| i am a visual artist residing in chicago, illinois. chicago has always been a most centering place for me on this planet. i recall, when i was young, hearing a story about a primitive pot that had been thrown on a primitive wheel. when a record-needle-like-device traced the ridges of the pot as it spun on a wheel, the sounds of the world around the pot when it was initially thrown were reproduced. the pot had behaved as a wax record. the idea fascinated me. energy captured in an object--a moment secured in material. technically, i am drawn to glass as a medium--the multiple layers, finishes, possibilities, but over the last several years i have come to an unique understanding of two distinct types of glass—as they relate to my work: 'clean glass' and 'resonant glass.' 'clean glass' is glass right from the factory--picture frames, panels, table-tops. this glass has not been infused with the same energy as ‘resonant glass’ and allows for my own intention to come through. consider: you and i look through a window at a tree. the light-energy from the tree is passes from the tree through the glass to our eyes. our rods and cones fire and we see a tree. i will argue, that some of the light-energy from that tree is captured in the glass—a captured moment. over time, these moments collect until the window resonates with undeniable captured energy. my 'gift' is such that when i look into 'resonant glass,' my rods and cones fire and i see the resonant energy frozen into an image that i can then 'trace' with my own technique, capturing the image so others might see what i see. there is nothing organic about the process. when i see an image in resonant glass, that is the image that is there. every line, every color, every shape in my paintings are frozen in the window the moment i focus on the glass. I trace the image with layers of used cardboard and acrylic. (used cardboard, like glass, is infused with energy—it has carried items, been touched and traveled—making it an excellent medium for capturing resonant images in glass.) this is the way i have been painting for the last three years. seven months ago, i saw an image of a character named 53947, a re-occuring figure in my work, sitting in a pile of ashes that was a city. i liked the image and placed the window on my worktable, then went to retrieve paint and cardboard to fix the image in the glass. when i returned and looked into the window at the image, i noticed the figure had shifted. it was 53947 sitting in ashes, but he was rebuilding the city. i realized he had posed for me. the revelation was an interesting one. to acknowledge the truth of what my eyes had seen was to acknowledge that 53947 exists outside of my world, on the other side of the window. my perceptions immediately shifted as i began to trace all the key moments in a story that had been whispered to me by the wind for over three years: 53947 is a typeface designer. he designs fonts that look exactly like ‘times new roman.’ the difference is so minimal that it is unnoticeable to our eyes, but in nature they are all very different. his world would be considered perfect, if anyone in his world ever thought it necessary to define it. 53947 has a re-occurring dream. in it, he is told by a bluebird to pass an old dead tree and climb a hill. on the horizon above the deep valley, he will see his salvation. he progresses through his life, never finishing the dream—never actually seeing his salvation. one day, i saw the dream in a pane of glass. the image was so crisp, i finished it in a day. i had traced the climax of his dream into the glass in the form of a burning ‘a’ and in doing so, had given him that same image on his side of the window as well—burning on the horizon, above the deep valley. the sight of the letter—unlike anything he had ever seen before—gave him sublime knowledge and suddenly with all the answers, the questions become unimportant. he received perfect understanding of perception, all-knowing and annihilating. in return for this gift, he gives me images from his world—of its places and people and mythos. he freezes these images in resonant glass, developing the resonant energy into traceable images. the left-over energy is then frozen into a textural fill of interlocking line-segments. |
times new roman: an explanation
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lewis lain
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-enjoy your life-
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Once we know the number one, we believe that we know the number two, because one plus one equals two. We forget that first we must know the meaning of plus. ~Alphaville
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"I've got a chainsaw in my garage.
You want to do whatever I say and be my friend?
Or do you want me to be your worst nightmare?
~Grey Chambers-- Sunday Morning
Alkaline-Comics, home of a bazillion comics!
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lewis lain
[link]
--
"I've got a chainsaw in my garage.
You want to do whatever I say and be my friend?
Or do you want me to be your worst nightmare?
~Grey Chambers-- Sunday Morning
Alkaline-Comics, home of a bazillion comics!
--
-There is a little homicidal maniac in everyone, just leave him free you'll fell better.
- Most of the psycho looks kind, so they can slowly and painfully kill you when you least expect it.
-A lot of people are still alive only because murder is illegal.
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