Pine Needles & Resistors

Pine Needles & Resistors
I've had an idea in the back of my head for some time. So with the help of instruction (I'm taking a class at SF Art Insitute), I thought there's no better time to give it a try.

The problem was my idea was a bit vague, and on top of that, it's sort of awkward. I decided to go for it. I wanted to at least experiment and see what I might come up with.

I suppose the basic idea started with a tactile fascination for bits of both nature and technology.

I've had a habit of picking up interesting bits of wood, pinecones and such for sometime. (I think this is a relatively common childhood habit, but unlike most, I never fully grew out of it.) And living in Silicon Valley, I've also picked up little computer-related goodies in stores that specialize in used technical parts, some of it salvageable, some of it functionally junk.

I had some old computer resistors on hand. And my yard and deck are regularly blanketed with pine needles. I knew I wanted to combine these in some way, particuarly given the similarity of their shape (the resistors have a small cylindrical component in the center, and then wire going out in both directions) and started playing with them spread out over a canvas in different patterns.

Then, my instructor hit me with all those questions (see previous post).

Was I trying to say that nature and technology don't mix? Why the upward movement? Why not all the pine needles going in the same direction? Why white or gray or whatever color? Why canvas vs. other background? Why a square canvas, etc.

I had some answers, but not all of them.

I know at least that I am exploring an interwoven sense of nature and technology. . .

• I’m particularly intrigued by the lack of distinction between nature and technology. When does something become ‘man-made’? Ultimately, all man-made products are rooted in the materials and knowledge we find here on the earth.
• I’m also exploring the co-existence of chaos and order, both in nature and technology. We see the chaos of hurricanes, and the precision of DNA. We see the scientific, binary world of zero's and one's, and we see the damage of computer viruses and the frenetic nature of the world wide web.
• I see an incidental or accidental beauty in technical components, which make them interesting to me from both an aesthetic and conceptual sense.
• Lastly, I am also interested in how the latest-greatest technology eventually, and sometimes quickly, becomes discarded junk -- a cycle also similar in nature.

Given that I had never done a mixed media piece, I was also eager to get hands-on and finetune the answers later. The photo above is a detail portion of my first finished piece in this theme.

First, let's just say that I'm pleased that I was able to actually make these pine needles and resistors stick. That was a good learning step and accomplishment.

Second, even in this detail photo, you can see a bit of the chaos, movement and texture of the piece. Given the first concept I mention above, about the lack of distinction between technology and nature, it's interesting to see that the pine needles and resistors blend together on the canvas, almost blending back into simple texture, and that gray is the background.

Well, there are more questions to consider and pine needles to paint! I've got bits and pieces of goodies in my studio. Okay, it looks like random junk to the 'untrained eye,' but I have a few ideas to explore, and hope to turn it into something else entirely.

Hmm... that idea of repurposing these pieces into art is right in line with that cycle-of-technology-and-nature concept. Maybe I'm just adding art to the cycle.