JAM FINE ARTS

Just uploading my Sunny Side talk slides here before I lose them.

Oceanic Panopticon, woven glass and reflective bead mosaic, 48x48x10, 2021, 7000

Flat Earth, woven glass bead mosaic on a preowned glass bowl, 12x12x2", 2018, 900

Solar Panels, bead mosaic on panels with solar light elements, 30x80x5, 2019, 7000

OUR PLANET: OURSELVESDEADLINE - MAY 16, 2021

Spring is here! And the beauty of our natural world is ever more apparent. Green shoots are poking through the crust, and once again the earth is warming in the sun. However “the warming earth” carries a more somber message as well—a reminder of the fruits of our greed, the fragility of our planet, the reality of our losses. And, as we face the urgency to respond, we seek to raise our artistic voices -- to celebrate, to mourn, to activate, and to contemplate how we live together in relationship to this one planet we must all share and nurture. 

We welcome all applications to our next juried show “Our Planet: Ourselves”, which will give expression to these messages. All media is accepted, including video, performance and sound; and all artists’ work will be considered. Due to space limitations no large projections or media-based installations will be accepted. Three “juror awards” will be selected for a small monetary award ($100 each); and awarded work will be featured on the ARC website.

The exhibition will run from June 24 - August 14, 2021. This time frame is equal to two ARC Gallery exhibition months - so more opportunity for your work to be viewed! We encourage everyone to enter (details below). 

Exhibition contingency plans:  
At this time, we plan to have an actual exhibition at the gallery. There will be no in-person opening, though we will have a virtual opening event on Zoom (parameters to be determined). The gallery will be open, but both hours and visitors will be somewhat restricted until it is safe to do otherwise. 

IF the city closes all businesses again due to COVID-19, the gallery will be closed, but we will have the entire show online visible to everyone who visits our website and social media sites; and we will send out a link to everyone on our mailing list, potentially around 4000+ viewers. All artists exhibiting will be identified, along with their work and their statement.  

COVID Gallery hours are: Fridays, 3-7; Saturdays and Sundays, 12-4. Masks for all visitors are required and no more than 6 people will be allowed in the gallery at one time.

Calendar, Eligibility and FeesExhibition Dates: Fri, June 25 - Sat, Aug 14, 2021
Virtual Opening Reception: Sat, June 26, 4pm - 6pm
Pick-Up Work at Gallery: Sat, Aug 14, 12:00pm – 4:00pm 
Shipped Work Return Date: Fri, Aug 21, 2021 *Pre-Paid FedEx or UPS label is required.* 
Do not use the U.S. Postal Service. 

ELIGIBILITY: 
Original works created within the last 5 years. All mediums and materials will be considered in addition to video and performance based arts. No projections or media installations will be accepted for this show due to space limitations. Open to all artists, national and international.

Gallery’s email is: info@arcgallery.org

EXHIBITION AND DELIVERY REQUIREMENTS:
• Work must arrive by scheduled dates or will not be hung.
• A label must be attached to the back/bottom of each work with name, title, medium and price.
• Work must be presented in a manner appropriate to the artwork and be equipped for presentation. If work isn’t shown in the traditional gallery sense; it should still able to be displayed in a professional manner by gallery installers per artist specifications.  
• Images of accepted works may be used at the sole discretion of ARC for promotional purposes including but not limited to invitations, postcards, and website. Image will include attribution.

ACCEPTED WORK: SHIPPING AND DELIVERY RETURN
With the exception of hand-delivered and picked-up work, all work shipped to and from the gallery must be paid ahead-of-time by the artist. 

QUESTIONS: Please feel free to contact gallery, during gallery hours, should you have any questions about show, submitting work, or prospectus.

ARC Gallery and Educational Foundation
COVID Gallery Hours: Open Fri - 3-7pm, Sat & Sun - 12-4pm; Closed Mon-Thurs.
1463 W. Chicago Ave 1st floor
Chicago, Illinois 60642
312 877-5760
info@arcgallery.org

'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.
​
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.

Applied to Sculpture at the Kavanaugh (3/26 to 5/8/21) with VALIS Lamp with Wearable Neuralink, Juicy Sunrise, and Honeymoon Panopticon. 

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.

I finished Black Star Panopticon a few days ago. It is bead mosaic on a 26" x 26" security mirror. These are the security mirrors that show if a truck or person is coming around the corner of the loading dock or if a kid is putting a bag of Funyuns down their pants at 7-11. I installed strap hangers on the back because it will look great hanging flush on a wall. I still have the installation hardware it came with if someone has a loft  and wants to install it in a corner.

Continuing with the formal aspects...since making Blue Star vase, I've been searching for another object with a mirrored surface because I still want to explore optical layering effects between the mirror, different qualities of glass beads and the reflective acrylic beads. I had considered doing a mosaic on a typical household decorative mirror, but wasn't excited about the idea because they are flat. Back in the day, doing art consulting and interiors I designed/ordered and installed a lot of decorative mirrors along with more typical art works. I was happy to find this mirror so I could add a dark industrial twist to domestic mirrors and enjoy working on a convex shape instead of settling on a flat mirror.

The tiles of the bead mosaic are little ~3/4" woven hexagons of only 12 beads. I got a nice net pattern out of them. It's obviously a hand-placed mosaic and not a precision CAD print, but the hexagons still give the piece an engineered fell about it.

Putting a security mirror in a strategic area of a home adds to the panoply of surveillance devices we have elected to live with. Someday, maybe I will find one of those interactive internet hubs people talk to in their homes and take a picture with BSP above it.

​I want to make another one.

I installed the installation I started in March this week. I wanted to make a time lapse video of the process to show how the piece grew out from the center. Unfortunately, I was just taking pictures from my phone without a fixed tripod and it is a mess. Rookie mistake. But I had fun making the video.

It all started with some ideas I was playing with from earlier blog posts-- "Lou. Eliasson. Biomorphic Studies" and "Corners". I worked out a beading algorithm that would start curling up as it expanded. I knew I wanted to do an installation that grew from the corner of the floor and decided to grow it using the digits of "e" assigned to cracks and planes of the walls. I wanted to get something that felt like it was growing rather than having to  artificially decide where every piece went.

It's really late. I am going to throw some shots from today below and turn in. I did not use the number e for the smaller wall pieces. However, I will design a pattern using e for "Outgrowth 2", which I will start on after I finish taking pictures of OG1.

Added Sept. 19, 2020:

'Outgrowth Figure 1' was a temporary wall mural installed in early August 2020 made from the components I was making for a larger installation, 'Outgrowth 1.' It was a good way to get familiar with the temporary adhesives and work out how I was going to build things in the Outgrowth Series. The series is designed for temporary site-specific installations in galleries and outdoor seasonal exhibits. The components of the series are made out of woven glass and reflective acrylic beads.

The shapes of the components grow using the same algorithm. The larger pieces with more beads take on obvious hyperbolic, organic shapes. En masse the components appear to be growing colonies of climbing lichen or lush moss.

Negative space embellished figures from the 'Outgrowth' series can be interactive. If the mural is created on a light-colored wall with a strong light source behind, visitors' shadows will be cast onto the wall and animate the negative-space figures. The light source also makes the luminous reflective beads shine as the shadows pass beyond them.