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Art Exhibit at Advocate Good Shepard Hospital in Barrington IL

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Life Pulse digital abstract art
Life Pulse digital abstract art by Jim Plaxco

Monday 01/11/2010 saw me setting up an exhibit of my digital art at the Advocate Good Shepard Hospital in Barrington IL. The art exhibit will run through April 4, 2010 and is sponsored by the Northwest Cultural Council’s Corporate Gallery Art Program.

For the sake of consistency I had to decide on what style of art to include in the show. My choices were either astronomical art, space art, or abstract art. I chose abstract art as that was most likely to have the broadest appeal. Note that some of the abstract art I create is done using a technique that I term algorithmic gesturalism. To elaborate, in algorithmic gesturalism I make use of an algorithmic based art program of my own creation which takes as input the "brush strokes" of my hand. Two examples of this technique are Geometer’s Dreamscape and Finding My Center of Gravity - neither of which appear on my web site.

Included in the art exhibit are four new works of art that I have not previously exhibited:

Life Pulse
Impression of Water Lily
Bionic Cnidaria
Microscopic Metropolis

The five other works of art in the exhibit are:

Geometer’s Dreamscape
Shades of Escher
Harmony of Spheres
Contemplating Infinity
Finding My Center of Gravity

Of the nine works of art, the only one listed on my web site is Contemplating Infinity. Unfortunately I just haven’t been able to find the time to post more of my art to my web site. I should make that a belated New Year’s resolution.

The Illustration: Life Pulse

I created Life Pulse, a 20 by 15 inch abstract, earlier this month. The idea for this painting came to me while sitting in a doctor’s office in Arizona last month and watching the ever changing pattern of lines on an EEG display. Wave like yet irregular, long periods of tranquility with brief bursts of storm like activity. That was the inspiration for the painting Life Pulse.

Tags: abstract art, art exhibit
Posted in Abstract Art, Art Shows, Art and Artists | 4 Comments »

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Windycon - Dystopia, Space, and Art

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Windycon Art Show web page

I’ll be spending this weekend at the Windycon 36 Science Fiction Convention. If you haven’t heard of Windycon it is one of the Midwest’s largest regional science-fiction conventions with an average attendance of over 1300.

I will of course be participating in the art show. Kerry Kuhn (aka Trouble) will be running the art show again this year which means that everything will go smoothly. I always enjoy touring the art show and seeing what the other artists are up to. I especially enjoy the Friday night wine and cheese reception which allows the artists and potential buyers to mix, mingle, and make merry. Another feature of the art show is the art auction held Saturday night and run by Bob Passovoy. It’s probably one of the most entertaining art auctions you’ll ever attend.

I think that I’ve attended most of the Windycons over the last 20 years and this one certainly has the lightest personal workload. I typically give one, maybe two, presentations and participate in a few panel discussions. This year I offered no talks and was assigned to a single panel. But that panel is a good one. Titled Dystopia Begone, the panel’s description is:

Does the future have to be so grim? Is our future really overcrowded, polluted and unequal? What books are interesting, good to read, and have a positive view of the near future? Or is there a positive view? Our panelists discuss the world of the next 100 years.

The panelists will be myself, E.E. Knight, Michael Williamson, and Gene Wolfe.

When it comes to science fiction and dystopian views of the future, I must say that I find the subject appealing. Looking over this Wikipedia list of dystopian literature, I find that I have read and enjoyed quite a few of the novels listed.

Based on memory I would have to say that of the ones I have read, my five top favorites are:

For my money, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and 1984 are far out in front of the other three on my list.

And in getting back to the future, I will also be participating in a planning meeting for the 2010 International Space Development Conference (ISDC) - being held Saturday morning at the hotel. The International Space Development Conference is an annual conference sponsored by the National Space Society for which I am a director. I tried to avoid becoming deeply involved in the ISDC for fear of being stretched to thin. However I failed miserably. In addition to now being the official photographer for the 2010 ISDC, I am also managing the Call for Papers and find myself to be the Web Site Coordinator. You’ll be reading more about this in the future.

But for now, for more information about the Windycon Science Fiction Convention, go to http://www.windycon.org/windy36/. For the Windycon art show, visit Windycon Art Show page.

If you’re attending Windycon, keep an eye out for me and don’t forget to visit the art show.

