George Heath

Art Play Day at Murphy Sculpture Studio

I’ve wanted to do this since Carole first asked me to announce it. I finally made the third iteration and was not disappointed. What a hoot. Here’s the idea. On certain Wednesdays, (to be announced to members) Carole Murphy opens her sculpture studio and her immense collection of oddities for members to use as they see fit.

Now I just stuffed my collection of “I may want to make something out of this someday” items in a 10’ x 20’ storage unit. Compared to Carole’s collection that is puny and I am filled with shame. That is to say, there is a rich collection of materials and media available at Carole’s sculpture studio. There is a wall of chisels, beaver chunks, shiny doodads, and feathery bits from some creature that died in the sea. There is fodder here, workbenches, and tools. If like me you toil in a studio alone, with little heat, and poor light, rats nibbling at your heals, a visit here would be a welcome relief.

Art Play Day at Murphy Sculpture Studio - small sculpture - Jan 2020

Art Play Day at Murphy Sculpture Studio - wood pieces - Jan 2020

Sculpture Studio or Candy Land…

Right off I found most of some wooden puppet thing that had suffered decapitation. Carole offered the head of the temple lion dog which I obtained by means of a cement saw. I spent the session carving down the neck so it would fit in the body of the puppet thing. I was successful in this. Not only that but it no longer looks like a lion dog but more like a pig and I’m not done yet. I don’t know where this is going. I don’t know what’s in that chunk of head cement. All I know is that I hope it’s worthy.

Art Play Day at Murphy Sculpture Studio - George Heath - Jan 2020

Joe Cartino appeared. Being a sculptor of put-together bits I am not surprised that he would be drawn to such a place. Here he examines some artifact to determine if it could be art or he should put it down quickly, back away, and go wash his hands.

Art Play Day at Murphy Sculpture Studio - Joe Cartino - Jan 2020

What are these? you may ask. These are the things that beavers chuck out of trees. The inedible bits they spit out as they take down your price Japanese maple. Wouldn’t it be fun to make a beaver out of those?

Here’s a box of letter stamps. Old school letter stamps. It goes on and on. Shiny and matt, plastic, metal, wood and shell, antique and newish. It is a thing of mine. If I miss my hoard I can go here and feel at home. Watch for announcements. This is a fun thing and a chance to collaborate or just show what you’ve made to another sculptor who will understand and not think you are weird because of it. Then again…

Here are some of the thousands of things available:

Art Play Day at Murphy Sculpture Studio - letters - Jan 2020

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Sculpture Show Opens at Portland’s Multnomah Art Center

Nearly a year ago, at a member meeting in SE Portland, board president Chas Martin suggested we do a sculpture show based on collaborations between member pairs. Needless to say, the concept was met with much enthusiasm. First, each member could choose their own collaborator, or one would be chosen for them. Each participant would display one of their own pieces along with the collaborative piece. It was encouraged that some form of documentation of the pairs’ creative process is shared. An attractive and accessible gallery space located at the Multnomah Art Center in Multnomah Village was selected for the exhibition.

Unmatched Pairs: The Sculpture Show

Unmatched Pairs Sculpture Show - Sept 2019 - 3

Unmatched Pairs Sculpture Show - Sept 2019 - 2

There was much anticipation among the members as each pair committed their time, materials, and talent to their collaborations. The opening for this sculpture show was held on Friday, September 6, and it was clear the collaborators had made the most of the idea. It showed in the reaction of the visitors. A happy and noisy, inquisitive crowd had turned out. I had to turn my hearing aids down.

To learn more about Pacific Northwest Sculptors events, contact us today!

