The Spirograph Dance Party

Spirograph Dance Party Where Nobody Gets Up

Everyone who knows the Spirograph drawing toy, with its gears and pens and resulting rosetted drawings; also knows it’s limitations. After the drawing is made, so what?

In 2020, Spirograph updated its application of concept and expanded into several, more completely satisfying approaches to the same idea. In particular, the Spirograph animator toy delivers the most progressive impact: the rotating table and strobing lights work with the angles of the layered drawings to achieve fantastic optical illusions. Once involved into the drawings’ capture, the animation only becomes more personal – and at this point, a song can be layered into the experience to for an audio illusion – and then into a seeming interaction between the table’s “group mind” and the drawing itself. What is at work, exactly? The Fibonacci.

Battery powers only the lights. The drawing gears themselves show the obvious, tell-tale, spiral shape of the Fibonacci sequence; and the table spinning activates the strobe lights kinetically: every 137.5 turns, the strobing shifts into a different pattern. Then, as the table rotation decays, the animation of the drawing shows an evolution of its facets performing as a reaching, dancing, multidimensional body-shape. Because living people make the drawings, a margin of error is inserted as a part of the effect – if even a part of one layer can be set “a little messed up,” the satisfaction levels up.

When a team creates the layered drawing – each person with a different gear and color – watching the results can be thrilling, proving relativity on an intimate scale. When a poem or music with lyrics is introduced into the experience, audio illusion within the song can be visually exposed by the dancing drawing. The song choice of the team can be specific or random, genre and the meaning are irrelevant because the illusion is owned by the spirit of cosmic objectivity at human scale. Under the right circumstances, the five-minute experience might totally transform the trajectory of the day by driving home twin points: 1.) we all own the moment; and 2.) perceived imperfection is actually a path to discovery.

The Spirograph Dance Party Where Nobody Gets Up is an all-ages activity with an arrangement of tables and four chairs at each, and a station for the Spirograph Avatar is set in an area visible to everyone in the room. The station has a tall table and the “theater,’ within which is set an animator, whose performance in the box is captured and shared as a larger, projected version. Importantly, the lighting in the room must be dimmed as low as possible, small lamps at each table can shine focused light when necessary.

The event has three phases: first, the mechanics of the exercise are mastered and each table submits a drawing to share with the group on the projector, escalating the learning curve. Second, the tables try out drawing several different kinds of animations added to the gear-drawings. Third, each table chooses music for their work, then shares it in a round-robin MC’d by the Avatar Host. The Avatar supplies a variety of rhythms, poetry and music that specifically amplify and discover more energy within the drawings. This progression shows how to find depth, enforces learning vicariously with a soft touch, and proves that layering contributions makes some kind of “body” unique to each group. 

The less invested, drop-in experience can also be made “pop-up style,” with only one animator and the assistance of the Avatar. For this, the rolling podium is set up as an attractor and the Avatar guides the participant(s) through creating the drawing, then moves into a dimmed area for more precision to the experience. The projector is unnecessary; the rolling podium makes moving areas easy.

Layout of Event

A dimly lit room is set up with four chairs at each of four tables; a podium and tall table are set up at the front of the room for the Avatar. A curtain suspended from the ceiling might be necessary to eclipse light from the entrances. A disco ball is a nice touch. On each table is set a small lamp and a Spirograph Animator, which includes drawing gears, pens and Post-it notes to use in the Animator. A pre-printed scoresheet keeps track of which drawings achieved what, and a small tray keeps completed drawings after they have been tested.

The first phase of the event has the Avatar move among the teams in direct contact to show how the devices are put together and used for the activity. Then the “tables” and “crowns” of the devices are taken off to be used to create the drawings, and the groups are asked to draw as a team, with everyone taking a turn at layering a gear-drawn design in a different color. The animators are put back together and the designs are tested: the first level of illusion is introduced. The Avatar proposes that a “perfect” spirograph design is not the point and is only the cradle for the team’s unique spirit, then explains how to use the scoresheet to keep track of what is discovered. Then, each table chooses a drawing to share and the Avatar works the theater/projector to show a larger projection of the selections to the room. Ideas are shared and the Avatar is an expert in accolades towards everyone’s work.

The second phase introduces dots and shapes, showing how they punch and dance out of the designs. As the teams proceed with the exercise, the Avatar dj’s songs that work well with the illusion, occasionally singing along with the songs. This is the second phase, following the format of the first for each person to layer a contribution. The teams volunteer to share findings and successes and the Avatar projects them. For this, the designs dance to the Avatar’s music choices.

Beginning the third phase, the Avatar talks about the moons of Jupiter, decaying time, and tributing, iambic pentameter layered into discordant 4/4 musical meter, pointing out a list of suggested songs or film-clip dialogue on the scoresheets that demonstrate the audio illusion. The teams choose songs to try with drawings and then submit their drawings with music requests, which the Avatar plays in tandem to the projection. At this point, the dance party has fully unfolded: the Avatar asks the teams to consider and express what matters in the moment and what does not matter at all.

