Tuesday, January 12, 2010

A process for the word C-O-L-O-R in 4,788 teeny weeny parts

Here is a triptych that I recently completed. As you may know from reading previous posts, I am working with a lot of flight path "translations."
...the work is quite fresh in my head, so articulation has been in spurts.

But here you are, with process provided for those who are interested.
Click Images to see them bigger.

C-O-L-O-R Study Landscape in "HTML"
This piece involved researching an extensive list of HTML colors, to choose a total of 5 that each begin with the letters that spell out the word Color. The colors chosen were C- Champagne, O- Old Gold, L- Liver, O- Onyx and R- Rust.Only these colors were used to paint an abstract expressionistic color field. A legend is provided with the name and the HTML code of each color.
C-O-L-O-R Study Flight Paths to Color Locations
Further analysis of the 5 colors led to determining cities that are inspired by their names.

C-Champagne, France, of which they share the same name. O- Old Gold - El Oro, Mexico(the word "oro" is the word "gold" in Spanish). L- Liver - Leipzig, Germany, where liver and onions is a traditional food. O- Onyx - a semi-precious stone that has been used for centuries in Egypt for jewelry and other artisan crafts. For this reason, an Oasis in Egypt called Dakhla was selected. And finally, R- Rust - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil- home to the largest mines of Iron, a metal that is prone to rust.
Once the locations were decided I conducted further research to determine the flight paths from one location to the next, creating a sewn abstract line drawing with colored embroidery floss that matches the HTML colors. A legend is provided in order to read the line drawing.

C-O-L-O-R Study of Constellations Above Color Locations

This final piece of the triptych involves researching the view of the night sky constellations from each location facing east at Midnight on January 1, 2010.
Each constellation is sewn on top of the other within the black surface, creating and abstract dot design. A legend is provided to note the Latitude and Longitude of each of the 5 color locations.
Related Topics:
I ran into my friends/associates/peers Daniel Brodo and Kristi Engle at an opening at Haus Gallery on Sunday. Daniel does some insane thinking about his work... I use the word insane in a nice way.

While I was describing this process to him, although he has not seen the work, he mentioned that the idea was like 3 layers -- making a gesture like one would make while pressing biscuit dough or maybe trying to gently shmoosh a sweater into a drawer that is too full. "Ah ha!" I exclaimed, "It's a triptych, but you just gave me another idea." ...So, Thanks Daniel!
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Approximately 4,788 holes were poked in these pieces to make the "legends"....now who's insane?