Ad Astra, Jim

Tags: art show, dystopian, space, windycon
Posted in Art Shows, National Space Society, SF Cons | No Comments »

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Corporate Gallery Artist’s Reception

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Geometers Dreamscape digital abstract art

In July I was accepted into the Northwest Cultural Council’s Corporate Gallery Program. The Corporate Gallery Program is supported by funding from corporations in northwest suburban Chicago land and involves approximately 30 area artists whose art is on display in 9 corporate art galleries. The public may view the art during each gallery’s normal business hours. Artists display their works - oils, watercolors, sculpture, photography, mixed media (and now digital) - at the gallery sites on a rotating basis.

Upon being accepted into the program, four of my digital art works were put on exhibit at the Arlington Green Executive Centre at 2101 S. Arlington Heights Road in Arlington Heights IL. The art went on display July 21 and will remain on display until October 5. The four art works that I have in the exhibit are:

Finding My Center of Gravity - an abstract panoramic gallery wrap canvas giclee.
Geometer’s Dreamscape - the abstract shown above.
Butterfly Effect - another abstract panoramic gallery wrap canvas giclee.
Harmony of the Spheres - an abstract similar in style to Geometer’s Dreamscape

Unfortunately I have made none of this art available for sale on either my web site or at Fine Art America. However, I did use a small scale study of Butterfly Effect as the illustration for my blog post Mensa, Algorithmic Art, and Monty Python

2010 Corporate Gallery Artists Reception - Saturday September 12

Following is the text of the reception announcement.

The public is invited to view works by seven new NWCC Corporate Gallery artists at a reception on Saturday, September 12, 2009 from 1pm to 3 pm at Arlington Green Executive Centre, 2101 S. Arlington Heights Road, Arlington Heights, IL. There is no admission fee, and refreshments will be served. Works will remain on exhibit through October 5, 2009; the gallery is open Monday-Friday 9am-5pm, Saturday 9am-Noon.

Exhibiting artists are:

Gail Baar of Buffalo Grove - Art Quilts

Liz Buckley of Mundelein - Photographs

Dianne Martia of Darien - Mixed Media

James Plaxco of Schaumburg - Digital Art

Donald Stillman of Buffalo Grove - Cellulose Polymer Resin Sculpture

Len Upin of Buffalo Grove - Ball Pen Drawings

Kevin Wisor of Schaumburg- Photo Collages

The Corporate Gallery Program is supported by corporations in the Northwest Corridor. The program showcases regional artists in attractive, modern corporate settings. Artists in a wide variety of media are accepted after a rigorous 2-step jurying process. The Council’s goal is to enrich the life of the community through exposure to the arts where people work and visit.

All art is for sale. A percentage of the sale price is a tax-deductible donation to support the Council, a not-for-profit community agency bringing visual art, music, dance, theater, poetry, and our unique Kids Meet Art program to the northwest suburbs.

For additional information about the reception please call the Council at 847-991-7966, or e-mail nwcc at northwestculturalcouncil.org.

About the Northwest Cultural Council

The Northwest Cultural Council was established in 1988 to respond to the need for cultural enrichment and development in the northwest suburbs and covers an area with a population of 800,000. The organization’s quarterly publication Spotlights is read by over 7,000 people and includes information about cultural events held in the northwest suburban area, focus articles on artists, and the value of art in education.

In addition to their work in support of the visual arts, NWCC also has literary programs and sponsors poetry workshops. It also sponsors a classical chamber music series featuring members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with concerts presented at NWCC Corporate Gallery sites.

The NWCC Kids Meet Art program is a three day arts education program that brings professional artists into elementary, junior and high schools, to introduce students to the various art forms. It offers hands-on, one-on-one training in art, music, theater, writing, dance, and special units on the Mayan and Japanese cultures.

See you at the Artists Reception

If you would like to attend the September 12 artists reception (1:00-3:00pm), you can use the following Google map for directions to the Arlington Green Executive Centre. I hope to see you there.

Ad Astra, Jim

Tags: artists, corporate gallery program, reception
Posted in Abstract Art, Art Shows, Art and Artists | 2 Comments »

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Space Artist Alan Bean Radio Interview

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Cropped version of Astronaut Glory II digital painting

Last night an interview with space artist and Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean aired on WBEZ here in Chicago. The interview, conducted on the PRI program The World opened with Alan Bean discussing one of his favorite paintings - a self portrait titled That’s How It Felt To Walk On The Moon and the emotions he felt walking on the Moon: "It’s an incredible moment. It’s a moment where you feel like you’re the luckiest guy on Earth. It’s a moment where your life is at stake and the people that got you there had better have built that suit right…"

Bean went on to discuss how he went about incorporating moon dust into each of his paintings. The key is a realization that Bean had regarding emblems that had been cut from his Apollo and Skylab spacesuits and presented to him by NASA upon his retirement from NASA.

