We had a great couple of days in Chamberlain this fall. I received the honer of being inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame. This happened on September13-14. It was fun having my family and friends attend this event I was also pleased to have a very close friend, Kay Jorgensen of Spearfish inducted as well. We shared many friends at the event.
The Ruddell gallery hosted 20 Termespheres plus posters explaining one to six point perspective. The spheres were a tremendous draw for the students and the community alike. The show was tied in with Dr Tom Jackson, BHSU’s new president’s inauguration.
The Termesphere Gallery announced today the dates for the Eighth Annual Termesphere Gallery Holiday Open House have been set for December 6th and 7th. The Gallery will be offering a 10% discount on almost all merchandise including original Termespheres. The discount will also be applied to the newly redesigned www.termespheres.com on those dates. There will be a Special Reception with wine, snacks and music by Lang Termes. The Termesphere Gallery, located outside of Spearfish, is one of the oldest continuously operating art galleries in the Black Hills. Celebrating the revolutionary spherical artwork of world renowned artist and local resident, Dick Termes, the gallery provides a truly unique shopping experience. ” The Termesphere Gallery offers many affordable gifts and artwork that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. If you’re looking for unique gifts and a memorable shopping experience that supports local business and the arts than stop in or shop online.
September 24 2013 we loaded up the trailer with 21 Termespheres and took off for Peoria Arizona for a show at the Challenger Space Center. Peoria is north of Phoenix. Scott Bohall from Glendale was our contact and supporter of this trip. Another part of this trip was to deliver a piece to Oakland California and spend some time in San Francisco.
Our first night on the road was in Grand Junction Colorado. The next day we took Highway 128 off I-70 to Moab. One of the narrow rough windy road that goes through one of the most exciting, spectacular, breathtaking canyons we have seen. We stopped in Moab to get a cup of coffee and I asked a guy who had been there for years what the name of the canyon was? He said, “Canyon 128.” I said, “ No, it has to have a special name. It is a special place!” He said, “Canyon 128.” Well, I guess all places that are special don’t have special names.
We got to Peoria that evening and the next morning we started to put up the show. By the time I started my workshops with middle school students, most of the show was hung. We had great help. My afternoon was spent with two groups of middle school students. We learned some three dimensional geometries and how to apply them to small balls. Each of them ended up with different designs colored with permanent colored pens. The next day we finished putting up the show and I went through my 1-6 point perspective workshop with two groups of High School students. They really got into what I call the continuous four point perspective which is
like a panoramic 360 degree drawing that can fit together like a cylinder.
The next day, the opening for the show at the Challenger Space Center went over very well. Because of the show, three of the pieces are now hanging in Valley Art Museum for a month. I was so pleased that my 24” sphere called LOOKING FOR THE ORDER (the Einstein sphere) sold. It has been a favorite to many people but now has a permanent home in Scott and Danielle Bohall’s residence in Glendale Arizona.
On to San Francisco
We left Peoria and headed toward San Francisco. We stayed in Morro Bay California, a fishing village which has turned now to tourism. We enjoyed this town very much. It is right on the Pacific Ocean. The next day we went up the coast on Highway 1 to San Francisco. We saw elephant seals in one spot laying all over the beach. It was unbelievable! What strange creatures they are. We stayed that night in the Seaside Motel which is north central San Francisco. This was a good spot to be because we were able to walk to Ghirardelli Square, Fishman Wharf, Pier 39, Coit Tower, China Town and then all the way up (and back down) the windiest street in the world—Lombard Street and back to the motel in one day. I am not counting how many steps that is but way too many! We also drove over to the Cliff House to see Markie’s favorite attraction, Camera Obscura which is credited to Leonardo da Vinci.
It is probably the first type of camera ever invented and maybe could be thought of as the first moving picture camera. It sits on the ocean edge. This building has a mirror and concave and convex lens projecting the outside images into the building. The apparatus in the ceiling rotates so the image on a slice of a large hemisphere shows the world outside inside the building. The Giant Camera, as it is called www.GiantCamera.com , is the largest free standing Camera Obscura in the US. It wasn’t opened so we had to return the next day. It is something everyone should see.
Next we went to Oakland to deliver a Termesphere called ORGANIZED INTUITION. This is about a 30” diameter polyhedron. It is officially called a rhombic triacontrahedron. It has 30 diamond shaped sides. This will now have a great home with Michael Branco in Oakland.
The next day it was time to head back to Tucson to spend some time with my brother Joe and his wife Lacy. What an amazing place they live in! We had a wonderful time there.
Then back to the Phoenix. Scott Bohall had gotten us tickets to watch the Phoenix Cardinals play the Carolina Panthers and to go to the tailgate party first. It was great and the Cardinals won! That evening we picked up the show.