Sculptors Share Secrets At International Sculpture Day 2019

International Sculpture Day - May 2019 - 1

International Sculpture Day - May 2019 - 2

We’ve yet to have an International Sculpture Day celebration that was not a great success. This one was slimmed down from previous years in that it was to be merely a juried exhibition with a few artists demonstrating techniques. A budget was set for food and the demonstrators paid a small fee to participate. Sculptors Jesse Pierson and Dave Gonzo hosted at their studio on Franklin in SE Portland. Of course, this all sounds simple, but there are a tremendous number of tasks to complete to pull such a thing off. Firstly, you need postcards and publicity, find somebody to pour beer, and the food needs to be bought and set up. Also, where does one find a computer beefy enough to run Oculus Rift? At some point, Gonzo had to lower the giant spider down from the ceiling and build a fire in it. Suffice it to say there was plenty of thinking and heavy lifting involved to make the event a success.

International Sculpture Day Is Mainly A Social Event

I was a demonstrator and went with the intent of making a decent number of little creatures. I made a small lump. It was green and misshapen. That’s as far as I got. Afterward, I spent the rest of the time talking with one person after another. What a bunch of interesting people and what a remarkable evening.

Oculus Rift is a piece of the 3D system with a stereo headset primarily aimed at the gaming industry. One is immersed in a 3-dimensional environment usually with ample weaponry. Hand controls enable one to manipulate and/or operate virtual objects. Your virtual hands or tools mimic the movements of your real arms and hands. Of course, all this means it’s possible to make things as well. This resulted in one person after another sitting over in the corner with googles and hand controls making insane gestures. Alisa Looney, Chas Martin, Andy Kennedy, Joe Cartino, and I were the demonstrators. All were constantly engaged. Thanks, Dave and Jesse, and all who helped out. That was a really nice event.

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Descartes’s Ipad – When 3D Technology and Sculpture Combine

Some years ago, I read a short blurb about a new 3D technology that could paint an image directly onto the retina. The resolution was poor but there were high hopes that would be improved. I never heard another thing about it, but it got me thinking. Would there come a day when you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between physical reality and a computer-generated environment? Descartes made the case that if you could, without a doubt, think you existed- that in itself proved your existence. Descartes didn’t have an iPad.

In a general sense, one can say a computer system can define points in space. How many of those points can be defined (resolution) and how quickly those points can be redefined is determined by the speed of the machines and the skill set of the programmer. Those factors have come to the point where that bit about not being able to tell the real world from a computer-generated world is rapidly coming true. The Goodwill has lots of 3D Goggles. They cost $5 or so. Download the rollercoaster app. (it’s free), slip your phone in there and there you go. What’s this mean for sculpture? All kinds of fun things.

Experiences Of 3D Technology In Virtual Environments

In a virtual world, one can define their own laws of nature. One can redefine material properties. Weightless, magnetic marble? Winged kittens? How about a room full of creepy statues that respond to your emotional state. I am pondering all this and imagining entire constructed worlds when, sculptor, Andy Kennedy sends me a video. I find myself in a real gallery, with sculptures that can only be seen when viewed through a phone, tablet, or 3D goggles. This is augmented reality, the real world with 3D technology digital constructions superimposed upon it. Here was a way to focus on virtual sculpture without the distraction of having to construct the environment as well and the consequent problem of how one would move about in it realistically. Using the real world as the stage resolves that nicely. I’ve posted some links below.

Here is a link to an artist. His name is Maxim Zhesthov. This is an example of redefining material properties. I thought this was real until something happened that could only be digital. Remember all those people wandering the streets staring at their iPhones playing Pokemon, peeking under bushes with their phones looking for little creatures? That is an example of augmented reality.

https://www.facebook.com/AdrienMClaireB/videos/1759097424148719/UzpfSTEwMDAwMjM0NjQzMjQxNzoxMDIxNjAzOTc2NjgwNTAzOQ/

In the above image, only the little man is digital. The full video can be seen if you follow the link. The artists are Adrian M and Clair.

The argument can be made that such things are not sculpture because they don’t have a physical presence, but isn’t that what a painting is, an image of a real thing? And does it matter anyway? The point here is that this is a new brush, a new tool.

To learn more about George’s work, Pacific Northwest Sculptors, and contact us today!