Trifold pamphlets for each participant commemorate the night, wherein drawings from the exercise are stored for posterity. Taking these home keeps the memory organized, contextualizes the drawing, and enables the participant to talk intelligently about what happened.

Copyrights and The Family Pact

Try and Catch the Detroit Judith is a video composition created in 2023. The content is an original, personal story that layers appropriated film clips, images and sounds; and references real history as a thesis supposition is built and presented. The thesis demands recognition of a pervasive subculture of storytelling that intersects with astrophysical narratology. Because the layers work together like gears to dig into deep, shrouded meaning within the copyrighted materials, eg the clip from Try and Catch Me, starring Peter Falk and screen legend Ruth Gordon, I do not consider the inclusion of these materials to be infringement or depreciation to the originals; but a keyhole through which a viewer can also learn the symbolic vocabulary so that they may also understand the world around them, as told by the sub-story. I propose that if someone objects to the layering of the copyrighted materials, it is because they believe they (the objector or the materials) do not want to expose the code, for whatever reason.

One very good reason to want the code to stay shrouded is the Family Pact instituted by Anna Maria Luisa de Medici in 1737. Through this, the last member of the Medici family formally decreed that their immense artistic and historical legacy had to remain linked to Tuscany and that the vast family collections of decoration and portraiture forever stay in Florence. Make no mistake: The Detroit Judith is perhaps the most beautiful portrait of Mary Magdelena Medici ever painted - but to admit that might be to also admit that it belongs in Florence. But: does it? Does the narratology that structures the painting, that presents the proof that caused suppression of astronomy and physical geometry (except for war tools) belong back in the hands of those who wanted to hide it? To this, we might say “symbolism is a kind of testimony, but the duplicity belies real accusations or proof.”

Pivotal: whether time goes forwards or backwards, it all depends on whose ox is being slaughtered.

Clear Contact Paper Can Change You

One, precious, indispensable tool has been tight in my grip through all of those places and days and paintings: clear contact paper - and I know I always will have some, as long as I can afford it.

Why is this? What luxury do I see in this planning device?

Clear Contact Paper as a planning tool can make time go back and forth. It expedites - microwaves - the planning process in such a direct - and yet affordably cautious way, that it can coach what otherwise appears intuitive towards sophistication and a depth carrying a larger message.

My message as an artist to other artists is about this tool, the way it is a time machine. Better than a best friend, it is me, myself from the future and my objectivity about the present situation, whatever it is.

The overarching message of my work is attached to how, when we work through some moments of focus, the more objectively we can examine future situations, the better we can prepare. Not only “Be Careful,” but to quote Rage Against the Machine’s Testify:

“Who controls the past now controls the future
Who controls the present now controls the past
Who controls the past now controls the future
Who controls the present now?”

And I am saying I see a way of doing this with clear contact paper as a compositional planning tool for painters.

The Shape I Am In

I believe that while Art in the United States presents itself through means of heritage and/as gestalt, the west coast prioritizes super-superficial gestalt over inherited “artifactual fictions,” to the point of illiteracy of visual story telling. I see this as exploitable.

I want to talk about shapes, allusions, illusions, how to use and recognize the active shaping of heritage in popular programming. Understanding how to participate in the conversation about the past teaches how to leverage the future.

The Shape I Am In is a thesis presentation of how shapes convert ideas from one dimension into another.

Paintings in a signature style flocked all walls and set the viewer into seven separate dimensions, essentially portals into the inside of my mind.

Lighting, arrangements and textures in the atmosphere broadcast a safe space.

Activities were present to help thaw the viewer into an interaction with the thesis, asking for them to sit and stay. Talk. Tell.

Narratology prevents illiteracy and apathy

The best way to bank a culture’s accomplishments and records is in “narratology,” highly symbolic stories told between mother/parent and child. While this storytelling chain is nearly impossible to dissolve, it is possible for the depth of meaning to detach. The ultimate beauty of the method is that, if the story can stay mostly intact, the armature for a future reassembly remains.

 In 2023, narratology has never had so much exercise through popular programming, publishing and fashion. Recognizing the layers of meaning makes conspicuous new ideas – new science, or new appreciations that might as well be “poor man’s patents”- tumble forwards into a playful invitation to educate oneself on contemporary science at one’s own pace.

Training to recognize and understand hidden heritage passes the torch of our accomplishments into the future, adds depth and meaning to enjoying popular programming; and is, in short, power against ignorance and apathy.

summoning talent requires mastery of processing

There is no function instrinsic to Art that uniformly spans across cultures. Conversely, everywhere, there is elasticity allowed to all creations towards the emulence of beauty, the spectrum’s far end being at the full expense of function.

To create anything is to externalize conversations about our place in infinity. When an idea needs to be examined, art plays the role that brings the idea from the mind into this world, making it into a thing, maleable and improveable. If, through the intrinsic beauty of the thing, expectations are surpassed into an expanded understanding of our lives, then the thing is elevated to being Art, excused from other function. As soon as an attempt is made  to imitate the mode of the new form, the mode itself falls below the bar of being artful, as the functionality of imitation belies the ability to surpass expectation.

