Catching up, Photos of Mobiles
Nineteen months into the West, what've I done,
seen, accomplished, nixed, thought of? Some photos of two mobiles I've got
hanging - one old and one new. Three years ago I left the work-a-day world and
entered what seems to be another dimension. Some thoughts on this other
dimension. More than anything this is an excuse to write about nothing in
particular and to post some photos of another visual passion - mobiles.
First off, let me get some thoughts down about
mobiles. I love things which hang freely and which seem to seem right at home
in that freely-moving space where they're suspended. This is true of the
occasional power generator being hung by a cable from a construction crane.
It's more true of true mobiles. Windmills are almost mobiles - they have a
wind-activated set of parts which do move in the wind. There's some pretty
impressive wind mobiles (maybe a better phrase would be movable stabile) at some
galleries in town. Some of these have fine stainless steel bearings so the
slightest whiff of air will cause it to start moving. I discovered that the
best suspension for my mobiles is the prosaic brass double joiner for hooking up
one's fish line to one's fly and hook. That way the fly is free to move about
in the water and the line remains untangled. These come in sizes which support
from 8 to 35 pounds, which means the turnbuckle part is anywhere from two
millimeters in diameter and an inch long to a centimeter in diameter and an
inch-and-a-half long. Most of my mobiles use brass wire of some gauge (14
through 8) bent into loops on the ends with varying degrees of cantilever in
between the ends and the balance point. These brass wire elements are the
suspension arms for whatever is being "hung" on the mobile.
So far I've done only uncomplicated mobiles, that is, mobiles with only two or three suspension arms. Each suspension arm can hold two mobile elements at the end. The "art" of the mobile is defining the free-motion area and the balance points and having several suspension arms and mobile elements moving about in a three-dimensional "sphere." Anytime you take a look at such a mobile it will create a new perspective because all the elements are free to move about in their own three-dimensional space - pretty much like satellites and planets. They're all a form of mini-solar-system - orbiting about each other. That's part of the allure to me - the ever-changing and seemingly random motions these things make. There are times when I'm convinced that I'm seeing the effects of gravity when there's a noticeable lack of air motion and yet the mobile moves. I've also learned that mobiles seem to have a "rest" state which has nothing to do with the way you want it to look when it's not moving. There were a few large outdoor movable-stabiles in the downtown Washington, DC, area which I used to either walk by or bike by and stop and watch for long minutes. There is one in the Mall-side yard of the East Wing (National Gallery of Art), another on the 7th Street side of the National Air and Space Museum, another one to the side of the Hirshhorn Museum's Sculpture Garden on the Mall side, there's another one inside the National Gallery's new outdoor Sculpture Garden. There was also the Alexander Calder inside the lobby of the East Wing which always caused me to stop and stare.
There don't seem to be very many mobiles or movable-stabiles in any given place. I've not given this missing art element much thought so I've got no idea why there seem to be so few mobiles. Perhaps not everyone is satisfied with things "hanging" down from somewhere. I've got some ideas of what I want to do for the next couple of mobiles. I want to use paper but make the shapes perfectly rigid and uniform and suspend them with the same brass hardware (fishing stuff). With paper, actually really heavy 50 pound stock in a variety of metallized and severely patterned colors, I can more easily play with color and shape. With brass, which I've been using for the elements as well as for the suspension arms, I'm pretty much restricted to shape alone. The one paper mobile I've done, back in the mid-90's, plays with shape and color and is moderately successful as a mobile. Mobiles also offer another outlet for a visual creator. Paintings, sketches, even sculpture requires wall or floor space. Mobiles require a single suspension point in the ceiling or high up on some piece of furniture. Consequently, one can have a lot of mobiles in the free space left over after filling up all the walls and floor space. Think of mobiles as furniture for the eye.
That part of my brain remains actively dominant in so many respects. I keep wanting to play in and with three-dimensional space. The house is an extension of that approach, if you will. We've got this tower with windows all around. It lets one see the world much as a lighthouse beacon sees the world - in a sweeping and uninterrupted manner. It allows one to use the entire surrounding world as a visual background. The tower is most fun during really inclement weather. The clouds, the sideways rain, the waves of water being swept along streets, the reflected headlights in the roadway, the twinkling of light through the wind-swept leaves of all the trees. That's just the visual component. The sound of the wind and rain sweeping across all the window panes makes a hypnotic rhythm which entrances one with the sound and the images. On the second floor we've got this balcony which offers three separate corners to hang over, each one feeling like the prow of a ship plying some cardinal path. I see things which I then want to re-create either in a painting, or on a sketch pad, or with brass or colored paper as a moving element, or, more recently, with light in the form of wire which glows in neon-like colors.
I was constantly thinking of new images to create even when I was working eight to twelve hours a day five and six days a week for years. When I had very little time to commit to other arts, I used Bryce on the computer to create new worlds out of land, water, air and some sun or moon. It was three-dimensional painting on the grandest scale and I still play with Bryce. But I've got those eight-to-twelve hours back now and it allows me to spend the time to mix the paints, blur the pastels, shape the brass, cut the paper, solder and wire up the glowing neon wire. Previously I was setting about to work my role as a translator and purveyor of scientific and engineering discovery to others. Now I'm working to cast my view of the world into images and shapes which others can "see" and that way share my visions through these acts of creation. All the while I've been documenting both my real world and my visionary world through the use of photographs - more visual stimuli. In the background is a soundscape consisting of natural noises and amplified and selected musical tracks. Perhaps one of the reasons I so enjoy long bike rides is that I can escape from my own insistence on even more input. I don't need outside music on a bike, I play it in my head. I do take a camera and stop occasionally for that "vision" thing or to document something odd or interesting. But I'm mostly inside my head with no outside influence. When I return from any given long bike ride I almost always have some new image in my head that I want to commit to some physical reality so I can share it with others. Even a rough sketch of an idea is better than just the idea described with words. The sketch and the words can be used to get across more different angles of the same idea. So it is with my art. I'm trying a lot of things these days and the art is one expression of my attempts to share these imaginations and realities.
