Abstract Creation

It Alway Rains in Portland

2012-04-14T20:32:00.000-07:00

Rain and night, and the blues. Old video from my Sony Cybershot.

I wrote the Lyrics, Jenessa VanZutphen sang the song, Dusty Santamaria laid down the music.

Symmetrical Transformations

2011-06-18T19:04:00.001-07:00

The Moon and the Alteration of Time

2011-05-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

From my current project, wherein Gaia is Transfigured into corporeal form and enters the human rookery of concrete and steel, and allowing a moment for the moon, symbolic of the feminine and ancient cycles of time, to rise above infrastructure and pierce the tainted sky.

The omphalos of a strange universe, somewhat like our own, in which Gaia is transfigured into corporeal form

2011-05-02T14:49:00.000-07:00

A new time lapse. It's from my new film project.

Giordano Bruno

2011-03-09T23:32:00.000-08:00

A poem from Piet Hein (Translated by James Honzik)

Why did they burn Giordano Bruno?

Because the open mind is dangerous.
Because the power of the word is a weapon.
Because the freedom of life is might.

Because a free life is the might
against which the violence of power is futile.
Because the power of the word is our weapon,
- inquiry against domination.
Because an open mind is dangerous
for anyone who lives within their servitude.

Because Aristotle is overthrown,
and Copernicus expands the world.
Because mankind’s long journey
into new diversity and richness
led by humble free thought
bursts the bonds of slavery.

Therefore, they burned Giordano Bruno.

Therefore, - Because a human is larger
than the chambers, one is forced into,
than the weapons, one is faced with,
than their power, ineffectually
towering against Giordano Bruno's thought.

Therefore, not they, but he lives.

"In 1584, twenty-five years before Galileo lifted a telescope, Bruno took the Copernican hypothesis to the outrageous new conclusion that the sun is merely one of an infinity of stars, which stretch across boundless and inexhaustible space." They burned him at the stake.

Wikipedia article about Giordano Bruno
Life Magazine article about Piet Hein

Brutalist Bridge at Dusk: Two variations on a theme. - and Morrison Bridge

2010-11-22T11:02:00.000-08:00

More of my venture into time lapse photography.

and here

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7963335/Titled%20Concrete%2001.mp4

and

Pieces of uncertainty

2010-09-02T09:42:00.000-07:00

The trailer for the Worriers

2010-08-26T13:23:00.000-07:00

This was great fun to make. I worked with a wonderful cast and crew. The full movie is 25 minutes long, and it is not so bad.

Timelapse of the Steel Bridge

2010-07-12T14:24:00.001-07:00

Ice, forest, geothermal pools.

2010-03-27T03:14:00.000-07:00

Bell Creek Trail

2010-03-27T02:57:00.000-07:00

Bell Creek Trail. Hiked down from Larch Mountain. Close to dusk. Sun shot at angles through old growth forest. Snags, little creeks, cedars, moss.Little reflection pools and wet green.

Industrial Architecture: Geometry and Light

2009-11-30T18:37:00.000-08:00

1. geometric and angular sun, white radians radiance.

2. Intestine, warped corroded lungs.

3. suspension, time, space, motionless, cabled

4. Lost luminous, sun ultimate entrance

Mosaics

2009-10-17T12:29:00.004-07:00

These are made with a new technique I am trying out, combining 250 photographs or so, out of a sample pool of about three thousand of them, and recreating the textural and tonal values of an original seed image.

The poet David Acevedo.

The Audubon sanctuary, a small patch of old growth forest, at the top of the hill, above Forest Park. Original photo was taken in half light, close to sunset.

Steam coming from an industrial building on the OSHU campus.

Tessellations: Math and Art

2009-08-27T09:24:00.009-07:00

I have been reading about and studying mathematical symmetry, the theories of tiling on the plane, and pattern in Islamic art and attempting to create images using my knowledge.