"One day I was sitting down … and looking up at these emblems from Apollo 12… You know those things are dirty with moon dust. I had wanted moon dust to put in my paintings but didn’t have them and never thought of it being in those patches… If I would be willing to cut them up I could put them in the paintings. And then I would have pieces of my spacesuit in there and dirt from the Ocean of Storms… I hated to cut them up… but I’m using the rest of my life to make these paintings. I think it would be appropriate to cut them up and include them in the paintings."

Responding to a question about moon dust and posterity: "I believe in doing what you can because I’ll be gone in 10 or 15 years but your listeners need to think about this: they’re only going to be here once. Sometimes we think there’s other people around that will make up for what we don’t do. Sure they can, they can mow a lawn, they can drive a car, they can take a job and write an article or something but they can not do what’s in the heart of each of your listeners. And if they don’t do it, it will never be done again until time ends."

The radio interview lasted 8 minutes and audio of the interview is available at Moon Artist - PRI’s The World.

The interview was apparently timed to coincide with the July 16 2009 opening of an Alan Bean art exhibit at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum titled Alan Bean: Painting Apollo, First Artist on Another World.

To learn more about Alan Bean and his brand of space art, you can read an interview I had with Alan Bean many years ago and visit Alan Bean’s web site. There is also a brand new book of Alan’s space art: Alan Bean: Painting Apollo by Alan Bean I have not yet seen the book but am looking forward to getting a copy.

Check out this new youtube video of Alan Bean talking about his space art.

The Illustration: Astronaut Glory II

The picture used to illustrate this post is a cropped version of a digital painting I created a few months ago as my way of commemorating the upcoming 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon. Unsigned open edition versions in a variety of sizes can be purchased at Fine Art America. A small quantity of signed limited edition versions are available on my web site at Astronaut Glory II Space Art Print.

Tags: alan bean, Apollo, artist, moon, painting, Space Art
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Schaumburg Prairie Arts Festival

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

Schaumburg Prairie Arts Festival

Saturday the kids and I attended the Schaumburg Prairie Arts Festival. It was beautiful weather for an outdoor fair. This is the 22nd year for this annual juried fine art festival. Over 150 artists and artisans participated in this year’s festival.

My prime motivation for attending was to see what other artists were up to. I confess to having largely ignored the artists specializing in sculpture, blown glass, jewelry, and pottery. My focus was on the work of the photographers and painters.

With respect to photography, one thing was evident: digital photography has become the dominant form of photography. Photographic works came in three basic forms. The first form was what I would call pure photography which consists of photographs with no apparent digital manipulation. The second category would be photographs in which various types of digital manipulation were evident - at least to someone experienced in such matters. The third category would be photographs that had been digitally altered to resemble paintings - a path most frequently taken by those working with Adobe Photoshop or Corel Painter.

I have no personal bias either for or against any of the three aforementioned categories. Rather, the only thing that matters to me is the end product. If someone can take a well composed photograph and skillfully manipulate it to create a convincing painting that is superior to the original photograph, then kudos to that photographer-artist. After all, the final image is what counts.

There were a number of traditional painters present at the art fair as well but for the most part their work, mostly executed on large canvases, was uninspiring. I found this to be particularly true of the abstract artists - though there were a few whose work was inspired.

Thinking back, one thing I don’t recall seeing were any purely digital paintings. Nor were there any artists whose work was the result of a 3D render. Being a fan of space art and astronomy, I was also disappointed to see no space art nor any astronomical art. The closest was a digital photograph of the Aurora Borealis.

Speaking of space art, the reason I am writing this entry so late (oops make that early) is because I spent Memorial Day and this evening (now yesterday) preparing artwork for the Space Art Show at the International Space Development Conference in Orlando Florida. I also created a 13 x 19 inch congratulatory space art card for Peter Kokh, the recipient of the National Space Society’s 2009 Gerard K. O’Neill Award For Space Settlement Advocacy. I do hope that Peter enjoys the card/artwork.