So I've been pleased so far with the two electroluminescent wire art projects I've done. One is finished and is a day-night painting with a switch. The second one will soon be finished and ready for use as much as a toy as a work of art. I've been having great fun with the whole EL wire gig. It's relatively cheap ($2 a foot, or thereabouts) and can be used in an array of projects - technical, whimsical, or even artsy-craftsy. The power sources are more problematic but still within reach and reason. I'd like to use the wire in more interactive kinds of projects, so that's where my mind has been wandering in this medium. The one thing to keep in mind is that I have sufficient time and sufficient means now to engage in some of what might be considered far-fetched fantasies. I think that's the greatest aspect of where I am now. The time and means to bend the arrow - to follow a blind alley for a while - to dive in and be foolish just for the fun of it.
It's true that I've spent a lot of time and energy and used some native talents for a cause again. But if all these things - volunteering, meeting new people and getting involved in group events, exploring on foot or bike - are "fun" and the kinds of things folks usually do in their "off" hours, for me, these are my new "day" job activities. It's my "job" to volunteer for transit and environmental and sociological projects, it's my "job" to find new acquaintances and friends, it's my job to explore this area - and to report back. But, it's my new free time which is causing this creative binge. And that free time is the time I don't spend in dreams anymore thinking about a solution to that problem at work or the upcoming presentation or anything else which would normally gnaw at me in the middle of the night. Previously, I'd spend my dream hours coming up with creative and positive solutions to some complex, interesting and daunting problems. I'd create scenarios in dreamland where I could conjure up any kind of alternative and test it. I really used my subconscious to advantage and it was creative and basically never let me down.
Only now, a little over a thousand days from when I last had a dream landscape consisting of nagging issues from work, am I able to realize that it's my subconscious which has been freed. I now dream of new and sometimes even more outlandish landscapes, new and exciting parts of the city that I want to see - even if they don't really exist. My dreamtime is no longer one of having to come up with a solution. Instead it's a director's paradise of possible futures I want to see. It's nearly all complete imagination with very few "daytime" characters embedded into the plot. On occasion I do have a solution dream but it's usually no more complex than trying to solve a persistent leak or fixing a persistent creaking door. Light fare, to be sure. Nothing compared to the melodramas and "to be continued next week" landscape of the dreams I had for my whole "career." So, it's the subconscious which has sparked the imaginative and divergent visual arts splurge I've been on now for about three seasons - almost a year. The first year was spent on resolving all the issues of the new house, the new location, the new grocery stores and getting a rhythm and handle on the flow of bills. What a concept - "the flow of bills" - when did we wake up one day and realize our lives were partially driven by this "flow of bills?"
A thousand days of freedom, you say? Yes and no. I've still got all the same responsibilities I had before - including the ones which we never count but which sometimes drive us harder than any we really admit to. Things like "being a good citizen," "knowing one's neighbors," "feeling at home," "being a responsible parent," "thoughtfulness and love as expressions," "am I fulfilling my potential?" I've mulled over these things out here in my new "couldn't be further away" home. I've dug in and applied myself and reminded myself to be more thoughtful and caring, to be more of what I "ought" to be and less of what everyone is always telling me to "drop." I've found myself eager to awaken in the morning - sometimes as early as sunrise. I'm never quite sure why I'm so eager to get on with the new day because nine out of ten days it's just another day. Partly I think it's the realization that if I engage the day that it will engage me back. On those days when I'm eager and get up and do something, invariably I have another outstanding experience or adventure or learn something amazing and unbelievable. It's the statistical approach which I think my subconscious noticed and probably forced on my conscious self. If I engage, I get back what I expected and then some. If I don't, the day pretty much rolls by and is done with and nothing special has occurred. The number of times when I engaged and had a high rate of return was probably one-to-one. I wouldn't have noticed this. The subconscious self, always watching me and commenting perhaps later in a dream, was noticing something useful. I've come to rely on my subconscious leanings.
Three years since I retired from the grind and 18 months since moving to Seattle - what impressions and realities have I found or uncovered? I'll start with an obvious set of distinctions. The West, and in this case I believe the West is what is west of the Cascade/Sierra chain, is it's own country. Yes, it's part of America, but it doesn't get up early to meet New York time like the Midwest does. The West gets up late, like New York, and it doesn't matter that New York is three hours ahead. The West seems to define itself in terms of its relations with itself - California with Oregon, Oregon with Washington and California, Washington with Oregon and British Columbia, and so on. There's always a connection from someone here to somewhere back East. Either one moved here from somewhere else or one's friends or family moved somewhere else. There are a significant number of people I've met here in Washington who have never been anywhere else. Plus, the West is so huge in comparison to the East or even the South or Midwest. The original 13 Colonies and the early migration "west" to such preserves as the "Western Reserve," were relatively close to each other physically. Of course that makes sense because the horse was the transportation method. The West opened up after the railroad tracks were laid and because of the way the population was growing, the states which were admitted to the Union were bigger physical places with fewer settlers. Traveling across America one finds these things out slowly as one migrates from town to town across the land. The towns are closer and more populous until one gets to the Mississippi River. Once west of the Mississippi the land opens up to vast areas of "nothing." Range land, vast wheat fields, foraging hills for sheep and other critters.
Once you run across the Rocky Mountains things take an even more interesting turn because there's great resources buried beneath these mountains but not much above ground to sustain a great population. The concept of "ghost" towns doesn't really exist east of the Mississippi, and yet out here there are ghost towns in every state and probably even every county. A fundamentally different path of evolution.
