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Why I paint spirals

In: Conceptual Art, Conceptual Art Examples, Conceptual Art Theory, Inspiration

Spirals are one of my favorite ways to compose pictures. Here is how I explain what it is about them I love so much.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away; I took Geometry. Like most of the other ninth graders in my class, I found it to be a refreshing diversion from arithmetic and equations (otherwise known as “Math”), and in getting to know and draw shapes, I was introduced to the spiral, properly. We had these nifty graphing calculators, black and brown screens and spirals would animate right out of the axes once the correct equation was entered - though by this time, bringing equations back to the shapes was a brilliant way to rekindle my fading interest in math. And then, there was the geometric theorem (I can’t find a reference) that stated that “all spirals are similar,”  as depending on the dimensions on the axes on which they are mapped, they can be made to look exactly like one another, even if arising from very different equations. So if the shape is a spiral, no matter how it looks, it’s just like every other spiral. cool.

It wasn’t long after this that I began to draw spirals. I could manage to draw a straight line, but drawing a spiral became effortless. The trick I found was that …

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Back from being home, in France

In: Inspiration

“And they got me used to that clean white linen, and that fancy French cologne.”

-- Thankfully I was able to bring the latter back with me! Duty-Free to boot.

Vacations are always good for renewal of perspective, but Paris (and France in general,) for me, is a walk in a whole new paradigm. There’s more to this perception than a simple physical transfer to another continent; there is separate, more natural nutrition. There is human-designed space, architectural and landscaping, to suit design principles and the running away of the imagination. There is a long, well-documented history and elements from various times co-existing like a poorly organized museum. There are differences in weather, water, shelter, rhythm, and other very basic influential elements.

We stayed with my Aunt Susan who lives in the French Alps in a little town called La Roche sur Foron (meaning, the rock on the Foron river.) The town has existed since the medieval era and left to illustrate this are a sizeable tower (on a rock, possibly “La Roche”) and a surrounding walled-in village complete with narrow roads and an old market area where grain basins in stone still exist. Here, Travis got his first taste of real French pastry, and our experience of France as a couple began at the Marché Thursday Morning. Having not spoken French in 10 years, I still managed to …

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Collectors Opportunity: One-time Signed and Numbered Twitterscapes

In: Conceptual Art, Exhibitions

An upcoming show featuring Twitterscapes has enabled me to open up a special opportunity to print a collector's edition. This is a unique chance to buy a Twitterscape at a larger format, signed and numbered; the first of their kind. Available here.

It’s going to be an exciting year for me as an artist. This spring, I’ll be attending SXSWi in Austin, then flying off to Paris in June - undoubtedly to see lots of artwork and sniff out a few galleries, hopefully. This March will also mark 1 year since Twitterscapes were first introduced to the public at Chroma Gallery, and as part of Creative Albuquerque’s Women in Creativity series, I’ve decided to share Twitterscapes again, this time at Petroglyph, with an exhibit of images that were produced as the first Twitterscapes, before the code in the script was set. There are up to 40 of these I could show as the progression the images took, though I dare say, I’m limited to showing only a few of these by cost.

The Story behind Twitterscapes

In case you don’t already know, Twitterscapes are images created from data provided by Twitter. The program, written by me exclusively to create Twitterscapes, pulls the users tweets out of Twitter’s Application Programming Interface (API) as well as information about the users who authored said tweets, matches the colors …

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