The Summer-Is-Almost-Here Event
On MAY 28 from 9 TO 4 Everyone is invited out to the Termesphere Gallery to see the new 540 piece Termesphere Puzzleball and to check out the limited edition signed and numbered Mova/Termespheres not to mention new Termespheres, tshirts, crystals, books, finger puppets, DVDs etc. It will be fun to talk to you and show you my new work.
We are looking forward to having the gallery open from 9 to 5 everyday all summer.
The Mova/Termesphere
Two signed and numbered Mova/Termespheres limited editions have finally come into reality. It has taken a good three years but at last two limited edition Termespheres, the PANTHEON and FISH EYE VIEW are now in my gallery. Turtle Tech Design is an international company that invented the solar motion sphere, Mova, which is a sphere floating within a transparent sphere with a solar cell to provide power for the motor.
http://termespheres.com/mova is a video of these 4.5 inch Mova/Termespheres in motion. A third one called FROM THE EARTH sphere will be coming in two or three months. The motion is powered by solar energy so no batteries or gasoline is needed.
The Mova/Termesphere gives me a wonderful new magical motion and a great optical illusion as well as a totally new way to reproduce my work that allows it to be in full color.
Sphere Puzzle
Another new, very exciting addition to the Gallery is the Termesphere Puzzleball. The Termesphere, CUBICAL UNIVERSE, was used to make a jigsaw three dimensional puzzle. One of the oldest puzzle companies in the world, Ravensburger Puzzle Company from Germany contacted me a couple of years ago to see if we could work together on producing a 540 piece 8.5 inch diameter spherical puzzle of one of my Termespheres. A 16” Termesphere, CUBICAL UNIVERSE was created especially for this Puzzelball. It was inspired by a spherical painting of mine that now is owned by the Math Department at West Point Military Academy. The result is a spherical puzzle that fits together beautifully and is mounted on a stand with a mirror under it. The 540 pieces are all slightly convex which makes it form a smooth sphere. Check it out here. There are numbers on the back of the pieces for those who have trouble with puzzles.
Latest Termesphere
The latest Termesphere is called LIFE’S UPS AND DOWNS. It is a 16” diameter sphere which played off of a 15th century stairway in India that helped people get to a source of water far below. These stairways interested me because they didn’t just go straight up but rather up and out with each new set. If you look at the image of this sphere you will see that. As you go up to the next level you gain more and more stairs. It was a great challenge to my perspective system. In my painting, humans who are working their way up, find evil monsters under many of the stairways. They have to get by these evil creatures or confront them. Sometimes they have to go sideways or even back down the stairs to find the proper way to continue their life’s progress. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1VruV5nL1o
THE SMITH RANCH SPHERE, commissioned by Jeanette and Nels Smith, is now hanging in a stairwell in their new home on Sand Creek near Beulah Wyoming. It has a wonderful home. Each new commission I do, I learn a lot about a new subject. I learned a lot about ranch life and landscape doing the Smith Ranch south of Sundance Wyoming. I learned a great deal of the history of that area too.
Shows and Lectures
I have been very busy with shows and lecture/workshops:
This March I had a wonderful experience in Lander Wyoming doing a week long residency. I had a twenty-four piece show in the Lander Library along with a lecture to explain my work. The Lander School system had me work with their student for five days. I did my workshops on perspective, drawing and three dimensional geometries. I also did a three hour workshop on 1-6 point perspective at the Art Center. They brought in the Hands-On show I put together for the Discovery Center in Pierre for young students called UP DOWN AND ALL AROUND. This was displayed in the Lander Children’s Museum. It had never traveled outside of South Dakota before. This hands-on display can be seen on youtube.
Six students studying Math/Art and three faculty members from Marshall University in Huntington West Virginia came to my gallery for a four day of workshop in April. I used the gallery as a classroom. It was a great environment to teach in with my examples hanging everywhere. It sounds like another group will be coming back next year.
Future Shows and Lectures
I have a one man show coming up in Rapid City South Dakota at the Heron’s Flight Studio Gallery June 1 through the 30th .