Until next time, Ad Astra

Tags: art fair, photography, Space Art
Posted in Art Shows, Art and Artists, Digital Photography, Space Art | 2 Comments »

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Capricon Science Fiction Convention

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

Fate of the Sister Star Supernovax
Fate of the Sister Star

Looks like the folks running the Capricon Science Fiction Convention are keen to keep me busy this year. Capricon, which begins today and runs through Sunday, is one of three sciene fiction conventions held each year in the Chicago area. I’ve been a participant in “con” programming since the early 90’s.

Following is the list of panels that I’ll be on. The (M) identifies the person who will be serving as the panel’s moderator.

Web Design for Fans: Tired of the same old web designs? Want your website to impress family and friends without overpowering them with bells and whistles? Come listen to some experts in the effective design of a fannish website. Jim Plaxco (M), Jason Robertson, Kevin Spencer.

Digital Art: Digital art is art created with a computer, from models or references created by the artist. The term is usually applied to works created entirely with a computer. The panel will cover both 2D and 3D digital art and its many applications. Artists Mike Cole (M), Rudy Jakupovic, Jim Plaxco.

Technology: Mean or Green: Is technology inherently detrimental to the environment? Or can technology lead us away from pollution and destruction of the biosphere? Christian McGuire, Jim Plaxco (M), Jim Rittenhouse.

Astronomy Workshop: The Universe around us has gotten a lot stranger and more varied since you took that intro to astronomy class so many years ago. Come and learn the latest in astronomical knowledge from Plutoids to the size of the Milky Way (now 35% larger!) in this workshop geared to teaching and understanding practical astronomy. Bill Higgins, Jim Plaxco (M), Henry Spencer.

Space Camp: If you want to know what it is like to train to be an astronaut, Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama is for you. Former campers tell stories of the camp and try to let you know why Space Camp is for you (and why it is just so much better than that Science Camp down the road). Joshua Jacobson, David Kahn, Jamie Kahn, Jim Plaxco (M), Grant Shillington.

In addition to the programming, I’ll also be participating in the art show. The pictures that I am planning on bringing to the art show are:

Butterfly Effect (not published on my web site)
Contemplating Infinity
Fate of the Sister Star pictured above.
Femme Fatale
Quantum Moon
Sands of Mars
Shades of Escher (not published on my web site)

Looks to be a fun weekend.

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Windycon Brief

Monday, November 17th, 2008

Sea Dream - Seahorse by Liz Harper

I spent this weekend in the company of the Windycon Science Fiction convention and confess to having had a good time. In addition to participating in two panels and making a presentation, I also entered six giclee prints in the art show. Of these only half are included in my online gallery:

With respect to programming, in my The 2008 Windycon Science Fiction Convention post I wrote about the panels and presentations I was giving. Personally, the most satisfying was the panel on which Artist Guest of Honor David Mattingly and I engaged in a wide ranging discussion of digital art. Unfortunately our third panelist - science fiction author Roland Green - had to miss the convention due to illness. David offered many insights on his transition from a traditional to a digital artist. I particularly liked that he simultaneously identified the digital "undo button" as being both the artist’s greatest friend and worst enemy.

I also attended a number of panels. Given that the theme of the year’s convention was military science fiction, the bulk of the programming addressed that topic. However, there was ample non-military SF programming. One of the most fascinating was that given by friend and physicist Bill Higgins. His talk How Antimatter Becomes a Plaything of Science discussed the history of antimatter, aka contraterrene, in both science and science fiction. A one page essay written by Bill on the subject appears in the September 2008 issue of Symmetry Magazine - a joint publication of Fermilab and SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center).

Back to the art show, Friday night there was a wine and cheese reception so that convention goers could meet and talk to the artists. While talking to a couple people, I put down my plate of brie and bread and glass of wine in front of my display. Perhaps because I was under the influence of the wine, I grabbed a bid sheet, wrote in the title of Unfinished - Still Life and my name as the artist, arranged/positioned the food and drink and attached the bid sheet to the plate - making it appear that my food and drink were actually a part of the show. What was great is that this did create a fair amount of buzz and folks were coming over to take pictures of it (something I unfortunately did not do.)

Unfortunately none of my six prints sold. I attribute this in part to the fact that my large framed pieces were at the high end of the bid scale vs the many, smaller unframed prints and originals available from other artists. Perversely, the one item I entered into the auction that did sell was, yes you guessed it, Unfinished - Still Life.

