March 10, 2010Symbols

Big Fish

   Artificial bait
Parking lot trolling
Attraction of the lure

C aptured as a “drive-by-shooting” in Joplin, a large scale fish symbol marks the location of a sporting goods store. This is part of my ongoing visual investigation of semiotics, the study of signs and sign-using behavior. It is good to have esoteric words, which of course are also just symbols, as labels for categories of methods for examining symbolic phenomena in different fields. Thus the structured system of codes can become recursive, concerned with the interrelationships between the signs themselves.

“You become what you always were - a very big fish.” - Will Bloom

March 09, 2010Framed

Empyrean

   Highest reaches
Very detailed
Inside outer limit

S omething apart from concrete existence. Articulating what it takes for one regional theory to be closer to the truth than another local province, the juncture boundary provides the solution. Verisimilitude depends on how much true information is delivered, but must be tempered by perceptual orientation. Everyone engages in abstract thinking, with differences in understanding often intuitive.

“All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.” - Eckhart Tolle

March 08, 2010Time

Grand Falls

   Shoal Creek
Continually flowing
Over umber chert

O ne a recent trip to Joplin to deliver artwork to the George A. Spiva Center for the Arts, we had time to visit Missouri's largest continuously flowing natural waterfall. Shoal Creek plunges over 25 feet down a ledge of solid chert at Grand Falls on its way southward. Just upstream from the falls is a low uniform concrete dam. This is an early hydroelectric structure of the Empire District Electric Company, built in 1890, once used to power a small electric plant. I find it surprising that it has lasted so long. As interesting as the wide expanse of rushing water is, the surrounding flint rock formations made smooth by the incessant water erosion forces are even more remarkable. This pleasant venue provided a nice opportunity to use my ten stop neutral density filter to render the fast moving water in a smooth dreamy fashion.

“A lot of words in English confuse the idea of life and electricity, like the word livewire.” - Laurie Anderson

March 07, 2010Framed

Accents

   Modulation prominence
Rhythmically significant
Variable derivative

E xploring relations between the abstract and the concrete, any cognitively normal human infant is able to learn any natural language. Here engineered is a clever layering of metaphorical details about the structure of interior versus exterior meaning. Each province must influence the other, often in unconscious but significant ways. The boundary interface remains the last true frontier. With sufficient effort and thought, even the obtuse can be translated.

“A translation is no translation, he said, unless it will give you the music of a poem along with the words of it.” - John Millington Synge

March 06, 2010Macrostract

Diaphanous

   Beneath the surface
Under these conditions
Crystalline sharpness

I t is fortunate I was actively shooting these ice formations last week, because on my return the warming trend has removed them from consideration. I really like the metaphysical translucency of the material, transporting this imagery toward abstract expressionism, which characterizes art as nonrepresentational and chiefly improvisational. Of course this visual classification is ironical, as these depicted forms are found directly in the natural world and are a result of ordinary forces.

“Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. He didn't mean it as a compliment, but it was.” - Jackson Pollock

March 05, 2010Matter

Disposition

   Natural tendency
Exquisite determinism
Space of possible

A nother atmospheric image captured in a steady rain, and post-processed using a textural overlay. The combination of these treatments works well, and the result has a synergistic feeling that evokes a sense of place and time. The work considers what constitutes a creation in a reality full of happenstance.

“I always pet a dog with my left hand because if he bit me I'd still have my right hand to paint with.” - Jaun Gris

March 04, 2010Circle

Quadric Surface

   Rotating ellipse
Combined effects
In Euclidean space

N ext up in Advanced Digital Imaging is the wonderful world of spheroids. This variant was made using the Photoshop polar coordinates filter. I have been making these digital objects off and on for many years, with an evolving instrument-set stretching back to Kai's Power Tools. One of my first art shows featuring digital imagery, held at the Duda Gallery in Brecksville Ohio back in 1996, used a spheroidal image as the promotion and advertising hook. I wonder how the class will respond to this project, as they seem to be a capricious lot.

“Our criteria for deciding what's good and what's bad is very fickle, especially in this country.” - Roberta Flack

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