Typography

Reposted from Christi's blog. Word art at its best.

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

OK!

I can't stop myself. Someone help.

This composite of 6 photos is itself based on the composite mobile here.

Ah.

Next in the series....

In this composite (of five mobile images), I'm tapping into the interest in graphic design and typography that I've had since childhood.

There's also embedded a subtle (or not) cue for what the viewer's reaction should be.

More Nudes Descending a Staircase

Yesterday, Alice suggested playing with the background on my manipulated photo. So, I downloaded GIMP, which is a free open-source drawing program with lots of advanced features. It's great. There's definitely a learning curve involved, but it's pretty easy to do what you want once you get beyond it. It's still not as flexible as I would want, but hey, it's free.

So, here's the same image with colors darkened and a striped background added. Removing the naturalistic ground definitely adds to the disembodied effect I'm going for. To that end, I had also removed the shadows from the wires but not the flat pieces. And I blurred the wires while sharpening the flat pieces. Little optical inconsistencies to enhance (subtly) the other-worldly feel.

Here is another composite photo made with GIMP. Again, three separate images of another mobile, but this time without flash and hence without shadows, which flattens the perspective and results in an op-art-like look. With GIMP, I also have much finer control over the opacity of each layer than with the word processor (Pages) I was using before.

Next: selectively including shadows in various parts of the composite. I want to try mixing the 2D and 3D qualities of these two images for a more disorienting effect.

Photo Experiment

I have been thinking about making art prints from photos of my mobiles, but in a way that captures all four dimensions at once (three space and one time). Here is a first attempt, where I've superimposed three heavily-processed images and then reprocessed the whole thing one more time.

My intent is not to depict my mobiles accurately but rather to start with a real 4D piece of art and turn it into a 2D piece of art that stands on its own. Does it work? I can't tell yet.

At the moment, my only tool is Aperture (on the Mac), and it was very painstaking work to erase the shadows from the wires and to lighten the background bit by bit. I may have to invest in Photoshop.....

Map Study

In this new box-shaped mobile (25" H x 18" W), I'm extending the idea of colliding pieces that I stumbled upon here. Each of the two large C-shaped wires has another suspended piece inside, which is free to rotate until it hits the C itself. I also wanted the two C's to echo each other like the two side-by-side copies in a stereoscopic image. This is a new technique for filling empty spaces in a composition.

The colliding pieces also allows wires to cross at right angles, like two roads at an intersection. In fact, except for the bird-like flat pieces, this mobile reminds me of a subway map. Eventually, I want to make a room-sized installation based on this concept. I envision a series of mobiles depicting detailed imaginary three-dimensional maps. But these maps would be absurdly impractical because mobiles have no fixed reality -- all the parts move around relative to each other. These flexible, evolving maps would only convey vague impressions of an ever-shifting geography.

Another Revision

To the right is another old mobile, this time from 2006. (This picture was obviously not taken with public consumption in mind.) It has been hanging in our living room, partly because I was never happy enough with it to send it out into the world. There was something missing.

Since I'm cleaning house these days (artistically speaking), I decided to finish it finally. Here it is (26" H x 16" W) with a new third level added to the top and a broader spectrum of colors.

Suspension of [Dis]Color

Yesterday's opening at the Corners Gallery was a big success (I thought). Many thanks to everyone who came and especially to Ariel Ecklund for organizing the whole thing! I had a great time!

Here's a nice shot of me with some of my mobiles by Steve Gallow of local blogging and photography fame. Thanks, Steve!

Also, check out master blogger-potter Gary Rith for more pics from yesterday's event!

Corners Gallery Preview

Here is a sneak peek at the gallery space with my pieces installed. Opening this Saturday, January 16, 2-4 PM! For directions, click here.

There will also be parsnip cake.

Serendipity Strikes Again

Yesterday, I was moving a couple mobiles around the house. One is from last year (see here), and the other is one of the first mobiles I ever made (from November 2004):

I have always been bothered by the sparseness of both mobiles and was actually thinking of dismantling them (for lack of hanging space). But then, I happened to suspend them both from the same hook, and, to my surprise, a whole new mobile emerged (44" H x 36" W):

The unfinished quality from before is now gone, replaced by an interesting tangle of wires. The verticality of the earlier mobile complements the horizontal lines of the later one. And the flat pieces, tightly geometric in one case and textured and organic in the other, somehow speak to each other, despite being made over four years apart. There is a layered complexity in this juxtaposition which, perhaps because it wasn't carefully planned, seems curious and alive, even if it's not altogether "whole".

To solidify the whole composition, I connected the two mobiles by a short piece of wire at the top and interlaced one wire from the bird mobile through a loop in the vertical mobile. This way, the different pieces generally avoid banging into each other, although it still does happen sometimes, and that's okay -- I think the collisions are actually part of the piece.

In fact, I originally intended my last mobile here to have collisions as well -- the mini bird pieces were to be overlapping both visually and in physical space -- but I strayed from that concept as I went along. I now see how such a radical (to me, at least) idea can work in practice.

Corners Gallery, Jan 16

My show at The Corners Gallery opens next Saturday, January 16. If you can, please swing by 2-4 PM to say hello and see my new pieces!

For a sampling of what will be on display, click here.

Hope to see you there!

Waste Not, Want Not

Here's a mobile (23" H x 36" W) made from bits of scrap metal (both plain silver and brown/white) that I've been saving over the years. This is the first time I've successfully used unpainted silver pieces in a mobile. The pictures are grainy because I had to dial the contrast way up in order to capture the silver.

Despite looking like a random explosion of glass shards, there's actually a method to the madness. There are three main sections, each consisting of three tiny mobiles of three pieces each (that's 27 pieces total). I arranged the three pieces in each unit to resemble the head, feet, and wing of a bird. So, the overall (subliminal) effect (hopefully) is of a flock of birds all heading in the same direction. Here are some closeups to show what I mean.

And here's a view from below:

Synapses II

Yesterday, I made a wall hanging for my upcoming show at The Corners Gallery. It's a piece of canvas spray painted with stencils from this cardboard mobile. I had decided that the negative cutouts didn't really work with the mobile, but now I've found another use for them.

This wall hanging (41" H x 46" W) is meant to cover up a fuse box in the gallery space.

And here it is shown with the cardboard mobile (which is called Synapses) hanging in front.

Bird Speaks

So, here is the actual mobile based on the sketch I made here. It turned out a bit taller than I intended -- 52" H x 43" W. I plan to include it in my upcoming show at The Corners Gallery (opening Sat Jan 16, 2-4 PM), but it may be too large for the space. We'll see....