Marathon Evolution: Stepping to the Sound of Your Own Drummer

Columbus Marathon © Larry Hamill

Marathon Evolution is our latest in slow motion videos.  Filmed in part during the recent Columbus Marathon, it juxtaposes runners and rain puddles.

Once again, we’ve incorporated music by Kevin MacLeod.  The piece, entitled Birch Run, is reminiscent of Native American pow-wow drumming.  This selection seemed fitting, as Native Americans were the first long distance runners on this land.  While the drumming keeps pace with the runners steps and perhaps their heartbeats, the jingling sound mimics falling rain.

Rain Puddle © Larry Hamill

As a side note, women of the Ojibwa and Chippewa tribes wore dresses covered with metal cones, creating a jingling sound as they moved. Jingle dresses were traditional worn during the healing dance.

The 2009 Nationwide Better Health Columbus Marathon celebrated the 30th Anniversary of the Columbus Marathon and drew nearly 15,000 athletes.

For a look at the growing use of social media in such events, particularly TweetMyTime, visit marathon runner Nate Riggs’ blog.

Colorful Interpretations

Kojo © Larry Hamill

Larry was recently asked to be a guest curator for Ragazine.cc, the on-line magazine of art, information and entertainment.

Originating in the mid-1970s in Columbus, Ohio, Ragazine was the title of an alternative newspaper published by a small group of friends. In 2004, it was revived on the web as Ragazine.cc by Mike Foldes, founder and managing editor, and continues to be a collaboration of artists, writers, poets and photographers.

Guest curators are asked to gather work from fellow artists and photographers that they believe merit a larger audience. Larry selected Columbus photographers Kojo Kamau and Chas Ray Krider as featured artists for the November-December 2009 issue.

Following a four-year stint as an Air Force photographer in the early 1960s, Kojo has spent a lifetime photographing Columbus, Ohio. His photos include well-known locals like Elijah Pierce, as well as nationally known figures Maya Angelou, Muhammed Ali and fellow photographer, Gordon Parks.

Gordon Parks © Kojo Kamau

Chas Ray also started out documenting life in Columbus and over the years moved to framing the darker side of life.  Two of his erotica series are entitled Goodbye Kitty and Days of Noir.

Chas Ray © Larry Hamill

The images of Kamau and Krider, posed here with cameras of yesteryear, are part of Larry’s ongoing Colorful Camera Series.  The first of these images can be seen in a previous post entitled Digital Technology Changes in a Flash.

Chihuly In Columbus

© Larry Hamill

The Columbus Museum of Art recently unveiled Chihuly Illuminated – a show of glass, color and light that will remain on display throughout the museum’s renovation.

The exhibit’s centerpiece is Mille Fiori. Italian for “a thousand flowers” this garden of glass spans the length and width of a small pond. Sapphire spirals, orange cattails, an inverted yellow chandelier and yellow platters with scalloped edges resembling giant water lilies reflect off a black acrylic base. The mirror surface adds depth to the piece, giving the illusion that you could step into it and submerge yourself in color.

© Larry Hamill

In a recent Columbus Dispatch article, Columbus Museum of Art Director Nannette Maciejunes likened the shapes and colors contained in the piece to a baroque symphony.

© Larry Hamill

The exhibit includes six installations that spans four decades of work and is designed to give the visitor insight into Chihuly’s creative process. Perhaps no piece speaks better to personal influences on his work than the onyx and caramel chandelier. Following his mother’s death in 2006, Chihuly created the Black Chandeliers – the lack of his signature vibrant colors reflecting his period of mourning.

© Larry Hamill

In stark contrast to this colorless time in Chihuly’s career, is his work with glass and neon. Glass Forest is a melding of hand blown white milk glass and neon light. By dropping molten glass from a ladder, long stems were allowed to form before the glass hit the floor and then solidified.

© Larry Hamil

The color found in Dark Violet Rain Forest Tumbleweeds, on display in the museum lobby, was created by mixing argon gas with mercury vapor.

© Larry Hamill

In 1971, Chihuly founded Pilchuck Glass School in Washington. Designed as a studio/apprentice environment, it shifted the focus of glass making from a solitary art form to a collaborative process – a process that would become a necessity for Chihuly, following the loss of his peripheral vision due to an accident.

As he began to create large scale pieces, his art required a team effort. With an emphasis on the effects that gravity and centrifugal forces have on his glass creations, scale has set Chihuly apart from other glass artists.

In keeping with his love of scale, Bowls on Felled Tree is a display of glass vessels on a two ton section of pine tree. The piece pays homage to the geometric patterns and vibrant colors of Native American Indian blankets, as well as to the graceful relaxed forms of woven baskets he has collected over the years. Here, the effects that gravity, weight and time have on objects are exemplified by the drooping edges of his tobacco colored vessels.

© Larry Hamill

Chihuly Illuminated is part of the Chihuly in Columbus celebration, which includes exhibits at the Franklin Park Conservatory and Hawk Gallery.