The mathematics is fascinating, one of the greatest accomplishment of 20th century mathematics was the classification of the finite simple groups. From the French revolutionary and mathematician Evariste Galois, through a quirk of numbers, 1² + 2² + ... + 24^{2 =}70² that enables 24 dimensional grocers to pack their oranges in a small box, to the discovery of a strange and beautiful 196, 883 dimensional snowflake, it's a fantastic world. I would very much recommend the book Symmetry: A Journey into the Patterns of Nature, Marcus du Sautoy.

The art can be beautiful, I spent a lovely week in Granada, visiting the Alhambra, which is tiled with patterns of great complexity and beauty. (and on Saturday night pretty Spanish girls walk down the street, past clubs and discos, hand and hand, singing songs and laughing - hola)

In New York, I spent many an hour in the usually empty Islamic art section of the Met.
And in Istanbul, not enough time at the fantastic museum of Islamic art on Sultanahmet Square. I still can picture in my mind a piece of calligraphy, that seemed to spiral and twist from meaning, to pure mathematical form, with pattern that I could not resolve, but must have come from a deep understanding of possibility and application.

Anyway, with all this behind me and in my mind, I tried to make something. I figured out how to do it, threw myself into the fugue of creation, using what I had, and what I could do, made about 35 pieces so far, these two turned out.

If you save these images, you can set them as your desktop image, set it to tile, and the Zhalih's lips, or the spinning head of corrosion and Aimee will tile an infinite plane.

Architectural Mask and Lichen

2009-02-24T23:27:00.001-08:00

I have hiked up and down Swale Canyon twice in the last two weeks. Clean air, it's up above the SO2 contaminated Columbia Valley airshed, so the sensitive lichen are large and of many species. Beautiful. I have combined the lichen with a photo of the facade of the Rem Koolhaus Library in Seattle, (a fantastic building - I photographed it at dusk as light shimmered across its surface) and with a photo of Aimee, who loves to paint masks, and is off in Philadelphia now. The glowing light was from a beautiful, convoluted, crystallized, columnar basalt formation, just before sunset.

Dusty Santamaria

2009-01-12T13:02:00.000-08:00

I got to know Dusty when David Acevedo lived with him in the house at 10th and Oak(some wild times - I have photos). Since then we have been on quite a few road trips together, and he has been working very hard on his music (and reading a lot, listening to music, and stealing everything he can) (he just said he has 75 songs now).

Friday night he did a show at the Sidedoor. After, he couldn't stop playing, brought out his guitar and played a new song. I hit record on my camera and this is what I got. Gaylin dancing along, Walt playing harmonica in the background, an artist friend of Dusty's leaning against the wall. I could use a better camera, but I work with what I have. The light was dim, colors turned out all red, so I brought it into photoshop and turned it in to black and white (and the quality is not good, it's just not as bad as it was before) I do like it though, nice feel, I think I caught the moment. A last winter night in Portland, before Dusty heads back to New Orleans.

Portrait with lichen and striated leaf

2009-01-12T12:05:00.000-08:00

Since the New Year I have been creating new pieces. Somehow a new flight of creativity has come my way. This uses two types of lichen (from the Native American fishing grounds of the Klickitat river, and the Deschutes) for color and texture, and a striated banana leaf (from the botanic gardens in Sydney). (and again the lovely Zhalih)

I use lichen because of the visual forms and metaphoric connotations. Mutualism, slow growth in time, complexity of form and pattern.

From Dictionary of the Fungi (Hawksworth et al., 1995)

"A lichen is a ecologically obligate, stable mutualism between an exhabitant fungal partner and an inhabitant population of extracellularly located unicellulary or filamentous algal or cyanobacterial cells."

A Leaf for Sokhak

2009-01-06T10:41:00.000-08:00

Blue Period

2009-01-06T10:14:00.000-08:00

Recombined and reenvisioned, with the color blue, architectural textures, for a New Year.

And a "real" photograph with leaves, reflections, a fall day at the holding pond at Eagle Creek. I have lately been finding photographs to take that are like my experimental portraits; layered, with reflection, decay, pattern.

Experimental Photography Show

2008-12-20T20:23:00.000-08:00

Last month, Heather Browne and I put on an Experimental Photography show, at Melissa Sillitoe's Gallery at the Everett Street lofts.