Elements of art: Thoughts about Lines

Just there on the office floor are 3 good sized boxes of comics. They are there because a friend of my nephew’s passed away and willed him his collection. They are Golden Age comics. That is from the 40’s, 50’s and early 60’s. There are several holy grails of comic art in there. In particular, for me at least, a 1952 issue of Walt Disney’s Comic and Stories. This issue came in the mail when I was 5. I could not read. Ran all over the house pleading for someone to read it to me. All my normal readers were busy except grandma who was visiting from Salt Lake. Could she read? She’s so old. Boy could she. She had a remarkable voice. Had a hint of frog in it. She read me the thing, us sitting on the edge of my bed. I never forgot. I am writing this as a direct result of that little episode.

Seventeen years later a friend and I are taking a drive north from Vallejo, Ca. We stop at a little store for snacks. I see a comic book rack. I buy a Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories for 12 cents. It is the same story, reprinted. I bought it and read it for myself this time. I began buying them monthly and eventually acquired great piles of the things. I became a cartoonist sculptor. That particular artist was Carl Barks who passed away 17 years ago at the age of 99. Carl was from Merrill, Oregon and worked as a writer for the early Donald Duck cartoons. After a strike at Disney in 1941, he began working as the Duck cartoonist for Dell Publishing. He was very good and very prolific.

Why does this matter? What does it have to do with sculpture? Beyond Barks’ storytelling was the drawing, the lines, expressions and gestures. They were all dead on. Alive. In most studios where cartoons are pumped out by the bucket load are model sheets pasted to the wall.

If you want to draw something lifeless use one of those. The thing that made Bark’s drawing so good is that every expression or gesture is unique to the situation. If the expression is just right then you not only get it but you feel it. You know exactly what that particular curve in that line means deep down. To get this right is a bit like method acting. You have to feel it, you have to be that as you draw it. This applies to sculpting as well. It’s like being one with what you are doing.

Humans are adapted to finely interpret facial and body expressions. There are shades of meaning in a facial expression that can change with just the teensiest nudge of a lip line. It’s a complex language all its own which we understand right from birth. The lines themselves can have meaning, such that the shape of a line on a face when applied to the curve of an abstract sculpture conveys some of the original meaning. Car makers know this and if you’ve ever been tailgated by a ‘53 Buick you know what I’m saying.

Like words, line curves can carry connotations. In this way a simple line can speak directly to one’s emotions whether that line is part of a face or the silhouette of a sculpture.

The Shapes of Cars at the Portland Art Museum

George Heath

The Portland Art Museum has had two car shows that I’ve attended. Both emphasized design as well as engineering and in the case of the latter how engineering and design can go hand in hand.

The earlier exhibit was called, “The Allure of the Automobile”. Some of those designs were startling. All of them were gorgeous. For example the 1938 Hispano-Suiza Dubonnet Xenia. It was built in France under contract to the Spanish Hispano-Suiza company. There is only one. This is the first car to have a curved windshield. It is a marvel to behold.

Also in that earlier car exhibit was a Bugatti Type 57 Atalante Coupe It looks like a hornet. A well- dressed hornet on its way to somewhere classy – perhaps to go see F. Scott and Zelda. That’s a 1933 Pierce Arrow there in the background. There are 3 left of that model. You can still buy a Pierce Arrow. They come with ladders and fire hoses these days.

The current exhibit is “The Shape of Speed”. It will be up until Sept. 16th, 2018. Having seen the previous car display I was anxious to go as I had since become something of a fan of 1930s cars. My favorite of all time was the 1937 Talbot-Lago 150c SS. To my mind the most beautiful car ever made and one the beautiful things ever made period. There are 9, all different colors. The maroon one was my favorite. There it was, right there. I could have gotten in before they had a chance to stop me. Other wonders competed for attention.

You’ll see a bluish silvery thing behind the Talbot. That’s another Bugatti. There was only one, a prototype that has been lost though there were pictures. An early chassis was found that had a proper serial number. There was an engine in an unopened box. All they needed was to reconstruct the body using only the pictures for reference. The body on the original was a magnesium alloy called elektron. Welding magnesium wasn’t possible then, barely possible now so it’s riveted together. Isn’t that a great name though? Elektron. Buck Roger’s helmet was made of elektrons.

