The Fifth State

As usual, buckle up. There is so much to cover. Maybe I should write a book...

When I was a kid, there was a tv show called "Johnny Quest" that featured science and adventure guys fighting villains. The Professor and Race Bannon, (how's that for an adventure guy name?) and the youngster dudes Johnny, his pal Haiji, and their trusty mutt Bandit, rode around in hovercrafts defeating the evil Dr Whatever and his plan to destroy all good things. My brothers and I were sure by the time we were getting licenses, we would be driving hovercrafts. Delusional brothers rule! The coolest of all the gadgets though were laser beams -- weapons that shot red beams of light that could vaporize anything. Lasers! Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Einstein actually predicted these conceptually in 1917. (What didn't he foresee)? A patent was filed the year I was born. MUCH MUCH later. Today, one can buy a three pack of laser beam cat toys for $10 online! Laser tag, laser hair removal, level, printer, pointer, tape measure... Lasers check you out at the grocery store. A laser was bounced off a mirror left on the moon so, knowing the speed of light, we can calculate precisely how far away the big dusty rock is. I have a laser level in a drawer here in the shop. No hovercrafts around but lasers!! The coherent light of a laser beam has been used in a lab in Michigan to pulse in a few quintillionths of a second creating a peak power of three petawatts or a thousand times the electrical consumption of the whole world. 

Ok. So. I make light sculpture. I use photons and stainless steel to make art that shimmers as the viewer strolls around. It's metal, a solid state of matter, that reflects photons in a group of frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum that are wavelengths detectable by the backs of our eyeballs. For the piece you are looking at in this missive, the round shape of metal was cut using hydrogen and argon, both gases, with a computer controlled plasma cutter. Plasma is a fourth state of matter extremely uncommon on earth but making up over 99% of all matter in the universe. (I warned you to buckle up). Plasma is when an atom is energized, primarily through heat, until its electrons lose their attachment to the nucleus. Stars are balls of plasma. Superheated, massive. Lightning is plasma. 

All the art pieces that hang on the wall that I have made for 25 years are squares and rectangles, pieces of metal cut with a shear, like a beefy paper cutter. This piece, "Corona", is cut from stainless plate with a plasma cutter. The shape is made by vaporizing the metal with superheated gas. This could also be done with a laser. 

Part of the reason for making rectilinear art pieces has to do with hanging them on the wall easily. But, how can I make a circular frame? By calling a good friend who has a computer-controlled laser capable of vaporizing 1/2" thick wood with utter precision. Laminating these arcs and gluing and screwing generates the ideal frame and la la la, my first round art pieces. 

The corona, as I mentioned in my last blog, (here's a link to the one called "The Iron Giant": https://www.havocgallery.com/blog) is not visible to the naked eye except during the totality phase of a solar eclipse. For about three minutes in April, I, and all my pals on the scene in Vermont, could stare directly at the sun and see this magical circular veil. It's white, pure, perfect. People around me were yelling, crying, a small mob of humans united by light, witnessing a celestial event on the lakeshore. I tell people all the time that "It's all about light." Here was light in its perfect glory, beaming into our innermost selves. Magic. Sublimity. A moment in life of smallness as a speck in the cosmos and yet a union with the solar orb that makes all this possible.  

And so, for me, art follows. Here is a piece titled "Corona". It's four feet in diameter. I am doing another this size and doing two panels that are five feet in diameter. A little suite about awe. There's metal, liquid, gas and plasma. These pieces are about the fifth state -- the state of awe. If you have seen totality first hand, you know what I'm talking about. 

And here we are, thanks to computer-controlled lasers, machine-made lightning, a bit of wood and paint, some gases, some heat, some input from this little human, and, at the core, light. OK. You can unbuckle. Back to your regularly scheduled daily awesomeness. 

love and hugs, 

buy art right now,

give it as gifts,

B Mac 

P.S. Oh, and that book thing. It's on the way. Stay tuned. Soon. Very soon.