The Romance of Electricity 1979-84 contact
This series began in summer, 1979 , during my first artist residency, at Yaddo.
When I got there everyone was talking about a book Christopher Davis had just published ,
A Peep into the Twentieth Century. a novel about the first electric chair execution. I wanted to begin working and not read, but I
borrowed it and eventually plunged in, surprised to find it very engrossing.
The book cited an early pamphlet explaining electricity titled " The Romance of Electricity". My diptychs and triptychs of the 1970s had referenced systems, geometric axioms, logic, and bicameral structure of the brain and its electrical impulses.
When I read that phrase, I had an amazing vision!! In one minute I saw hundreds of images of my work transforming from the rigid geometric structures I had been using, into dynamic forms with varying angles and curves. I had always felt that electricity was the most important invention of the twentieth century.
The inspiration from that book lasted 5 years.
This series began in summer, 1979 , during my first artist residency, at Yaddo.
When I got there everyone was talking about a book Christopher Davis had just published ,
A Peep into the Twentieth Century. a novel about the first electric chair execution. I wanted to begin working and not read, but I
borrowed it and eventually plunged in, surprised to find it very engrossing.
The book cited an early pamphlet explaining electricity titled " The Romance of Electricity". My diptychs and triptychs of the 1970s had referenced systems, geometric axioms, logic, and bicameral structure of the brain and its electrical impulses.
When I read that phrase, I had an amazing vision!! In one minute I saw hundreds of images of my work transforming from the rigid geometric structures I had been using, into dynamic forms with varying angles and curves. I had always felt that electricity was the most important invention of the twentieth century.
The inspiration from that book lasted 5 years.
The Romance of Electricity: Magnetic Fields. 1980. 40x60". mixed media on paper.
It was the evidence of conduction of the brain's energy along the nerve of animals that led to the discovery of electricity itself. Wilder Penfield, The Mystery of the Mind. p.8
THE ROMANCE OF ELECTRICITY: MAGNETIC FIELDS.
mixed media assemblages. 1980-85
Projection series transitioning into The Romance of Electricity .
1979/80 acrylic and pencil on paper. 14x18"
1979/80 acrylic and pencil on paper. 14x18"