The Artist should be able to make anyone believe that anything is what it is not by opening up this extra dimension that “hinges” between a moment in our minds and a platform used to represent the idea. Representation provides the dimension to convert an inspiration into a shared belief.

Western Art has creative devices that permeate through discipline and form, to support our ongoing culture with rememberance of past discoveries. The devices are artifacts, they are allusion to fortify illusion, and they are gifts from our ancestors. Sacred shapes and proportions, anatomnical understanding, material technology, The Elipse, perspective, density, and symbols – they all have importance in American Art, but I propose that west of the Missisipi, nobody cares.

In the US, cultural immersement and the reciprocated understanding of encrypted allusion dilutes as the country might be studied from East to West, because of three main factors: the diaspora of western development based on the freedom to define one’s destiny; the development of photography and film as an outreach artform and advocate for found majesty; and the development of design principals first identified by Psychologist Max Wertheimer. This trifecta of simultaneous forces is so much easier, more intuitive and so much more aligned with the American Western spirit that it has practically replaced approaching Art with serious, contemplative intentions; with the evermore popular: “I don’t know anything about Art, but I know what I like.”

Design asks for the viewer’s eyes and mind to fill in gaps, to bring false memories to the image in order to make sense of its dynamics. In contrast, eons of our artistic heritage has examined representation itself and its position to another dimension where the ideals of ideas live in hologram. A lack experience with the dimensional “hinge” causes easy, unchallenged relativity to categorically slip by as a mystic truth; and elevates the individual’s authority on Art, having been able to so easily fill in the blanks. If it’s so easy, “I can do that!” 

What’s the harm? If the real role of Art is to impress upon the viewer “love in a look,” whom does it hurt?

The harm is done to the understanding of process as the artist’s converter of emotions and ideas into shapes and forms. Processing is a time machine bought with inheritance and whetted with skill into a unique and shiny, unstoppable tool. It finds greater depth, builds a secondary platform to find elasticity in the materials and therein facilitates talent. Pivotally: when summoning talent requires mastery of processing, disguising the inclusion of processing disguises the accomplishments of talent.  

Contests of Power

In a black and white episode of Perry Mason that I saw as a rerun in 2000, some fashion illustrations were featured as an important clue in a case. The designs were a kind of illustration in two colors plus a black definition line, where there was a “background color” that included everything that was not the garment, the garment was contrasted in white, and then the entire design was given form and detailed with black line. The effect of only contrasting the dress against everything else stunned me with how effortlessly it gave importance to the garment and withdrew importance from the figure, and that it communicated from this mode with no rendering and minimal suspension of disbelief. It moved into a style that was sleek, low effort/high concept and could occasionally show a controlled, reserved facility of talent.

Artistic Question

“Can simplifying a description cause a more intense narrative? Can limiting colors in an image somehow adjust perceptions of the subject’s behavior? What can a figurative subject do, under these circumstances, while still being less noticeable than their dress?” I saw these as rich questions and the three-color system to be the best tool to contrast the ideas of conformity of behavior and conformity of form against one another.

Plastikote Paint

There is a direct correlation between the availability of the Plastikote paint, my studio production and the evolution of my concepts.

When I started painting on wood, it was to embrace a surface that could withstand abuse and yet not be so precious that I might need help to install or transport it. The preparations to seal the surfaces would alternate between a transparent whitewash undercoat and pastel finish; and a glossy, more direct saturation of color sealed up with a coat of high gloss. On top of the prepared surface, I used a favorite paint by Plastikote, now no longer available, I’m sure because of some horrible percentage of lead or ingestible plastic within the pigments. My materials trifecta required few visits to art supply stores – I could get everything at Home Depot and Longs – and what I needed from Longs I could get 24 hours. For a single artist with a day job who is also a woman with limited storage; the nature of an all night paint supply transformed my schedule. The simple possibility of buying the perfect paint 24 hours a day bore an edict that materials purchases were to be done on “non-studio time” and that (irrationally, I now realize) if the paint supply was open all night long, there was never a reason good enough to reschedule or interrupt studio time. It was more likely for me to buy paint while out on a date than during studio time.

During this wonderful time in my life, from 1999 to 2007, while it may have been an almost ten year avoidance of art supply stores, it also was when I really dug my heels into a certain way of thinking about making artwork. I became very regimented about my schedule: wake up early and paint for two hours, then prepare for day job; day job; go to 24 hour Longs/go out; come home and prepare to paint the next morning. Because of the structure of my schedule, I imposed more structure into my compositions and color schemes. For example, early paintings on wood without Plastikote attempted to discuss contrast of behavior to expectations of form in three color compositions, with some variances in finish (that never could photograph anyway). The introduction of Plastikote into my work expanded my palette to include four then five colors at a time – this in turn enabled me to express implications of motivation through much more complete compositions.