L.A. Detour..

I took a trip to Los Angeles over the weekend to check out museums and galleries. The picture above finds me immersed in the blue neon glow of Carlos Cruz-Diez's Cromosatruación, from 1965.

This piece and others were part of the exhibit, "Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color and Space" at the Geffen Contemporary wing of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. I saw the amazing Murakami show at this space in 2007, as well.

The most striking message I took from this show was Lucio Fontana's quote from his Spatial Manifesto of 1946:

"We carry forward the evolution of Art through the medium."

I am a firm believer in this notion. Too bad that much of the Art world seems a little behind due to their their timid support and promotion of artists working in digital media, etc.

I also saw, for the second time, Blum and Poe's magnificent space on La Cienega Blvd in Culver City. I was surprised to see that Peres Projects had closed shop in the space that was nearby. Things come and go....

Poll Position....

The polling application was added to the site. It will now be possible for visitors to primaryblackandwhite.info to vote for their preference from four competing images.

I'm pleased that this part of the work is over and am looking forward to the writing for the site.

Why I Chose The Primary Colors....

I am a proponent of testing one's perceived limits and learning while doing. Proper planning, practice, and equal measures of chance, risk and caprice are healthful in life and, especially, in artistic practice.

I was asked why I chose the primary colors for this project. The reasons are both artistic and practical.

The primary colors are called so because they have some basis as "originals" and "basics": The primary colors are the colors from which all others flow. These colors are universal and understood by all -- if not in exactly the same way.

Red, yellow and blue also have a long history in art, from the blue gown of the Madonna to the iridescent yellows of Van Gogh and the strident reds prominent in the works of the Constructivists. Mondrian and Van Doesburg reduced their palettes to the primaries, along with other artists in the De Stijl movement.

Practically, I'm interested in starting with "the basics" as it were, and to move to more nuanced and complex color schemes as this Englyph line of my practice develops.

For now, though, it's Primary, Black and White....

Color Tests...

Today, I'll begin doing print tests for the colors of the pieces. I'm not sure what the colors will look like when I print them, so I'm creating a CMYK-based "test sheet" that will contain variations of the Reds, Yellows, and Blues that I would like. I am overlaying White and Black in varying degrees of "opacity" or opaqueness, to see how bold the colors need to be for the printer.

I also recognize that I'll use more than one of each color. Perhaps I'll want the blues on a particular piece to stand out more than the red. In this case, I'll make the blue more saturated, and dull the red just a bit, to get the desired effect. Josef Albers is calling.

Once I get this test sheet printed, I can go back and choose the colors I'd like to use for printing, and change the digital files accordingly. This is one of the advantages of working in a digital format, as opposed to more traditional approaches. I can test, change, and accommodate, both expanding and limiting the possibilities, depending upon the effect desired by the artist.

Moving Along Swimmingly....

Things are moving along swimmingly. Yesterday and this morning, I created the structure for my image voting screen. Each screen will give a choice of four images from which my viewers can choose one as the best to be printed. There will be a total of 36 images from which to choose, as I plan to print nine images with the following characteristics:

3 prints with text in Englyph that addresses the color BLUE, one with a blue background, one with a white background and one with a black background,

3 prints with Englyph text that addresses the color RED, one with a red background, one with a white background and one with a black background,

and 3 prints with Englyph text that addresses the color YELLOW, one with a yellow background, one with a white background and one with a black background.

The viewer will be able to examine the images close up, using a Flash-based zoom feature.

Fun!

Cutting Graphics...

Today, I'm preparing the Web site, primaryblackandwhite.info.

Working in Photoshop to prepare the look of the site, making sure that all is carefully sized to fit  the flash modules I'm developing to allow the magnification of images.

I'm also creating much of the user interface in Englyph, which will translate when the cursor rolls over the word.

Learning How To Ride A Bike

I learned how to ride a bike later than the other children.

Once I did learn, I rode my bicycle very well.