To me, traveling across the land as many times as I have and stopping in pretty much every podunk ville and self-described "unique" or "famous" crossroads, I've created this image in my mind of the evolution of our country. The East - the area east of the Appalachians - was settled first and is now the result of over 300 years of human greed, development, resource plundering, and city and industry building. There are vast reserves which some states and the Feds have set aside for preservation or recreation or both. But basically, the East is like an old house or farm. There are layers upon layers of different use which have been applied to the land. There are remnants of many of the earlier incarnations of a place. Most illuminating are the towns and cities which have begun to reclaim former waterfronts or riverfronts which at one time were commerce driven but are now fallow. Reclaiming the former commerce acreage for recreation and viewscapes is the current municipal push in large areas of the East. As we've evolved in our commerce and manufacturing prowess - including the whole range of off-shoring activities - we've realized that there are new, aesthetic, reasons for some of the elements of our past. History is deep in the East. Many towns have been around since Colonial days, which means there are villages and cities which have nearly 400 years of "New World" experience behind them. These places cover the entire range of history of this country. Finding a path from the Colonial era to the 21st Century is not always easy because like an old house or farm, the newer generations build upon the old, removing earth or pushing a stream in this direction. A place like Philadelphia or Boston or Annapolis or Charleston has hundreds of years of endeavor piled upon itself. The same structure could have been a significant element in two or three nationally-important events. But, finding these links takes digging because there's nothing at surface-look which would reveal the deep and storied past of many of these places. Some areas have taken to putting up plaques noting the use of a place in a previous time. Many areas like Pennsylvania or Virginia have thousands of these plaques. There are vast periods which seem to be missing in some of these areas with plaques. A highway in Pennsylvania may note, for instance, that it was first used to move wood from a forest to a river for transport some three hundred years ago and that it's now part of some new "memorial" highway, but the intervening three hundred years is missing from the plaque. What happened when Independence was declared? What was going on here during the Second World War?
So, yes, the East is deep, rich, complicated and reveals itself only by careful uncovering of the many layers. That's equally true of much of the population as there might be as many as fifteen generations of "native born" citizens. Families whose entire New World history is there for the visitor to see in the local cemetery. Despite the seeming crowded highways and airports, most Americans don't move about that often and most citizens haven't seen all that much of their own country. I doubt this is any different in other countries. I imagine most residents of Seville, for instance, haven't explored any more of Spain than the residents of Allentown, Pennsylvania, have explored America. We're human and we like to have a nice place to call home. Once we have that nice place, we seem to like to come home to it day after day. Only a handful of us are born with "wanderlust," and of those, fewer still dedicate their lives to its practice.
Moving on past the Appalachians, we find a vast "Midwest" with fertile valleys and flowing rivers. A perfect place for a burgeoning nation to expand and convert. Traveling through the Midwest one finds a younger "nation." Much of the history of the area is well-documented and available for visitors to examine. Original plats are still on display at local libraries along with maps of original structures still standing and important local geographic features which have either been retained or modified. It's almost as if the Easterners who moved across the mountains to the new lands were conscious of the missing history from the area they left and made a conscious decision to document their evolution in the new lands. Even the state constitutions of the Midwestern states are slightly modified from those of the original 13 Colonies. More rights are given to the citizens and more caution is written into the laws with regard to overuse of natural resources.
If the East is a deeply-layered old house in excess of three hundreds years age, the Midwest is a rambler built in stages but with no deep history much older than two hundred years. A third fewer generation of settlers and a history which can usually be traced to somewhere back "East." The East is filled with villages and cities where immigrant populations have swollen in rank to create "districts" within these urban boundaries. These districts often reflect the home-country values and ethic of the settlers, giving us the Little Italy's and Little Budapest's and Little Bavaria's of the East. In the Midwest, many of the immigrants moved en masse to newly-admitted states giving the whole state a complexion and flavor reminiscent of the "home country." Thus, we have German and Finnish and Polish settlements in sections of whole states. Mostly because there was no existing population to integrate with. That has given the Midwest a slightly different personality with respect to the East. In the East it's the villages, towns, and cities which have the personalities. In the Midwest, it seems that there are regions of states which have the same personality elements - but spread about a much larger area and in a smaller concentration.
Following the push by the railroads and development moguls of the time, the West was conquered about a hundred years after the Midwest. Out here, history sits on the surface of nearly every area. In Montana there are towns which are using the original "town hall" still as the town hall, even though the town hall is nearly a hundred years old. One doesn't have to dig very deep to find the evidence of human evolution in nearly any area from the eastern Front Range of the Rockies all the way to the shores of the Pacific. Nearly every location has original structures still standing and original plats often still being debated. The constitutions of these "western" states are even more liberating than those of the Midwestern states. Western states have required their citizens to pay for their services as they go, less borrowing and more up-front financing. More learning from previous experience as many of the settlers of the West came here directly from the Midwest. By the time the West was settled and getting ready for development, there was much which had been learned about the relationship between corporate and state. Western states have given corporate considerable leeway and license to develop but with the general proviso that once done, the property would revert back to the state. This is an evolution from many of the original 13 Colonies' approach where the corporate retained the use or ownership of the geographic feature long after the corporate use had been finished. The railroads are the major case in point here. Presently, there's much conversion of abandoned railroad tracks into trails and other recreational uses now that the commerce element has moved on.
Taken together, this layered and multi-century history of the country creates a family of areas which have a common heritage. The East, the Midwest, and the West are all brethren and all sprang forth from the evolved status east of it. Traveling east-to-west gives one a temporal view into the development and evolution of our nation. Traveling west-to-east gives one a temporal view into our past and history. And, at every stopping point, at every intersection of these evolutionary periods, there is an attendant history and development associated with the native population of that area at that time and for times subsequent to the intrusion of the settlers. In a sense, we have two distinctive and separable histories - the history of the settlers, and the history of those affected by the settlers.
