open studio
open studio: wedding tree /
Pastel drawing and watercolor painting of the old pear tree, beneath which I married Samuel David Burns in 2010. Kelly Heaton, work-in-progress (2013 - 2014)
electricity: breathing motor /
An astable multivibrator controls a Darlington amplifier to drive a small pager motor. The gently rising and falling motor speed simulates breathing or other natural undulations. The addition of other control stages could add complexity, if that's what you want.
Circuit design by Kelly Heaton, 2014. If you try to build this and it does not work, I'm sorry… I am more artist than engineer. I sometimes struggle to reproduce my own circuit diagrams, but I have learned that tinkering with frustrating electronics is a great way to make new art.
This analog circuit is comprised of two parts: an astable multivibrator that creates a low-frequency square wave (left side) to switch on/off a Darlington amplifier (right side) that drives the pager motor. I have added various capacitors and a resistor to the amplifier stage. These affect the quality of the motor speed, making it turn on and off more naturally. The video shows me removing / replacing the pull-up resistor on the emitter of the second NPN transistor, illustrating its function (to provide a baseline motor speed so that the motor does not come to a complete stop, but instead undulates between a faster and a slower speed).
open studio: 05_07_14 /
Top row: bees made from wire, resistors and beads; tiny leads for 100+ incandescent lamps; Bottom row: brass honeycomb; homemade capacitors (on styrofoam previously marked-up for resistors)
electricity: sculpture garden /
open studio: palettes /
Various recent palettes of Kelly Heaton
open studio: earth angel /
Notebook sketch inspired by Fatoumata Diawara. Kelly Heaton, colored pencil on paper. April 4, 2014
open studio: work in progress /
Kelly Heaton, scenes from the studio. March 31, 2014