Plumes - Sculpture and Drawing

1. 2. 3. 4. Dishmop Pointillism c. 1982: 5. "Plume" 1982. Acrylic on Vinyl. c. 14' high. .Silk-screening vinyl ink onto vinyl for the Expanding and Colliding Universe pieces made me sick, so as a healthy alternative I began to mark the flat vinyl with acrylic paint. Several methods were tried. At first, as in "Antioch Graces" the vinyl was carefully masked and radial lines were applied. Later I began to fling and wallop dollops of red, orange, yellow, green, blue or violet artists' acrylic with sufficient accuracy that, once again, after the originating discs had been cut and recombined one could figure out the procedural steps. That "Dishmop Pointillism" was energized fun can be seen on the video-clip taken by and for Channel 4. Over time the favoured repertoire of tools became kitchen spatulas, flexible mustard dispensers and spray bottles. Fortunately for the art supply stores the scale of the work eats up copious volumes of gloss medium and gel. Earlier in the decade, puzzling over complex pieces such as "Dance" I had the impression that if extended infinitely into space their line might curve. As an asymmetric annuli gave the larger volume and surface suited to the new expansive painting method, experiments seemed likely to yield interesting results. As a simplification of the reversing strategy of "Dance" a string of slightly differing mirror-matched asymmetric annuli was used. For "Plume," "Red Plume" and "Silver Plume" the displacement was constant as in the individual pieces of "Double Diminution. Accordingly the forms became a series of repeated helices.   6. 7. : Two views "Gold Plume" Acrylic on vinyl. Occupies 9'x9'x9' space. 8. Detail "Gold Plume" 9. : "Silver," "Red" and "Gold Plume" installation Urdang Gallery, 1983.   The technique for "Gold Plume" which was similar to that used in "Arlington DNA" , "Asymmetric Graces" and "Antioch Graces", whereby one string of asymmetric annuli had a very slightly shorter radius than the other, produced a much more interesting result. Under transformation from the intitial asymmetric cellular shape towards (what one has to assume would be a lopsideded surface) the central line of the form changed direction. Probably without significance in cosmological terms this was a sculptural coup. The demonstration is to simultaneously turn one's hand over and around 90 degrees.   10: "Red Plume" 1983 under construction. 7. "Red Plume" 1983. Acrylic on canvas and vinyl. 3'x10'x3'. 11. Detail "Red Plume" 12: 13: "Analytical Drawing for three Plumes" 1983. Ink on Graph Paper. 26"x100" provenance