Perhaps because their pain and suffering were more clearly observable or more recent in memory, the Western states seem to have made better reparations with respect to their native populations than either the Midwest or the East. There's also this ongoing evolution of the native culture within the larger context of the national evolution and in that regard there are considerable instances of success in the West with respect to what some of the tribes are doing with their land and population.
In a sense, three or four hundred years of history is still pretty much "nothing" with respect to the impact on our culture and mores. When we look at Asia or Europe and see the century-after-century evolution of those countries and their population, we have to concede that we're still the whippersnappers on this planet. Us and our Latin American brethren - the "New World" children. We're the ones still coming to grips with our land, with our native peoples, with our own destiny.
And that is also part of the fun and excitement of living in the West. If America, or even the New World, are the ongoing experiments in self-governance, in self-determination, in self-evolution, the West seems to be the spearhead of much of that. The initiative is a tool used here in the West which gives ordinary citizens nearly as much power and responsibility as municipalities or corporations. Watching the politics of California, Oregon and Washington is like watching a reality television show. Putting the power of government directly into the hands of the citizens - through ballot initiatives - gives both self-determination and democracy new meaning. And, brings along some new fears and trepidations as well. Part of what I'm learning out here is how to respond as a citizen in a climate where the citizen actually has some direct access to government. This is a new experience for me as back East much of what I might want to voice as an opinion was garnered up the chain through a variety of intermediary "representatives." Living in the District, for instance, I never once had an actual conversation with a city council member. Instead, I was funneled through "staff aides" or other departments. Here in Seattle, if I choose to converse with a city council member, it's the council member who answers the phone or email. The accountability factor of government is a bit closer to being true.
Mind you, these are pretty gross generalizations as there are towns in New England which have effective town councils and villages in the Midwest where there are representative and accountable local governments. But the overall feeling to me is that the further west one travels in America, the more accountable and direct the government is likely to be. The further east one travels in America, the more likely that government is going to be one of myriad past intertwining connections with no easy entry access. Impressions, not objective, state-by-state, data.
That's one of the things I've noticed. Another is the impact of the landscape on the lives and thoughts of the population. Because there's so much grand vista in the West, that element has become imbued into the ethic and everyday lives of the folks out here. It would be hard to live anyplace now which didn't have sweeping and grand views. One simply gets used to having this magnificent landscape all around all the time. That may in some small measure be one of the defining characteristics of the Pacific Coast or the Intermountain West. The generally accepted easy-going and attention-to-fun aspect of the Western personality could be sparked by the constant visual refrain of distant mountains and waves lapping a shore. When one's everyday experiences are filled with these background views of green and blue with ever-changing white clouds, there's a subliminal calming which occurs. Don't like something which happened at work, gaze out the window at that mountain in the distance. Sure to restore some degree of sanity and remind one of the nearly endless recreation opportunities. That's another element - the endless recreation opportunities. Because of all the viewscapes which abound in the West, it's true that one simply needs to step outside to begin to "recreate." Being in the out of doors in the West is one of the daily pleasures of life out here. Made more so by the extremely mild climate of the Pacific Coast. The Intermountain West has its own glories which come with each season. It's hard to imagine a more idyllic location than Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park in Winter with snow covering the lake and the distant peaks of the mountains shrouded in low-hanging clouds. Or, the same lake in Spring with its crystal-clear blue waters reflecting the snow-capped peaks of those same distant mountains. Or, the sun setting over that same lake in Summer and shimmering its golden glow off the waves made by the kayakers.
I'm of the opinion that the constant exposure to the blues and greens of the landscape is having a profound effect on the psyche of the people who live in the West. It's different than the constant green-in-summer, hazy-sky, languid feel of the East or Midwest. It's even more true in Winter when the pleasing landscapes of the East or Midwest turn into brown and gray landscapes of unchanging form for months on end. So, yeah, there's a lot about living in the West which is profound and there's a lot which is more subtle.
I'll continue on this thread at some point along the way. In the meantime, enjoy your neck of the woods and take advantage of the small visual elements like the creek coursing through the woods (or town) and the layers of history you probably walk on every day.
New mobile made entirely of brass wire and rods
Pretty difficult to capture the effect of a mobile in a set of still photographs, but these images capture this latest mobile
in a variety of moves. The basic shapes are a sphere, a star, and a pyramid with associated hanging items.
A previous mobile updated with new suspension hardware
This mobile is difficult to "see" owing to its relatively cluttered position in the overhang area of the corner windows in my studio.
The mobile is made of brass wire used to create the suspension arms for a set of Star Wars miniature spacecraft. This spacecraft
set is probably in the "hard to find" category now as it was available for only one year during the height of the frenzy which
came after the original Star Wars hit the theaters. The models are precision cast plastic with an embedded metal hook to be
used - for exactly this purpose!!
Engineering views of latest electroluminescent wire art project
These are views of the engineering layout of my latest electroluminescent wire project. The amplifier drives a step-up transformer,
the step-up transformer drives a six-way crossover network. The crossover network drives the EL wire directly - there are seven
strands of EL wire connected to six crossover connection points. What this does is break the incoming music signal into six
frequency bands which are assigned to seven different color glow wires. The wires light up in proportion to the amplitude and
frequency of the incoming signal. It's a true analog visualizer in every sense of the word. A movie showing the wires being
driven by the crossover is available at http://homepage.mac.com/credmond/concepts/Proof_of_Concept_3.html. When I'm
finished with this piece, the wires will be tangled up in a three-dimensional "ball" inside a square foot cube of acrylic plastic.