The highlight of the art show was the exhibit by David Mattingly of his work with lenticular 3D. Each print is actually the result of creating multiple viewpoints of the same scene, cutting each into small strips, assembling and finally overlaying with a carefully aligned lenticular screen. For more see David Mattingly’s page on depth-view prints

Browsing through the art show there were two other artists whose work caught my eye. One was Todd Johnson, a member of the General Technics group. Todd’s display consisted of a number of Shockfossils - a term of Todd’s creation. These Shockfossils are a form of Lichtenberg figures - created by zapping blocks of acrylic with millions of electron volts and then creating a fracture point through which the trapped electrons escape. See below the video that Todd created illustrating the process of freeing the electrons.

The other artist whose work caught my eye was Liz "Galindorf" Harper. Liz uses polymer clay to hand-sculpt figures and then uses metallic pigments powders applied by hand to color the piece. The colored sculptures are then placed in a shadow box on top of a black velvet backing. The effect is quite striking. I have used a photograph of Liz’s Sea Dream - Seahorse to illustrate this post.
You can see more of Liz’s work at her Astral Dreamers web site.

Now sit back and enjoy Todd’s video about the creation of Lichtenberg figures.

Todd Johnson creating Lichtenberg figure at lunchtime at Fermilab

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Illinois Art Fairs Calendar

Sunday, July 6th, 2008

Schaumburg Prairie Art Festival

If you are a resident of Illinois or an adjoining state or if you’ll just be visiting, the Illinois Arts Council in association with the Chicago Artists’ Coalition has an online Illinois Art Fair Directory. You can search the directory for Illinois art fairs by city and/or date and/or search term.

This handy tool can be found at http://www.caconline.org/illinoisartfairs.asp.

The picture above is a photograph taken at this year’s Schaumburg Prairie Art Festival which occurs each May.

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Imaging by Numbers Art Exhibit

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art

Today I visited the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University. I was there to see the Imaging by Numbers: A Historical View of the Computer Print art exhibit.

Quoting from the Imaging by Numbers exhibition flyer:: “This groundbreaking exhibition examines the intersection of digital technology and the graphic arts by surveying the use of computers in printmaking and drawing. From electronic waveforms and plotter printer drawings to experiments with computer code and software and inventive combinations of digital and traditional printing techniques, Imaging by Numbers features approximately 60 works by nearly 40 artists… from the 1950’s to the present.”

There were works by Manfred Mohr, Jean-Pierre HÃ©bert, Ben Laposky, Otto Beckmann, Michael Noll, Kamran Moojedi, C. E. B. Reas, and Richard Helmick to name a few. There were also two works by Joan Truckenbrod who taught the first computer graphics class at Northern Illinois University. I am happy to say that I was fortunate enough to get into that graduate level course. You can read more about this in my article Recollections of my Introduction to Computer Graphics.

Another smaller exhibit that is running concurrently is Space, Color, and Motion which features animated images and one very cool computer controlled magnetic ball creating patterns in a sandbox.

If you are in the Chicago area and art thinking of seeing the show, do it now because the exhibit ends April 6. Admission is free! The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art is located on the grounds of Northwestern University at 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, IL.

I found out about this art exhibit by way of the American Art American City Exhibit Calendar web site created by the Terra Foundation for American Art. The calendar consists of listings of current exhibitions in Chicago area art museums.

Here is a list of links you may find useful.

Ad Astra, Jim

Posted in Algorithmic Art, Art Shows, Art and Artists, Digital Art | No Comments »

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Digital Art and Space Blog
Reflections on Art, Computer Graphics, Photography, Space and Astronomy

Blog Pages

Blog Categories

Archive for the ‘Art Shows’ Category

Art Exhibit at Advocate Good Shepard Hospital in Barrington IL

The Illustration: Life Pulse

Windycon - Dystopia, Space, and Art

Corporate Gallery Artist’s Reception

Space Artist Alan Bean Radio Interview

Schaumburg Prairie Arts Festival

Capricon Science Fiction Convention

Windycon Brief

Illinois Art Fairs Calendar

Imaging by Numbers Art Exhibit

Digital Art and Space BlogReflections on Art, Computer Graphics, Photography, Space and Astronomy

Blog Pages

Blog Categories

Archive for the ‘Art Shows’ Category

The Illustration: Life Pulse

Digital Art and Space Blog
Reflections on Art, Computer Graphics, Photography, Space and Astronomy