Santa FE!Next morning we were headed back to the Black Hills. Our first stop was in Santa Fe New Mexico. The 8” limited LORETTO CHAPEL sphere is now being sold at the Loretto Chapel gift shop in the Loretto Inn. The LaFonda Hotel gift shop will be selling my MOVA Globe/Termesphere of the Southwest pueblos/pottery scene, FROM THE EARTH.
On to LovelandThe next day we headed to Loveland Colorado where I did a lecture on my work for the Good Samaritan Society Loveland Village. It was a great event. The kitchen staff provided desserts, all were shaped like spheres and very tasty to boot.
From there it was pretty much clear sailing to the Black Hills where our broken trees and 41 inch snow lay waiting for us. Our 4686 mile, 17 day road trip was done. Home sweet home…..
Christmas open House – Dec 3rd and 4thWe are excited about our open house this year.
We will be open 9:00am to 4:00pm on Saturday and Sunday.
If you can’t make those days and you want a unique gift, we will be open every day until December 23rd. We have lots of new things this year with a supply of Solar/Termespheres and a new 540 piece spherical puzzle Termesphere that actually ends up in the form of a sphere. We will have coffee , cookies and other goodies waiting for you. Also, there are about 60 major spheres to choose from with 10% off. The MOVA Globe/Termespheres will not be part of the 10% off.
Just in time for Christmas we received a larger supply of Mova/Termespheres at the Termesphere Gallery. These signed and numbered limited edition spheres can be found on my site showing full motion. http://termespheres.com/mova/ We have the PANTHEON , FISH EYE VIEW and FROM THE EARTH. An explanation of these pieces is found below. We are very pleased to have these available before Christmas this year and our Open House. These are also the first time we have been able to reproduce my work with this kind of full color.
My Termesphere floats inside a transparent sphere. Within my sphere is a solar cell which picks up light and powers a motor that keeps the inside sphere spinning. Having it float in a liquid makes it easier for the motor to turn the sphere. The motor pushes off of the magnetic field of the Earth much like a compass. I received 60 of these spheres in the first shipment, 30 of the PANTHEON and 30 of the FISH EYE VIEW. Over the last couple of years I have had a prototype of the PANTHEON in the Gallery. The people who signed up in the gallery to be notified when they arrived were given the first chance at owning one. But as of last Friday, the Mova/Termespheres are available to everyone. As you can tell, I am very excited about this mixture of the Termesphere and the Mova Globe solar motion. It is very cool and people seem to really love them.
I went to the Califonia Art Teachers Association Convention November 4th and 5th. They asked me to be one of the keynote speakers at their state conference in Bakersfield. This was very exciting to project my videos onto their 20 foot screens and talk about my work and where it comes from. I also gave a three hours Masters class on One through Six Point Perspective for some of the teachers. It was fun to see how teachers related to my work. It went over very well.
eBook called Geometry in Art by Hilton Andrade de MelloI wanted you to see this. It is really a very good book and he has a lot on the Termesphere in the book which I like, of course. This is a free download which is even better.
After 43 year of painting Termespheres I now own the trademark on Termespheres. You wouldn’t think that would have to be so hard but it took forever for this to take place.
Puzzleball SphereRavensburger, a German puzzle company-one of the oldest in the world, has produced a very neat 540 piece spherical puzzle of my sphere CUBICAL UNIVERSE. It is a plastic hollow sphere that fits together amazingly well.
Is my newest 12″ piece. It grew from an interesting polyhedron study of the dodecahedron. When you cut across one of the twelve pentagons with a straight line and continue that system around the polyhedron from polygon to polygon you can get a cube to appear. If you do that same system with all the sides to the pentagons you will end up with five cubes arranged around the sphere. I thought of myself inside each of these cubes, as if they were cubical rooms. But each room is at a different angle so this becomes a 30 point perspective Termesphere. The cubical rooms are color coded so you can keep track of where you are. I let a part of each cubical room be dominant for a certain period of time. Each of these five rooms have their own six point perspective. Objects like canes and boxes show up in some of the rooms which are different colors. They come from the rooms which fit their colors and their perspective fits with those rooms.
My latest commission is of the interior of the Carnegie Art Center in Alliance Nebraska. This is the drawing stage of a 24″ diameter sphere showing the total environment inside the center. Many of the people who have worked hard to put this Art Center together are shown throughout the painting putting up an art show or doing other activities. The paintings being put up are all scenes of Alliance. So you are seeing inside what is outside the Art Center. This sphere will hang in the spot it is hanging in the gallery.
Two signed and numbered MOVA Globe/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 Globe, 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 Globe/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 Globe/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.
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.
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.