Overkill - views of the amplifier
Front (left) and back (right) views of the AudioSource 5.1 amplifier used to drive the electroluminescent wires. The amp was purchased
used from a local hi-fi dealer and is rated at 70 watts/8 ohms and 100 watts/4 ohms continuous. It's got balanced input - which I'm using
in this setup. The adjacent RCA phone connections (view on right) are for monaural input and input pass-through. The front shows
power switch and headphone jack (lower portion) and gain control with low-cut and phase inverter buttons. Top LED lights show
signal input (blinking in tune to amplitude when signal is present), power status (green is "on"), and limiter-circuit activation - red
LED lights periodically as signal causes amplifier to "peak" at rated wattage. The unit also has thermal overload cut-off protection
and output-power-relay circuits which prevent the amp from connecting to the output terminals if DC or other spurious currents
are detected on the output line. It was $180 used and goes for about $225 new. Think of it as an electric generator.
Take care and enjoy Spring. One of the planet's most glorious seasons!
Chas
So far I've done only uncomplicated mobiles, that is, mobiles with only two or three suspension arms. Each suspension arm can hold two mobile elements at the end. The "art" of the mobile is defining the free-motion area and the balance points and having several suspension arms and mobile elements moving about in a three-dimensional "sphere." Anytime you take a look at such a mobile it will create a new perspective because all the elements are free to move about in their own three-dimensional space - pretty much like satellites and planets. They're all a form of mini-solar-system - orbiting about each other. That's part of the allure to me - the ever-changing and seemingly random motions these things make. There are times when I'm convinced that I'm seeing the effects of gravity when there's a noticeable lack of air motion and yet the mobile moves. I've also learned that mobiles seem to have a "rest" state which has nothing to do with the way you want it to look when it's not moving. There were a few large outdoor movable-stabiles in the downtown Washington, DC, area which I used to either walk by or bike by and stop and watch for long minutes. There is one in the Mall-side yard of the East Wing (National Gallery of Art), another on the 7th Street side of the National Air and Space Museum, another one to the side of the Hirshhorn Museum's Sculpture Garden on the Mall side, there's another one inside the National Gallery's new outdoor Sculpture Garden. There was also the Alexander Calder inside the lobby of the East Wing which always caused me to stop and stare.
There don't seem to be very many mobiles or movable-stabiles in any given place. I've not given this missing art element much thought so I've got no idea why there seem to be so few mobiles. Perhaps not everyone is satisfied with things "hanging" down from somewhere. I've got some ideas of what I want to do for the next couple of mobiles. I want to use paper but make the shapes perfectly rigid and uniform and suspend them with the same brass hardware (fishing stuff). With paper, actually really heavy 50 pound stock in a variety of metallized and severely patterned colors, I can more easily play with color and shape. With brass, which I've been using for the elements as well as for the suspension arms, I'm pretty much restricted to shape alone. The one paper mobile I've done, back in the mid-90's, plays with shape and color and is moderately successful as a mobile. Mobiles also offer another outlet for a visual creator. Paintings, sketches, even sculpture requires wall or floor space. Mobiles require a single suspension point in the ceiling or high up on some piece of furniture. Consequently, one can have a lot of mobiles in the free space left over after filling up all the walls and floor space. Think of mobiles as furniture for the eye.
That part of my brain remains actively dominant in so many respects. I keep wanting to play in and with three-dimensional space. The house is an extension of that approach, if you will. We've got this tower with windows all around. It lets one see the world much as a lighthouse beacon sees the world - in a sweeping and uninterrupted manner. It allows one to use the entire surrounding world as a visual background. The tower is most fun during really inclement weather. The clouds, the sideways rain, the waves of water being swept along streets, the reflected headlights in the roadway, the twinkling of light through the wind-swept leaves of all the trees. That's just the visual component. The sound of the wind and rain sweeping across all the window panes makes a hypnotic rhythm which entrances one with the sound and the images. On the second floor we've got this balcony which offers three separate corners to hang over, each one feeling like the prow of a ship plying some cardinal path. I see things which I then want to re-create either in a painting, or on a sketch pad, or with brass or colored paper as a moving element, or, more recently, with light in the form of wire which glows in neon-like colors.
I was constantly thinking of new images to create even when I was working eight to twelve hours a day five and six days a week for years. When I had very little time to commit to other arts, I used Bryce on the computer to create new worlds out of land, water, air and some sun or moon. It was three-dimensional painting on the grandest scale and I still play with Bryce. But I've got those eight-to-twelve hours back now and it allows me to spend the time to mix the paints, blur the pastels, shape the brass, cut the paper, solder and wire up the glowing neon wire. Previously I was setting about to work my role as a translator and purveyor of scientific and engineering discovery to others. Now I'm working to cast my view of the world into images and shapes which others can "see" and that way share my visions through these acts of creation. All the while I've been documenting both my real world and my visionary world through the use of photographs - more visual stimuli. In the background is a soundscape consisting of natural noises and amplified and selected musical tracks. Perhaps one of the reasons I so enjoy long bike rides is that I can escape from my own insistence on even more input. I don't need outside music on a bike, I play it in my head. I do take a camera and stop occasionally for that "vision" thing or to document something odd or interesting. But I'm mostly inside my head with no outside influence. When I return from any given long bike ride I almost always have some new image in my head that I want to commit to some physical reality so I can share it with others. Even a rough sketch of an idea is better than just the idea described with words. The sketch and the words can be used to get across more different angles of the same idea. So it is with my art. I'm trying a lot of things these days and the art is one expression of my attempts to share these imaginations and realities.
So I've been pleased so far with the two electroluminescent wire art projects I've done. One is finished and is a day-night painting with a switch. The second one will soon be finished and ready for use as much as a toy as a work of art. I've been having great fun with the whole EL wire gig. It's relatively cheap ($2 a foot, or thereabouts) and can be used in an array of projects - technical, whimsical, or even artsy-craftsy. The power sources are more problematic but still within reach and reason. I'd like to use the wire in more interactive kinds of projects, so that's where my mind has been wandering in this medium. The one thing to keep in mind is that I have sufficient time and sufficient means now to engage in some of what might be considered far-fetched fantasies. I think that's the greatest aspect of where I am now. The time and means to bend the arrow - to follow a blind alley for a while - to dive in and be foolish just for the fun of it.