We had a fantastic opening and closing party. Read the review.

The Show and Tell Gallery Podcast #6
By Luke Lefler November 8, 2008

A warm, drier evening had replaced the cold drizzle of the afternoon. "These are my FRIENDS," James Honzik exuded, among them Heather Browne`whose black and white photography graced the walls of The Show and Tell Gallery, along with James' portraiture. Walt Curtis misbehaved his ever-charming self, while Heather and even Melissa Sillitoe each read a poem. Crow Canyon brought a whole bunch of people (as well as
the PA - thanks!) and deliberated over surf-folk and electro lullabyes. Dusty Santamaria sang, read poems, bled black tears, and backed up James' broken blues and Walt's bitten ballads. A couple of songwriters-in-attendance enlisted towards the end - the very end, when they lock the doors and everything. In the end, it was just another passion-fueled First Thursday opening. For now, The Show and Tell Gallery Podcast lives here.

http://www.brokenhours.net/podcasts/ST/ST-0006-1.mp3
http://www.brokenhours.net/podcasts/ST/ST-0006-2.mp3

Heather's black and white, hand printed work is exquisitely beautiful. She utilizes multiple exposures, overprinting, and painting on negatives to make her abstract, yet evocative work.

an experiment in progress

2008-10-10T18:05:00.000-07:00

2 solid nights, busting my chops, making this in Processing. It needs a little work, but I like it. I need a piece of music for this. Watch it in the full screen mode (click the 4 arrows by the lower right hand corner)

experimental video

dissolution and composition from James Honzik on Vimeo.

Post Singularity - two visions

2008-10-08T12:07:00.000-07:00

Two visual science fiction stories.

Lichen, rust, and corrosion.

Rust is slow fire and lichen, the symbiotic fusion of fungi and photosynthetic bacteria.

Lichen colonies have been found to be 5000 year old; slowly growing their way through an eon, and somehow, layered on skin, rust has turned golden.

The metal framework appropriated from Rem Koolhaus and Frank Gehry, (I wandered through dusk in Seattle for these architectural fragments) along with crystalline basalt.

Experimental portraits

2008-05-22T15:48:00.000-07:00

A video of my work.

Winter in Yellowstone

2008-01-15T12:17:00.001-08:00

I spent two days at Yellowstone National Park this winter, January 7th and 8th, 2008. I've been driving back and forth on highway 90 for years, seeing the exit signs for Yellowstone, not realizing it was so close. You drive into the park from Livingston, Montana. It's about 60 miles south.

The park's headquarters is at Mammoth Springs, and in winter, the only park road open for automobile traffic is through the Lamar Valley to Cooke City, on the Parks NE corner.

It's a fantastic landscape. Brutal, stark, severe, eerie, awe inspiring, otherworldly.

The first day I stayed close to the headquarters, walking around Mammoth hot springs. Steam and limpid pools, subtle colors and skeleton trees. Terraces of milky stone.

Second day, I drove down a two lane blacktop, dusted with snow, curving through a forest of ghost tree skeletons, remnants of the fire 0f 1998, into the wide spaces of the Lamar Valley. It's winter, and the animal population have moved down from the mountains. Elk by the side of the road. Hundreds of buffalo graze on the plains, plowing through the snow with their thick heads.

At the end of my drive, I stopped to look through a telescope, and saw a fantastic vision of nature. A wolf had killed an elk, and about 40 ravens were swirling densely around in the air, some were perched on the antlers of the downed elk. The wolf was on the carcass. Wolf and ravens were dark, in motion, silhouetted against the white snow. It was a vision into primeval nature. I stepped back from the telescope, stunned. (and then a ranger explained the complex interdependence/relationship, between wolf and raven.)

That afternoon I took a Snocat tour into the Norris geyser basin, walking through thick powder, past subtle and beautiful colors in pools, hues of archaea, bacteria, eukarya; whiteness of steam, ice and thick powder snow, stark silhouetted trees, wilderness pure and beautiful under cool, luminous sun.

More Photographs

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower

2007-12-19T21:02:00.000-08:00