Artomatice 2017 comes to a close - tomorrow!

Artomatic 2017 has been an amazing experience. this 6-week indoor art festival enabled 600+ visual artists, plus dozens of musicians and performing artists, to give a soul to a building that previously had been filled with government workers.

above is a shot of 4 of my 6 pieces. to those who stopped by, thank you. i enjoyed the thrill of putting together a themed exhibition especially for Artomatic. my work was done in both my crystal city studio (blue studio underground) and at TechShop.

if you haven't visited yet, you have two more days!

painting, arduino, and LEDs

i am pretty happy with this piece, currently at Artomatic. it is an oil painting on wood. once the painting was completed, i laser cut its outline, laser etched the New Colossus poem onto it, fitted it with an Ardruino controlling some NeoPixel LEDs, and made some wooden sides for it. i plan to do more pieces of this type.

Footprints - Artomatic 2015

This is a photo of my completed space at Artomatic 2015. It is not just about Rhinos, although I use them to emphasize something broader. I will go into more discussion about its meaning in a near-future post.

The two paintings on either side are "bookends" -- a mother and child. The mother in the lead, the child trotting along after. The piece that is second from the left is entitled "Footprints" and is the focal point of the installation -- there is only a bit of one rhino in it, as other parts of nature vie for attention. It is detailed and complicated and deserves its own discussion. The piece to the right of it is "The Abyss" and also contains a rhino, though a bit more abstractly. The rhino in this piece looks into the abyss and is acting as a canary in a coal mine. The piece to the right of The Abyss is my first piece of art to contain an Arduino. A sensor lets the Arduino know when to make the eye sparkle. I learned a lot by doing this and am looking forward to continue to combine technology and art as a way to allow paintings to be more interactive.

If you take a photo of any of my work, please post it on social media with the hashtag #SaveRhinos. 

I hope you can visit Artomatic. It contains the work of 500+ visual artists (2D and 3D), plus many performing artists. There are also workshops and other activities. Meet the Artists night is the next major event and will take place on November 14. Check the calendar for more activities. 

Footprints - at Artomatic 2015 (preliminary)

Artomatic 2015 opens tomorrow. I decided to expand my rhinoceros series into the broader theme of the human impact on the earth. We all leave footprints -- what will you leave behind?  What will you tread upon?

This is the first time I will be showing an Arduino-enabled painting. It is not technologically sophisticated, but I think it adds a sparkle. I plan to do more of this in the near future, to create art that interacts with the viewer, its environment, or both.

Here are some teaser photos of some of my pieces. I will post a photo of my entire space once the show has opened.

It starts with a fresh coat of paint: 

This is a work-in-progress photo of a section of my flagship piece, Footprints:

And a couple more photos of bits and pieces of some of my pieces: 

 I hope you can visit Artomatic and see thousands of works of art by hundreds of artists.

merging art & tech

i will be teaching a music & technology "camp" to kids in a few weeks (and also robotics in another session). i have been working on a prototype for a project. it is inspired by Lorenzo Bravi's "Hit the Beat" project. more details to come later when it is finished (plans and code will be posted online). the basic idea is to build a percussion box / drum machine. we will build the instrument, add design elements to it, and program it to play a rhythm.

here is a video of the cardboard prototype, and another of the birch wood prototype.

it is powered by an Arduino, which is controlling a solenoid.