SPEARFISH – In celebration of Avera St. Luke’s Hospital 100th anniversary in Aberdeen, artist Dick Termes was commissioned to create a Termesphere dedicated to the cycle of life. He has been working on this project for the past three months. Termespheres are hanging, rotating spherical paintings that show up, down and all around environments. Forward to the Beginning is a 24 inch diameter spherical painting. Black Hills artist Termes examines life from beginning to end in a very unique way in this spherical painting. Using a six-point perspective Termes creates a maze of stairs which emerge from a white hole in space. The stairways go up and down and in and out in space. The stairs symbolize paths through life and choices. Some of the stairs lead to nowhere. When people emerge from the white hole they are babies. As they crawl and then walk up and down and around on the stairs, they become young children, then teenagers, young adults and senior citizens. The older people finally arrive at the same white hole the children emerge from. They walk into this white space or tunnel. This adventure called life leads them back to where they started.
“I think this is a unique way to talk about life and a universal way to talk about the beginning and terminus of life.” Termes said. This past year he has had one man shows at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, at the Grace Museum in Abilene, Texas and at Cal State University in Bakersfield. Next week the termespheres will be shipped to the University of South Alabama in Mobile and the Eastern Shore Art Center in Fairhope, Ala. Next they will go to the County College North East at Ft. Worth, Texas, Missouri Western State College in St. Joseph and to Evansville Museum in Indiana.