Special thanks to Nancy Colvin of the Columbus Museum of Art for the guided tour.

Posted by Pamela J. Willits

LIQUID MOTION: Slow Motion Dance with Water

Latina Dancers © Larry Hamill

We’d like to share with you, LIQUID MOTION, our first video production. Shot at 400 frames per seconds on a Casio point and shoot camera, the video juxtaposes water in motion with Latina Dancers, creating a mesmerizing slow motion effect.

Latina Dancers with Water © Larry Hamill

Water images were shot at the Marble Cliff public fountain in Columbus, Ohio. The effect of water moving through space, in lieu of falling towards the ground, was achieved by turning the camera sideways.

Sound track was provided courtesy of Kevin MacLeod.  More about Kevin’s music can be found at www.kmacleodmusic.com.

Special thanks to John Heck for use of his camera and advice on music selection.

Another Banner Year for Columbus State

Columbus State Award Banner

Columbus State Community College, recently ranked the third largest educational institute in Ohio, recently honored teachers and staff.  As in years past, we had the opportunity to photograph the recipients, whose photos are reproduced onto six-foot high banners and displayed on campus throughout the academic year.

Through photilation, a technique of merging images with computer produced graphics, each recipient is portrayed will a background that illustrates their field of expertise.

Sudha Kolathu Parambil, Math Instructor

Four outstanding faculty members garnered the 2009 Distinguished Teaching Award and a staff member was named Employee of the Year at Columbus State’s annual Employee Celebration, held June 5 at Confluence Park.

The Distinguished Teaching Awards are given to faculty nominated by their students, following a classroom evaluation by a committee of master teachers. This year the awards went to Leslie Smith, professor in Mathematics; Julie Molnar, professor in Modern Languages; Gene Strickland, instructor of Integrated Media and Technology and Sudha Kolathu Parambil, adjunct faculty member in Mathematics.

Leslie Smith, Mathematics Professor

The Employee of the Year is James Stafford, network application programmer in Information Technology.

Service Awards for employees reaching five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five and thirty years of service to the college were also given.  Adjunct faculty and part-time employees with equivalent service in quarters were also recognized.

More than 500 attended the event, which featured dinner and dancing.

Ohio State Carves Out Rich State History

OSU Student Union © Larry Hamill

In June 2007, we began photographing the reconstruction work on The Ohio State University’s Ohio Union building. The six bas-relief sculptures shown above, which have been covered during construction, were recently unveiled for a brief period to allow for preservation work.

While they have since been recovered and will remain so until the official reopening of the Ohio Union in March 2010, we thought you might be interested in the history behind these eight-foot-tall limestone panels, which grace the facility’s 12th Avenue façade.

The sculptures were created in 1952 to commemorate the rich historical background of the State of Ohio and The Ohio State University. Renowned sculptor Marshall Fredericks, a graduate of the Cleveland School of Art,
used full-scale clay models as guides, while carving the sculptures directly onto the building.

Shown in greater detail below, the first panel honors the Native Americans who original inhabited the Ohio River Valley, including the Delaware, Miami, Shawnee and Wyandot tribes. The state name was derived from the Native American term O-Y-O, meaning the great river, in reference to the Ohio River.

The second panel represents the hardships of the westward expansion into Ohio, depicted by a guide standing beside a traveler, who has fallen on his knees to give thanks for a safe journey. The wagons in the upper left corner represent the arrival of settlers, following construction of the National Road, now known as Route 40.

Ohio’s bountiful agricultural history is depicted in the third panel, where a woman holds her baby, as Johnny Appleseed teaches her young son how to plant trees. Appleseed would spend four decades traveling throughout Ohio, helping families start orchards.

Relief Sculptures © Larry Hamill

The fourth, fifth and sixth panels depict statesmanship and education,
Ohio’s role as a leader in agriculture, aviation and the ceramic industry and Ohio’s steel, coal and milling industries, respectively.

When the new Ohio Union is unveiled next March, two new panels entitled, Pathways of Courage and Celebration of Arts, will also grace the building.

Pathways of Courage honors Ohio’s contributions to the abolition movement in the panel’s depiction of the Underground Railroad, author Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, whose writings championed civil rights and higher education for all.

The Celebration of Arts panel celebrates Ohio’s rich artistic heritage with images of George Bellows shown with his paintbrush and author and cartoonist James Thurber seated at his typewriter.

These newest panels are the work of Ohio artist Linda Langhorst and sculptor William Galloway. After seeing her designs transformed in sculptures, Langhorst said she appreciates more than ever the artistry required to effectively manipulate the play of light on solid material.

The following is from a forthcoming brochure, produced by the university, covering the history and story behind these panels:

We hope these powerful sculptures strengthen your Buckeye spirit, inspire you to dream big and achieve great things. As an Ohio State student, you have the ability and resources to make a difference in the community, the state and the nation. Be part of the tradition …“Do Something Great!”

