JAM FINE ARTS

Gary Schirmer art professor of College of DuPage, NIU and Aurora U awarded Oceanic Panopticon the Best in Show ribbon at Addison Artist Guild's 2022 Spring Members' Show today. I am grateful and honored for the recognition.

In other news, Enchanted Spring was accepted into the CAVA art show in Beverly that opens in a couple of weeks. Blackfoot glacier was accepted into Sculpture at the Kavanagh.

I'm pleased with the cohesiveness of the group of art works I was able to enter.

Gallery Seven in Lockport, IL
Important Dates: 
September 7-9: Notification of selected works via e-mail
September 23-26: Delivery of Work 
September 30: “Illiart” opens 
October 3: Opening Reception 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
October31: “Illiart” Closes 
  
   Uh-oh-- "Work that requires special installation or instructions will NOT be accepted." Reader, the show accepts every media except video and film, so I don't know what they are going to do for installation art pieces. Most sculpture is somewhat challenging to display.

Anyway, it is in the jurors hands now. Jurors are people with their own tastes, skill levels, pet media and their own ideas for what kind of show they want they want to build.

So, I started editing some of my portfolio archive photos in Lightroom. After a couple of days of tutorials and videos, they are a hair better. I am still learning the program. I am trying to create a few good-enough pictures to post to Behance and hopefully make some connections there. The ultimate goal is to connect with architects.
    

'Honeymoon Panopticon, the second piece in the Panopticon Series, was inspired by a lack of consent, betrayal of romantic intimacy, and a smart phone. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
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Unfortunately, the problem of lack of consent isn’t limited to intimate interpersonal relationships. It has become a concern worldwide. This results in an imbalance of power between the subjects of data collection and those who use it.
The Panopticon Series explores both the benefits and drawbacks of humanity's new capabilities to observe each other, our world, and our universe.

The piece is a woven bead tile mosaic on a 36" convex security mirror. Each tile is woven into the shape of a heart with reflective, pearly, and iridescent beads.

This piece will be debuted at Sculpture at the Kavanagh opening March 26, 2021. You can view the exhibition in person or through a virtual exhibition.
More info at the Fine Line Art Center's web site.

Above photo shows Outgrowth 2 in low light. It changes a lot with different lighting. It measures 6' x 6' x 6' centered on a floor corner of my poured-concrete basement. It is made entirely out of hyperbolically woven glass and reflective acrylic beads. And lots and lots of clear Gorilla tape. The piece can be dismantled and recreated elsewhere as a temporary installation or a permanent, outdoor piece with clear caulk.

I'm very happy with this. I was very happy with Outgrowth 1, but number 2 turned out better than expected. The big difference between the two was the mosaic wall placement. For Outgrowth 1, I used the irrational number "e" (2.7182818284590452353602874713...).
It is a number that shows up in population growth so I used it to place the mossy areas along the crack between to the three surfaces and onto the planes. It gave it a more natural growth pattern and, even better, I didn't have to fuss over where to place everything. I *did* fuss over where to place the wall tiles in Outgrowth I and it shows.

For Outgrowth 2, I decided to divide the two vertical walls into 10 equal sections with 5 straight lines emanating from the origin point in the corner. I attributed each of those lines a digit from 1 to 0. (I can't remember why I decided to put 0 at the end instead of the beginning.) ((If anyone has a reason it should be the other way around, please let me know!))  Then I placed a wall tile using the line as the axis of growth for that number.

I had blocked out two piles of colored tiles prior to installing. I wanted to keep same-color groups together so it would look like there were transitions to different colonies of lichen growing up the wall. Fun fact: the S curve in the final design did not appear in the original concept sketch. The S-curve fluctuates back and forth but remains centered on the growth axis.

It's hard to photograph this body of work because the light effects are luminosity- and angle-dependent. A still photo captures a tiny sliver of the experience. I'll be making more videos featuring each piece to give people a better idea of their visual dynamics and dimension.

The first video I did for this piece is fairly one-dimensional because it is a time lapse of the installation. I thought it would be fun to have little videos showing these pieces growing. The first one I made for Outgrowth 1 was terrible but got the point across. I'm learning. The video for Outgrowth 2 is a little better. (These are made with social media in mind.)

Here's a short video in which I am wearing the light source. For the next video I'll try a fixed light source behind the camera.

This project took me about 6 months from concept to installing it and taking pictures yesterday. Once the photos were in the can I was so relieved that I got everything done that I had a good cry.

This piece celebrates the power of the sun. In addition to playing with optics and light effects like all of my other pieces, this one harvests photons with solar collectors and photo-luminescent pigment. As my daughter informed me the piece has an Easter egg...when it gets dark this piece glows like a bioluminescent cove in a tropical paradise. The underpainting has a layer of a pigment called Blue Lit that glows from beneath the transparent and translucent beads.

The solar powered elements soak up sunlight all day and then when it gets dark enough they turn on their fairy lights.

I plan to exhibit "Solar Panels" for the Elmhurst Artist Guild's Winter Member's Show. The Guild has a 40" max width for the show so "Solar Panels" will be installed vertically. That will be fun to see!

Below is a video, shots of the piece in daylight, twilight, and dark modes, the prep studies, and a spin-off bowl that I made while making solar panels.