It's true that I've spent a lot of time and energy and used some native talents for a cause again. But if all these things - volunteering, meeting new people and getting involved in group events, exploring on foot or bike - are "fun" and the kinds of things folks usually do in their "off" hours, for me, these are my new "day" job activities. It's my "job" to volunteer for transit and environmental and sociological projects, it's my "job" to find new acquaintances and friends, it's my job to explore this area - and to report back. But, it's my new free time which is causing this creative binge. And that free time is the time I don't spend in dreams anymore thinking about a solution to that problem at work or the upcoming presentation or anything else which would normally gnaw at me in the middle of the night. Previously, I'd spend my dream hours coming up with creative and positive solutions to some complex, interesting and daunting problems. I'd create scenarios in dreamland where I could conjure up any kind of alternative and test it. I really used my subconscious to advantage and it was creative and basically never let me down.
Only now, a little over a thousand days from when I last had a dream landscape consisting of nagging issues from work, am I able to realize that it's my subconscious which has been freed. I now dream of new and sometimes even more outlandish landscapes, new and exciting parts of the city that I want to see - even if they don't really exist. My dreamtime is no longer one of having to come up with a solution. Instead it's a director's paradise of possible futures I want to see. It's nearly all complete imagination with very few "daytime" characters embedded into the plot. On occasion I do have a solution dream but it's usually no more complex than trying to solve a persistent leak or fixing a persistent creaking door. Light fare, to be sure. Nothing compared to the melodramas and "to be continued next week" landscape of the dreams I had for my whole "career." So, it's the subconscious which has sparked the imaginative and divergent visual arts splurge I've been on now for about three seasons - almost a year. The first year was spent on resolving all the issues of the new house, the new location, the new grocery stores and getting a rhythm and handle on the flow of bills. What a concept - "the flow of bills" - when did we wake up one day and realize our lives were partially driven by this "flow of bills?"
A thousand days of freedom, you say? Yes and no. I've still got all the same responsibilities I had before - including the ones which we never count but which sometimes drive us harder than any we really admit to. Things like "being a good citizen," "knowing one's neighbors," "feeling at home," "being a responsible parent," "thoughtfulness and love as expressions," "am I fulfilling my potential?" I've mulled over these things out here in my new "couldn't be further away" home. I've dug in and applied myself and reminded myself to be more thoughtful and caring, to be more of what I "ought" to be and less of what everyone is always telling me to "drop." I've found myself eager to awaken in the morning - sometimes as early as sunrise. I'm never quite sure why I'm so eager to get on with the new day because nine out of ten days it's just another day. Partly I think it's the realization that if I engage the day that it will engage me back. On those days when I'm eager and get up and do something, invariably I have another outstanding experience or adventure or learn something amazing and unbelievable. It's the statistical approach which I think my subconscious noticed and probably forced on my conscious self. If I engage, I get back what I expected and then some. If I don't, the day pretty much rolls by and is done with and nothing special has occurred. The number of times when I engaged and had a high rate of return was probably one-to-one. I wouldn't have noticed this. The subconscious self, always watching me and commenting perhaps later in a dream, was noticing something useful. I've come to rely on my subconscious leanings.
Three years since I retired from the grind and 18 months since moving to Seattle - what impressions and realities have I found or uncovered? I'll start with an obvious set of distinctions. The West, and in this case I believe the West is what is west of the Cascade/Sierra chain, is it's own country. Yes, it's part of America, but it doesn't get up early to meet New York time like the Midwest does. The West gets up late, like New York, and it doesn't matter that New York is three hours ahead. The West seems to define itself in terms of its relations with itself - California with Oregon, Oregon with Washington and California, Washington with Oregon and British Columbia, and so on. There's always a connection from someone here to somewhere back East. Either one moved here from somewhere else or one's friends or family moved somewhere else. There are a significant number of people I've met here in Washington who have never been anywhere else. Plus, the West is so huge in comparison to the East or even the South or Midwest. The original 13 Colonies and the early migration "west" to such preserves as the "Western Reserve," were relatively close to each other physically. Of course that makes sense because the horse was the transportation method. The West opened up after the railroad tracks were laid and because of the way the population was growing, the states which were admitted to the Union were bigger physical places with fewer settlers. Traveling across America one finds these things out slowly as one migrates from town to town across the land. The towns are closer and more populous until one gets to the Mississippi River. Once west of the Mississippi the land opens up to vast areas of "nothing." Range land, vast wheat fields, foraging hills for sheep and other critters.
Once you run across the Rocky Mountains things take an even more interesting turn because there's great resources buried beneath these mountains but not much above ground to sustain a great population. The concept of "ghost" towns doesn't really exist east of the Mississippi, and yet out here there are ghost towns in every state and probably even every county. A fundamentally different path of evolution.
