "scientists" that she observed into a generic form? These things aside I want to say that this is a beautiful show.

Aspen Mays - Boulder Desk (office desk, boulder, cubicle walls, trash can, legal paper, computer keyboard, and carpet) 2010

Light and Phenomenology at 2700°K

my chart for wire/fixture electrical polarity

"To be freed from this bondage [of Plato's cave], to be liberated, is thus to be brought into the light, for it is through light, sunlight, that the world, and our situation in it becomes 'unhidden'... We also remember that the prisoners in the cave stand for our situation in the world, then we can see that the fire represents the Sun, which is confirmed by Plato himself towards the end of the allegory."
-Gertz, Nolen. from Toward a Phenomenology of Light.

"There is indeed brightness, 'light', inside the cave, but from behind. The prisoners have no relationship to light as light, for neither do they see the fire that casts the light. [...] All this, things that cast shadows, fire that makes shadows possible, is opisthen, behind their backs, as distinct from ta prosthen, what they see before them. Only the latter is unhidden' the former remains hidden. Here, therefor, being human also means, among other things: to stand within the hidden, to be surrounded by the hidden..."
-Heidegger, Martin. The Essence of Truth (New York: Continuum, 2002), p. 12.

"In our original situation in the cave all we see is shadows, but that they are shadows is 'hidden' from us, for we do not see what they really are. It is not until we become aware of this distinction between seeing as seeing and seeing as knowing that we can see things properly. [...]
If the fire in the cave represents the actual Sun and its light represents the mundane way of seeing things, then the seeing of Ideas is represented by the light outside the cave and that highest of Ideas for Plato, the Idea of the Good, is what is represented by the Sun."
-Gertz, Nolen. from Toward a Phenomenology of Light.

This in line with my interest in light and a recent piece I finished. At the top is the chart I made so I would wire the fixtures correctly and below is a detail image of the piece. More images are on my website.

2700°K (light bulbs and light fixture) 2010

(refer to earlier posts Big Bang and Big Bang 2 for more info on the evolution of this piece)

TASK

Oliver Herring's TASK Party at University Galleries, Illinois State University, Normal, IL

Basic instructions for this event: come into the space - write a task on a piece of paper - put the task into the the task box - then draw a task out of the task box - make/do/interpret the drawn task in any manner that you choose, using yourself and/or any of the materials or parts of the gallery you want.

I drove down to Normal with the Visual Arts Seminar class from the University of St. Francis. We visited the Ann Coulter show at the McLean County Arts Center first, then ate lunch at the Coffeehouse. We arrived at the TASK Party at around 1:45pm and left when it ended, around 5:00pm. I felt pretty good about a few tasks that I submitted (notably: "It's hammer time - you know what to do," "Kiss someone," "Draw your favorite state on someones face," "Tell Oliver Herring he is cute," and "Put this task back in the box." I created a few things that were fairly nice too.

guy who made my "hammer time" task

"divide the room" - the wall I built

Kristen Manzi as an astronaut

some students from my class (Jenna, James, Autumn, C'ne, and Kirk)

About 10-20 minutes after I (and Mrva) built the wall someone came up and started to tear it down. I said, "No not the wall!" The person merely held up his task and said, "It's on the task." Then I shrugged and when on. This brief interaction was a little odd because I just let it go; I did spend a decent amount of time working on dividing the room. Later I came to the conclusion that it didn't effect me (personally/emotionally) to see something that I had made being destroyed because we were all there working under a group mentality. I pulled that task out of the box, other people helped me, then tasks were written to paint it, then to put barb wire on it, then to destroy it. I felt I had built it just as much as everyone else, so anything that anyone was tasked to do it was warranted. I gave my class selections from Nicolas Bourriaud's Relational Aesthetics which seems like that was a very fitting reading.
Also, I think anonymity plays pretty large into this to. It is clear that a task from the box is anonymous (unless you know the handwriting) and there by the person executing the task is cleansed of all agency to what they have to do - the perfect alibi.
Afterward I spoke to Oliver Herring and he told me that it was interesting to see new trends in TASK events. He said that large, detailed, or monumental structures (such as my wall or the castle that lived in another part of the gallery) often get destroyed. He was interested in the destruction of attempts to make something grand out of ephemeral materials such as cardboard and tape, especially when they seemed like such fleeting and fragile gestures to begin with.

Pete Steadman and a few other people destroying the wall me and Mrva created

more of my photos from TASK can be seen here.

moondog

Paraselene; noun

1. a luminous spot on a lunar halo caused by ice crystals in cirrus clouds.
2. (Earth Sciences / Physical Geography) Meteorol a bright image of the moon on a lunar halo Also called mock moon or moon dog
3. a false moon, in reality a bright spot or a luminous ring surrounding the moon.

big bang 2

I think I may have solved the issue with Big Bang that I mentioned in the earlier post, with candles and a cake (which I need to make or buy yet). This will be a celebration for the universe, Big Bang Birthday!
The light bulbs will have to be used for something else. A standard Feit Electric CFL white-light light bulb has a color temperature of 2700°k, maybe it will be something about that...