The Rapid City Library will have a 12 piece show of Termespheres from June 1st through June 30th.
The Grace Balloch Memorial Library in Spearfish South Dakota has an eight spheres show from May 15 through June 15th. I will be doing a video lecture on my work at the Library on May 26th at 5:30. I am also doing a workshop with the Kids Club Kids on June 10th from 9 to 12.
Libraries have been my latest venue for shows, lectures and workshops. They seem to be a perfect place for people to look while reading their book. They don’t have wall space but they do have ceiling space which is what I need.
I have a lecture at 2011 MATHFEST, The Annual Summer Meeting of the Mathematical Association of America in Lexington Kentucky inAugust. While I am there, I will be doing workshops at the LIVING Arts and Science Center of Lexington.
I also have been asked to be a KEYNOTE SPEAKER at the California Art Teachers Association in Bakersfield California in November. This should be very fun.
We The People
WE THE PEOPLE is a 30″ Termesphere which has freedom trees who’s branches form the people who have been hugely involved in these different freedoms. The roots form the forefathers of our country. The road running throughout the piece is the Constitution of the United States.
A view from a different angle
Capital Journal
Article Source
PIERRE — Looking at the world through a sphere can give a person a unique perspective just as painting the world on a sphere has given Spearfish artist Dick Termes an “inside-out” view on life.
Termes, the creator of Termespheres art, is an internationally acclaimed artist whose work is one-of-a-kind spherical paintings.
“His work is such a unique form of art,” the South Dakota Discovery Center’s executive director Kristie Maher said. “He is recognized as a master artist. It’s great that South Dakota kids to get to be that close to a world-recognized artist.”
 Shawna Bleecker | Capital Journal Stanley County Elementary School second-grader Alex Singleton (left) listens and learns about Termespheres from the art-form creator Dick Termes Friday afternoon at the South Dakota Discovery Center |
According to Termes’ Web site, “What you are seeing when you look at a Termesphere painting is an optical illusion. An inside-out view of the total physical world around you on the outside surface of a hanging and rotating sphere.”
Termespheres capture the all-around visual world from one revolving point in space, so no matter which direction the eye looks at the sphere — from above, below or from the side — the image looks correct.
“It is the complete environment around you,” said Termes, who opted to paint an entire environment as opposed to a small portion like most artists do.
Friday afternoon Termes taught a couple of local children the art of drawing with a 12-point perspective. The 12-point perspective gives artists a central point on paper to draw from and provides a grid to show a balance of distance in art.
“You just make boxes,” Lindsey Bishop said as if the concept was old news to her. “You just follow the lines on the grid.”
“It’s pretty neat,” said 11-year-old Marcella Lees. “It is easier to draw with grid lines.”
“It was really neat to hear him explain the spheres,” said area mother Michelle Lees, who brought her children to the event. “I love the way he simplified the perspective. It is not an easy thing to teach.”
Second-grade Stanley County G.O.L.D. student Slader Tople, 7, enjoyed putting together one of Termes’ tetrahedron puzzle exhibits, which also are on display.
“It looks like you’re in it watching the baseball games,” he said. “It’s pretty cool!”
The Termesphere exhibit, sponsored in part by the South Dakota Arts Council, will be on display at the South Dakota Discovery Center through the month of December.
For those who missed a learning opportunity with the artist Termes himself, don’t worry, he will be back.
“He doesn’t come annually,” Maher said. “But we have had him come several times over the past 14 years.”
“When people look at my artwork I hope they walk away with an awareness of the total visual space,” Termes said. “I want to have people be aware of the big picture. That’s a lot to ask from one piece of art.”
Or is it?
Stephen Hawking’s UNE BELLE HISTORIRE DU TEMPS.
I have been notified that THE BIG BANG, a 24 inch diameter Termesphere, will illustrate the cover of the French addition of Stephen Hawking’s best selling book A BRIEF HISTORY of TIME. This book was first published in 1998 and has since been reprinted numerous times. Stephen Hawking, a theoretical physicist has spent his career working on basic laws which govern the universe. PHOTO OF BOOK.