To me, traveling across the land as many times as I have and stopping in pretty much every podunk ville and self-described "unique" or "famous" crossroads, I've created this image in my mind of the evolution of our country. The East - the area east of the Appalachians - was settled first and is now the result of over 300 years of human greed, development, resource plundering, and city and industry building. There are vast reserves which some states and the Feds have set aside for preservation or recreation or both. But basically, the East is like an old house or farm. There are layers upon layers of different use which have been applied to the land. There are remnants of many of the earlier incarnations of a place. Most illuminating are the towns and cities which have begun to reclaim former waterfronts or riverfronts which at one time were commerce driven but are now fallow. Reclaiming the former commerce acreage for recreation and viewscapes is the current municipal push in large areas of the East. As we've evolved in our commerce and manufacturing prowess - including the whole range of off-shoring activities - we've realized that there are new, aesthetic, reasons for some of the elements of our past. History is deep in the East. Many towns have been around since Colonial days, which means there are villages and cities which have nearly 400 years of "New World" experience behind them. These places cover the entire range of history of this country. Finding a path from the Colonial era to the 21st Century is not always easy because like an old house or farm, the newer generations build upon the old, removing earth or pushing a stream in this direction. A place like Philadelphia or Boston or Annapolis or Charleston has hundreds of years of endeavor piled upon itself. The same structure could have been a significant element in two or three nationally-important events. But, finding these links takes digging because there's nothing at surface-look which would reveal the deep and storied past of many of these places. Some areas have taken to putting up plaques noting the use of a place in a previous time. Many areas like Pennsylvania or Virginia have thousands of these plaques. There are vast periods which seem to be missing in some of these areas with plaques. A highway in Pennsylvania may note, for instance, that it was first used to move wood from a forest to a river for transport some three hundred years ago and that it's now part of some new "memorial" highway, but the intervening three hundred years is missing from the plaque. What happened when Independence was declared? What was going on here during the Second World War?
So, yes, the East is deep, rich, complicated and reveals itself only by careful uncovering of the many layers. That's equally true of much of the population as there might be as many as fifteen generations of "native born" citizens. Families whose entire New World history is there for the visitor to see in the local cemetery. Despite the seeming crowded highways and airports, most Americans don't move about that often and most citizens haven't seen all that much of their own country. I doubt this is any different in other countries. I imagine most residents of Seville, for instance, haven't explored any more of Spain than the residents of Allentown, Pennsylvania, have explored America. We're human and we like to have a nice place to call home. Once we have that nice place, we seem to like to come home to it day after day. Only a handful of us are born with "wanderlust," and of those, fewer still dedicate their lives to its practice.
Moving on past the Appalachians, we find a vast "Midwest" with fertile valleys and flowing rivers. A perfect place for a burgeoning nation to expand and convert. Traveling through the Midwest one finds a younger "nation." Much of the history of the area is well-documented and available for visitors to examine. Original plats are still on display at local libraries along with maps of original structures still standing and important local geographic features which have either been retained or modified. It's almost as if the Easterners who moved across the mountains to the new lands were conscious of the missing history from the area they left and made a conscious decision to document their evolution in the new lands. Even the state constitutions of the Midwestern states are slightly modified from those of the original 13 Colonies. More rights are given to the citizens and more caution is written into the laws with regard to overuse of natural resources.
If the East is a deeply-layered old house in excess of three hundreds years age, the Midwest is a rambler built in stages but with no deep history much older than two hundred years. A third fewer generation of settlers and a history which can usually be traced to somewhere back "East." The East is filled with villages and cities where immigrant populations have swollen in rank to create "districts" within these urban boundaries. These districts often reflect the home-country values and ethic of the settlers, giving us the Little Italy's and Little Budapest's and Little Bavaria's of the East. In the Midwest, many of the immigrants moved en masse to newly-admitted states giving the whole state a complexion and flavor reminiscent of the "home country." Thus, we have German and Finnish and Polish settlements in sections of whole states. Mostly because there was no existing population to integrate with. That has given the Midwest a slightly different personality with respect to the East. In the East it's the villages, towns, and cities which have the personalities. In the Midwest, it seems that there are regions of states which have the same personality elements - but spread about a much larger area and in a smaller concentration.
Following the push by the railroads and development moguls of the time, the West was conquered about a hundred years after the Midwest. Out here, history sits on the surface of nearly every area. In Montana there are towns which are using the original "town hall" still as the town hall, even though the town hall is nearly a hundred years old. One doesn't have to dig very deep to find the evidence of human evolution in nearly any area from the eastern Front Range of the Rockies all the way to the shores of the Pacific. Nearly every location has original structures still standing and original plats often still being debated. The constitutions of these "western" states are even more liberating than those of the Midwestern states. Western states have required their citizens to pay for their services as they go, less borrowing and more up-front financing. More learning from previous experience as many of the settlers of the West came here directly from the Midwest. By the time the West was settled and getting ready for development, there was much which had been learned about the relationship between corporate and state. Western states have given corporate considerable leeway and license to develop but with the general proviso that once done, the property would revert back to the state. This is an evolution from many of the original 13 Colonies' approach where the corporate retained the use or ownership of the geographic feature long after the corporate use had been finished. The railroads are the major case in point here. Presently, there's much conversion of abandoned railroad tracks into trails and other recreational uses now that the commerce element has moved on.
Taken together, this layered and multi-century history of the country creates a family of areas which have a common heritage. The East, the Midwest, and the West are all brethren and all sprang forth from the evolved status east of it. Traveling east-to-west gives one a temporal view into the development and evolution of our nation. Traveling west-to-east gives one a temporal view into our past and history. And, at every stopping point, at every intersection of these evolutionary periods, there is an attendant history and development associated with the native population of that area at that time and for times subsequent to the intrusion of the settlers. In a sense, we have two distinctive and separable histories - the history of the settlers, and the history of those affected by the settlers.
Perhaps because their pain and suffering were more clearly observable or more recent in memory, the Western states seem to have made better reparations with respect to their native populations than either the Midwest or the East. There's also this ongoing evolution of the native culture within the larger context of the national evolution and in that regard there are considerable instances of success in the West with respect to what some of the tribes are doing with their land and population.
In a sense, three or four hundred years of history is still pretty much "nothing" with respect to the impact on our culture and mores. When we look at Asia or Europe and see the century-after-century evolution of those countries and their population, we have to concede that we're still the whippersnappers on this planet. Us and our Latin American brethren - the "New World" children. We're the ones still coming to grips with our land, with our native peoples, with our own destiny.