Sadly the designers neglected to incorporate windows that could open so it was impossibly stuffy and hot in there. You see the insanely wealth suffer too.

This is the thirties. The depression was raging. There was civil war in Spain, Germany is getting scary. Guernica. A great war is coming yet designers are sculpting cars that look amazing 80 years later. These are revolutionary times for car design. Speaking of Germany Mercedes is also experimenting with streamlining at the time though in a more intimidating manner. Cars as sculpture send a message as does any sculpture. The Mercedes looks to be about dominance. Maybe I am reading too much into it but it looks like it’s angry and in pain. Like a bully.

I will not close with that but a lovely little thing designed to look like a plane but looks more like a carp with a hernia. I’m being unfair. It looks like a dugong. It was meant to be a car for the masses and in a promotional drive around the country it did very well. Having only three wheels it was far easier and cheaper to make rigid structure. It got 43 mpg and was to sell for $300 new. It was just too weird to catch on.

In any case I highly recommend a visit to see how good it can be when designers get things right.

How to photograph sculpture for the web

George Heath

INTRODUCTION

Not that long ago galleries and juries for shows wanted slides. That meant taking a bunch of pictures, choosing the best and then having copies made. On each slide one would write all the requested information, insert them in a sleeve, insert that in an envelope along with a return envelope with postage etc. I found all that hateful. No more, all is digital now, no envelopes, no postage. Much, much simpler though now juries charge for looking, but that is a separate rant. The issue now is dealing with digital images and how to get them to the format that juries and galleries request. Sadly, there is no standard format for images submitted to galleries and shows. The only defense is to understand how digital images are constructed. Thereby one can be forearmed against any odd image requirement.

PIXELS

For now forget about megabytes, inches, cubits and furlongs. Think only of pixels. A pixel is a square that can display one color. It does not have a fixed size. My 21” monitor has a resolution of 1920 pixels across and 1080 top to bottom. That makes them quite small, 92 or so per inch. The Dallas Cowboy’s jumbotron is about 1910” wide and 864” high. It can display 4864 pixels across and 2176 vertically. If you have the patience to work out the math you’ll see that the pixels on my monitor are much smaller than the Jumbotron’s but then my monitor is not the size of two city lots. The pixel size depends on the resolution and physical size of the display device. The reason it’s best to specify pixels when asking for images is that if an image is 1920 pixels across then it will be 1920 pixels across* no matter what one uses to look at it. It is the number of pixels that define the amount of detail. If a jury wants consistently sharp images they will ask for size in pixels.

BINARY MATH, BITS AND COLOR

Forget also about 0 through 9. Useless clutter, puny human. A machine only needs 0 and 1. Each zero or one is a bit. You can do all the math in the world with those. Let’s count: 0000, 0001, 0010, 0011, 0101, 0110, 0111, 1000. That is zero through 8. You can keep going like that forever. Just add more digits to the left. They can be added, divided, subtracted and subjected to every other operation imaginable. They can do rocket science. They also define what color a pixel may be. Each pixel is assigned a color using a string of 8, 16, 24 or 32 bits. 8 bit color will define each pixel as one of 256 possible colors. 16 bit color; 65536. 24 bit color is common these days. That means each pixel can be one of 16,777,216 available colors. In binary notation an 8 bit red is: 1111, 1111. Green is: 0000, 0000. Mix and match. I mention the details here because you will run across those terms of 8, 16, 24 or 32 bit color when using graphics software or scanning and it can’t hurt to know what that means.

IMAGE FORMATS

There are many formats for images such as jpg, gif, tiff, png, tga, raw, bmp, psd etc. The only ones that can be viewed within an email or on a website are gif, png and jpg. Jpgs are the most common for photos and any image with a gradient as they can use the full 24 bit color pallet. Gifs are only 8 bit color so can only display 256 colors but they can also use transparency which is nice if you want to make a graphic that is partially transparent. Even better gifs can be animated. PNGs can also use the full color pallet and can utilize transparency to boot. Some older browsers can’t see PNGs and they make for bigger files than JPGs.

