The Beekeeper is a large sculptural work-in-progress, to be exhibited as part of Pollination in September 2015. It is comprised of seven or eight chakras. Here, I am building the throat chakra out of brass. In the center (4th image) is a low RPM / high-torque motor that turns the throat, pineal and heart chakras. The pineal and heart chakras are not shown in these images, but will be featured in later posts.
open studio
perfume: scent and synesthesia /
For my upcoming show, Pollination, I am working on a series of conceptual perfumes that relate to artworks in non-fragrant media. Here are some images of my perfumer's bench; and part of a sculpture that artfully invaded my desk for a time.
What intrigues me about fragrance? Where to begin. Smell is our most ancient sense, touching our memory to the core.
Why would a visual artist learn to make perfume? Scent, color, kinetics, sound, taste, visions, touch: these are all various experiences of waveforms. Humans only have so many tools to perceive and therefore understand the world; I intend to explore all of them because what I care most about are the waveforms, the jiggling energies beyond our mortal veil of senses. The more ways in which I can experience a priori signals, the closer I feel to the truth of their nature.
Not to mention, how could any body of work on the topic of pollination avoid fragrance? I would surely be stung in retribution.
I will also add that perfumery, watercolor painting and cooking all extremely similar in my experience. I understand why perfumer and author Mandy Aftel puts essential oils in her food: I find it increasingly difficult to distinguish one sense from another. The closest relationships are smell, taste and color. Line and texture map to rough, gritty or other textural scents, but color is my predominant synesthetic experience of fragrance and taste. And vice versa: color has scent and flavor. By comparison, my experience of electrical engineering is most closely represented in sound and movement. Electronics are more like dynamic line drawings of immense complexity.
open studio: gut chakra, flora and fauna /
Detail of The Beekeeper, 2013 - 2015
For my upcoming show Pollination (September 2015), I am working on a large sculpture called "The Beekeeper." Energy nodes (aka chakras) of the human body are represented therein. This image shows a detail of The Beekeeper's gut chakra, comprised of hybrid plant and insect electronics on the traditional green circuit board, or ground plane. I experience the gut chakra as distinct from the solar plexus, an opinion that I mention because most people consider them one and the same. I usually see the gut chakra as indigo blue; but here, yellow light from The Beekeeper's bright solar plexus causes the blue to show up green. More on that later. Kelly Heaton, 2013 - 2015
open studio: giant transistor with dog in winter landscape /
This 6 foot tall steel rendering of an NPN transistor is a work-in-progress for a sculpture titled "Colony Collapse Disorder," premiering September 12th at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts as part of my Pollination show. The snow and dog are irrelevant save for: packed snow was a convenient medium to make the transistor stand upright for the photo and my old dog, Spivey, provides a sense of scale. For those electronics geeks among you, yes, the NPN transistor is raising its leg to become a diode. Spivey doesn't raise her leg because she is a girl.
open studio: kinetic study of bees /
Bees will be flying as part of "Pollination," my upcoming solo show at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, opening September 12th and on view through October 17. Please check back for more images of works-in-progress as the bees and I get ready for our big show.
Kinetic Study of Bees, 2014. Small pager motors and an analog motion detector control the movement of this sculpture as though a swarm of bees. Other materials include a custom control circuit, homemade springs, electrical wire, fishing swivels, tape and string.
open studio: making a big bee resistor /
The process of making a larger-than-life resistor, modeled by hand to look like a bee
Big bee resistor after epoxy buddy is applied and sculpted. Next, the sculpture will be painted
open studio: making a person-sized capacitor /
Welding the seam of 22 gauge steel to make a shape resembling a ceramic capacitor. This will serve as an armature. Finishing work will be done with Bondo and sanding to hide imperfections, such as the dimples caused by the pining hammer.
Two circles of 22 gauge steel were shaped using techniques from old-fashioned auto body repair. Repeated tapping with a pining hammer introduces a gentle curve to the steel by stretching the metal incrementally. The same method was used to define the channel where the capacitor leg attaches. A slapper was used to counteract the effects of excessive or uneven pining (a slapper will flatten metal out). For more information on manual techniques in auto body shaping: http://www.metalshapingzone.com. Their how-to video is well-worth the money. Classic car restoration tools can be found on eBay.
The two halves of the capacitor head were welded together (and sometimes brazed with a filler rod because it is easy to blow a hole through thin steel when you are torch welding). Clamps were used to hold the seam together as close to the weld as possible, as steel wants to warp or shift when it gets hot. The legs of the capacitor are hollow steel tube filled with sand to prevent the tube from collapsing when shape was introduced with heat and hammering. Once the legs were shaped, I removed the caps (holding in the sand) and welded the legs to the head of the capacitor.
Photos: Kelly Heaton and Sarah Loy
open studio: wiring the wedding tree /
More photos of The Wedding Tree in progress. Colorful wires weave up a metal-frame mobile to provide electricity to motors with propellors (that fly like bees). The background drawing is pastel on paper. Photo credit: Kelly Heaton and Sarah Loy. 2013 - 2015