Written by Pamela J. Willits

BIGG Glass Art Breaks New Ground

Photo © Larry Hamill

BIGG – Breakthrough Ideas in Global Glass - is currently on display at the OSU Urban Arts Space and Hawk Galleries. A collaboration between The Ohio State University’s Dept. of Art Glass Program, OSU Urban Arts Space and Hawk Galleries, the exhibit showcases 43 international artists.

A total of 97 pieces of glass artwork were selected following a juried review of over 650 artists’ submits. The international jury panel included Italian
glass artisan, Lino Tagliapietra; the Corning Museum’s Curator of Modern Glass, Tina Oldknow and Director of Hawk Galleries, Tom Hawk.

Over the years, William Morris, Dale Chihuly, Christopher Ries and Lino Tagliapietra, among others, have led the glass art movement. Sponsored by Steuben Glass, this exhibition was designed to advance new and innovative glass art worldwide. “We were looking for the next talent in glass art,” said Kelly Kaser, Deputy Director of the OSU Urban Arts Space.

Photo © Larry Hamill

Hiromi Takizawa’s piece entitled, Crossing the Pacific Ocean, combines a neon airplane suspended above an arrangement of glass bowls, creating a reflection in bubbles that seem to float across the ocean’s surface.

Photo © Larry Hamill

Pallbearers, by Mielle Riggie, personifies man’s circle of life. A fragile leaf with serrated edges gently rests on inverted tree branches, as if being carried away to its final resting place. The frosted white glass mimics an ice formation, serving as a reminder of winter and the final season of life.

Photo © Larry Hamill

Equally remarkable is Karen Reid’s floor installation entitled, Creek. Cast of optic crystal, the nine linear interlocking pieces resemble a once flowing creek now frozen over. While appearing inert, the piece also seems to undulate – an effect caused by the glass radiating light at different angles.

Photo © Larry Hamill

Quincy Neri incorporates enamels with blown glass to create rich red and deep purple sculptures. According to her artist statement, her work contains the “underlying themes of violence and danger that underpin American society…asking the viewer to rethink their understanding of political reality”. However, this viewer sees her work differently, reinforcing the notion that everyone views art from a unique and personal vantage point.

Artist’s bios can be seen on the Hawk Galleries BIGG web page.

BIGG will be on display at both Columbus downtown locations through October 10, 2009.

Special thanks to Kelly Kaser and the staff at the OSU Urban Arts Space and Susan Janowicz at Hawk Galleries for their time and insight.

Written by Pamela J. Willits

Grange Insurance Embraces Community With Graphics

Grange Display © Larry Hamill

Our new graphic display is now in place at the newly renovated Grange Insurance headquarters on S. Front Street in the Brewery District. The installation, which consists of a total of seven pieces, is located in the recently relocated claims office.

The curved wall, pictured above, includes photos of the Franklin County
courthouse, the sculptural gavel next to the Ohio Supreme Court, the Union
Station Arch and three shots from the new Grange addition. The diagonal and vertical elements of each photograph make this group of images work as a synergetic whole.

The seventh image, pictured below, is a 130″x 38″mural of German Village images. This single image was output on canvas and stretched over a wooden
frame, creating a frameless stand alone presence within the office space.

Grange Mural © Larry Hamill

Grange Insurance selected these images to “bring a sense of community
to our new space,” said Kelly George of Grange Insurance.

Special thanks is owed Greg Moulin of idecora Wall Décor Identity for
his patented framing technology. Greg and his team offer unique display
options for corporate clients looking to establish an identity within their corporate settings.

Information Security Magazine Receives Tabbie Award

Carnegie Mellon's CyLab © Larry Hamill

Kudos to Information Security Magazine for an honorable mention at this year’s Tabbie Awards. The Tabbies, awarded by Trade Association Business Publications International, recognize excellence in trade, association and business publications.

Maureen Joyce, creative director at IS Magazine, notified us of the honorable mention in the category of Front Cover – Digital Imagery. We produced the cover image of Marios Savvides, last fall at Carnegie Mellon University’s CyLab.

Through the use of algorithms, Savvides is developing facial and iris recognition software at CMU’s biometrics lab. In the article entitled, Think Tank, Michael Mimoso writes that “it’s no surprise that most of this work is earmarked for use by certain three-letter government agencies…since criminals and terrorists are experts at evading detection.”

The 2009 Tabbie Awards received 500 entries, with nominations coming from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, France, China, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Germany and India. According to TABPI’s website, “judges were once again impressed by the quality of the submissions”.

Read more of Mimoso’s article on line.

Let us know what you think of this image and/or the growth of technology in monitoring society. Will Big Brother watching out for us come to be viewed as a positive influence on our quality of life?

Digital Technology Changes in a Flash

© Larry Hamill

Jonathan Putnam, an actor with CATCO Theatre, in awe over the technological transition from flash bulb photography to digital graphics.