All in all jpgs are the most common and nearly always what a jury will want to see.

COMPRESSION

Tiffs are not compressed. That means one can open a tiff, work on it and save it without any degradation of the image. The same is true of a psd, Photoshop’s native format. Such files are also huge and would take forever to download even these days. Would not do at all for 3G. Gifs, jpgs and pngs are compressed. I could not begin to describe or understand the math that does this but one ends up with an image very much like the original but using far less memory. Each time a jpg is saved it is recompressed. Think of a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy. For this reason it is best to work with tiff or psd formats and only save the final finished image as a jpg. The amount of compression is adjustable; more compression, smaller size. This is how you can adjust the file size while retaining the detail.

FILE SIZE

The file size is dependent on several things; the number of pixels, the amount of compression and the complexity of the image. A complicated image will not compress as much as a simple one.

RESIZING

The exact method for resizing an image varies depending on the software used. Photoshop has a resizing function listed under “Help” on the menu bar. Another is listed under “Image”. It may also be under “Edit” in other software. In all cases once the resize function is open there will be a way to specify the new size in pixels both horizontally and vertically. You will note a little chain symbol between the size boxes. That indicates whether or not the aspect ratio should be retained. If that box is checked then changing either the vertical or horizontal size will automatically cause the other box to be filled in with the proper number so as to retain the image’s original proportions. That picture of you, if you would like to be thinner uncheck the box and shrink the width only. I do this. There is no shame in it.

Resizing will introduce a bit a fuzziness. That can be corrected by using the sharpen image tool There may be options to increase or decrease the amount of sharpening but be careful not to sharpen too much or you will introduce whitish halos around the edges of objects.

PIXELS AND INCHES

Both screen resolution and print resolution are regarded in dpi, (dots per inch), even though the screen dots are pixels and printed material is halftone dots. These days the dpi for screen resolution varies but it is convenient to regard screen resolution as 72 dpi. Print resolution also varies depending on the type of printing such as for a newspaper or high end art book. Still it is convenient to regard printing resolution as 300 dpi. That is a common resolution for a home photo printer. For example you have a picture that is ten inches, (720 pixels), across on your computer screen. If you print that picture it will only be 2.4 inches across since 720 ÷ 300 = 2.4. It is possible to force the picture to print 10” wide but it will be fuzzy and look out of focus.

*Devices with small screens – less pixels wide than the image width in pixels – may display the entire image by zooming out. Pixels may be discarded or neighboring pixels combined to make the entire image fit. One can still zoom in to see the image at 100% but it will be necessary to scroll around to see the whole thing.

**A computer word or byte is a string of bits, commonly 32 or 64 bits. Some of the bits in the byte, will define the location of a pixel and others what color it should be.

Portland Winter Light Festival promotes art in public spaces

George Heath

The Portland Winter Light Festival is going as I write this. Last year we chickened out due to rain. This year we did not. The Max line is not far from here and there is a stop right in the center of the activity. The Portland Opera was singing on the Portland Spirit boat. Light displays were setup between the Portland Opera building , OMSI and east to the Oregon Rail Heritage Center. The festival is all about messing with light. It has it coming after all. The first thing we saw were counter rotating circles of steel, lit from behind with various symmetric patterns plasma cut into them. Variations in the patterns caused some surprising moiré patterns to occur. Glass globes that hummed deeply when stroked were being happily caressed. At the rail museum 25 or so circular fluorescents bonged at various tones when one passed underneath. People were crashing into each other there. A large tesla coil was throwing 15 inch bolts, (1,140,000 volts to do that), also at the rail museum. There the locomotives were lit beautifully. Nothing like a steam locomotive lit from within to generate a sense of romantic awe. There were at least two places where people could play with large amounts of sudden flame.

Remember that scene in the Wizard of Oz where the wizard is on the screen and huge flames suddenly roar? You could do that for yourself. There was a line.