And that is also part of the fun and excitement of living in the West. If America, or even the New World, are the ongoing experiments in self-governance, in self-determination, in self-evolution, the West seems to be the spearhead of much of that. The initiative is a tool used here in the West which gives ordinary citizens nearly as much power and responsibility as municipalities or corporations. Watching the politics of California, Oregon and Washington is like watching a reality television show. Putting the power of government directly into the hands of the citizens - through ballot initiatives - gives both self-determination and democracy new meaning. And, brings along some new fears and trepidations as well. Part of what I'm learning out here is how to respond as a citizen in a climate where the citizen actually has some direct access to government. This is a new experience for me as back East much of what I might want to voice as an opinion was garnered up the chain through a variety of intermediary "representatives." Living in the District, for instance, I never once had an actual conversation with a city council member. Instead, I was funneled through "staff aides" or other departments. Here in Seattle, if I choose to converse with a city council member, it's the council member who answers the phone or email. The accountability factor of government is a bit closer to being true.
Mind you, these are pretty gross generalizations as there are towns in New England which have effective town councils and villages in the Midwest where there are representative and accountable local governments. But the overall feeling to me is that the further west one travels in America, the more accountable and direct the government is likely to be. The further east one travels in America, the more likely that government is going to be one of myriad past intertwining connections with no easy entry access. Impressions, not objective, state-by-state, data.
That's one of the things I've noticed. Another is the impact of the landscape on the lives and thoughts of the population. Because there's so much grand vista in the West, that element has become imbued into the ethic and everyday lives of the folks out here. It would be hard to live anyplace now which didn't have sweeping and grand views. One simply gets used to having this magnificent landscape all around all the time. That may in some small measure be one of the defining characteristics of the Pacific Coast or the Intermountain West. The generally accepted easy-going and attention-to-fun aspect of the Western personality could be sparked by the constant visual refrain of distant mountains and waves lapping a shore. When one's everyday experiences are filled with these background views of green and blue with ever-changing white clouds, there's a subliminal calming which occurs. Don't like something which happened at work, gaze out the window at that mountain in the distance. Sure to restore some degree of sanity and remind one of the nearly endless recreation opportunities. That's another element - the endless recreation opportunities. Because of all the viewscapes which abound in the West, it's true that one simply needs to step outside to begin to "recreate." Being in the out of doors in the West is one of the daily pleasures of life out here. Made more so by the extremely mild climate of the Pacific Coast. The Intermountain West has its own glories which come with each season. It's hard to imagine a more idyllic location than Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park in Winter with snow covering the lake and the distant peaks of the mountains shrouded in low-hanging clouds. Or, the same lake in Spring with its crystal-clear blue waters reflecting the snow-capped peaks of those same distant mountains. Or, the sun setting over that same lake in Summer and shimmering its golden glow off the waves made by the kayakers.
I'm of the opinion that the constant exposure to the blues and greens of the landscape is having a profound effect on the psyche of the people who live in the West. It's different than the constant green-in-summer, hazy-sky, languid feel of the East or Midwest. It's even more true in Winter when the pleasing landscapes of the East or Midwest turn into brown and gray landscapes of unchanging form for months on end. So, yeah, there's a lot about living in the West which is profound and there's a lot which is more subtle.
I'll continue on this thread at some point along the way. In the meantime, enjoy your neck of the woods and take advantage of the small visual elements like the creek coursing through the woods (or town) and the layers of history you probably walk on every day.
New mobile made entirely of brass wire and rods
Pretty difficult to capture the effect of a mobile in a set of still photographs, but these images capture this latest mobile
in a variety of moves. The basic shapes are a sphere, a star, and a pyramid with associated hanging items.
A previous mobile updated with new suspension hardware
This mobile is difficult to "see" owing to its relatively cluttered position in the overhang area of the corner windows in my studio.
The mobile is made of brass wire used to create the suspension arms for a set of Star Wars miniature spacecraft. This spacecraft
set is probably in the "hard to find" category now as it was available for only one year during the height of the frenzy which
came after the original Star Wars hit the theaters. The models are precision cast plastic with an embedded metal hook to be
used - for exactly this purpose!!
Engineering views of latest electroluminescent wire art project
These are views of the engineering layout of my latest electroluminescent wire project. The amplifier drives a step-up transformer,
the step-up transformer drives a six-way crossover network. The crossover network drives the EL wire directly - there are seven
strands of EL wire connected to six crossover connection points. What this does is break the incoming music signal into six
frequency bands which are assigned to seven different color glow wires. The wires light up in proportion to the amplitude and
frequency of the incoming signal. It's a true analog visualizer in every sense of the word. A movie showing the wires being
driven by the crossover is available at http://homepage.mac.com/credmond/concepts/Proof_of_Concept_3.html. When I'm
finished with this piece, the wires will be tangled up in a three-dimensional "ball" inside a square foot cube of acrylic plastic.
Overkill - views of the amplifier
Front (left) and back (right) views of the AudioSource 5.1 amplifier used to drive the electroluminescent wires. The amp was purchased
used from a local hi-fi dealer and is rated at 70 watts/8 ohms and 100 watts/4 ohms continuous. It's got balanced input - which I'm using
in this setup. The adjacent RCA phone connections (view on right) are for monaural input and input pass-through. The front shows
power switch and headphone jack (lower portion) and gain control with low-cut and phase inverter buttons. Top LED lights show
signal input (blinking in tune to amplitude when signal is present), power status (green is "on"), and limiter-circuit activation - red
LED lights periodically as signal causes amplifier to "peak" at rated wattage. The unit also has thermal overload cut-off protection
and output-power-relay circuits which prevent the amp from connecting to the output terminals if DC or other spurious currents
are detected on the output line. It was $180 used and goes for about $225 new. Think of it as an electric generator.
Take care and enjoy Spring. One of the planet's most glorious seasons!
Chas
Posted: Tue - April 5, 2005 at 12:04 AM
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Published On: Jul 04, 2005 05:41 PM
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Published On: Jul 04, 2005 05:41 PM