Recent Works
SCIENTIFIC RELIGION or STONEHENGE 24″ diameter was just completed. It grew from a trip to England last winter when Markie and I did a two day workshop in Alconbury Air Force Base. We also took four days to see England. We had a very fun and inspiring trip to Stonehenge where I got the idea for this spherical painting. Stonehenge had an interesting feeling of Science and Religion which I tried to capture in this piece. I used a very strong angular geometry coming off the sun and a geometry based on the circle coming off the moon. Both of these were very important to man.. It was most exciting for me being at one of the first Cathedrals built by man and also one of the first Observatories of the heavens built by man. We are pretty sure the Sun and the Moon both could have been involved in the creation of this environment. Markie and I both felt it was MUCH MORE than what we expected to see. The cold weather also made my ears and hands turn to stone.
Commission
The Mount Marty’s Sphere is close to being finished. It is a 16″ diameter sphere of the inside of the new library at Mount Marty. Images of the history of Mount Marty also float within this building. There is a very interesting shift the architect did to add variety to this building. The outside of the building is organized to a cubical structure but the inside is shifted to a diagonal of that outside structure. This required me to use eight rather than four points around the middle of the sphere. It took me a while before I discovered this is what the architect did. The piece is coming along very well and should be finished soon.
Wrigley Field is another commission I am soon to start on. It will be a 16″ diameter sphere also. It was commissioned by Alyce Schavone of Spearfish for Tony, her husband, who has passed away. Tony spent a lot of time at the Cubs games when he was a kid. I remember almost every time I saw Tony he would always say, “Hey Termes, you’ve got to paint Wrigley Field on one of your Termespheres.” Alyce caught me a while back and said, “Let’s do it.” I think it will be very exciting to paint. I took a trip to Chicago and got to see the Cubs play the Dodgers. It didn’t work out so well for Chicago. The score was 11 to 1 but I did get three wonderful total photos and many detailed photos of the experience. I will begin this painting very soon.
While in Chicago I got to spend some time with Chanda, my niece, her husband Edger and their two great boys Turner and Riley. I also went to Millennium Park and took a couple of total photos inside and outside of Sky Bridge which is a wonderful large reflective sculpture that is in the shape of a large bean (as Edger calls it). I enjoyed seeing what an inside concave reflection looked like. I always wondered what the inside of a reflective sphere would look like. Now that I have seen, at least a part of the inside of a reflective sphere, I still don’t understand it. What a great study the inside of a mirrored ball would be…
Thoughts on the Total Photo
I want to spend a little time explaining the total photo as it seems like this type of photograph is now of more interest to the world than it was when I invented it. I receive a patent, number 4,214,821, on the total photograph in July of 1980. This shows the abstract below.
For more on this pattent click here
The Total Photo is a spherical photograph displayed on the outside surface of all the Platonic Solids or Regular polyhedra. It does with photography what my spherical Termespheres do with paint. It captures the up, down and all around environment from one point in space. In the beginning I explored all five of the regular polyhedron, the tetrahedron(1), hexahedron(2), octahedron(3), dodecahedron(4), icosahedron(5). I also explored the pop up polyhedron. I found with my Superwide Hasselblad camera the dodecahedron worked the best.
It would look more normal if you were inside the polyhedron and let it be an environment around you. I have taken pictures of many famous interiors around the world. Some of these have helped me to paint spherical paintings of these environments.
Taking pictures of one of my Termesphere paintings was what inspired me to figure out the total photo. I wanted to take pictures all around a spherical painting so it could be put together on the flat surface. I learned 
very quickly if the photo were to be put back together in some kind of orderly way, it had to be photographed in some geometric way. I knew about the different polyhedra that fit on the sphere. I drew the icosahedon onto the surface of a painting with erasable ink. I set my camera and tripod up so I could shoot straight into each of the triangles. This was done by turning the sphere in a cylinder until the center of each triangle was in the center of the lens. The result turned out very well but I learned the triangles were bulging out triangles rather than straight line triangles. This was a problem as I had to either cut off part of the image or have a black pattern between each triangle. I ended up with dark patterns between the triangles. This wasn’t as smooth as I was hoping but it opened my mind to painting on polyhedra and taking on the concept of the total photo. The total photo has become a great tool for me for doing the famous interior Termespheres. I believe this total photo concept has transformed into what is now called virtual panoramic photos.
Virtual Panoramic Views of Termespheres
Some wonderful new ways to do panoramic photos and virtual reality panoramic have now come into the world through the computer. These systems, like the total photo, allow you to see the total picture around you. This program can be tricked into thinking my Termespheres are environments and can put you inside the spheres. Several different people have played with my work and gotten some pretty exciting results. Check out these sights to see some exciting new way to look at Termespheres.
Six Senses By Larry Lohrman
The Scholz Home By Larry Lohrman
Ryan Packard has done some extensive exploration with this system and is getting very close to helping me reproduce my spheres without melting them down. This is a really exciting for me because three of my past spheres that I wanted to reproduce are now only found in flat disk forms. In the past I had to actually heat the hemisphere of my acrylic original spheres until they melted to the flat. Once they were flat I could take that image and silkscreen it on flat pieces of plastic. These flat silk-screened on plastic would then be blown back into hemispheres and glued back together as spheres. Ryan has so far taken pictures all the way around three of my spheres and made Virtual Panoramic pieces out of them. This means with the help of your computer, you can be inside the sphere and turn and look up, down and all around. It is a wonderful experience.
He also has flattened these spheres into two flat disks which we think are very close to what would happen if we melted them down. This makes me very happy. Also he can take the spheres and turn them into polyhedron shapes. These polyhedron seem to fit together very well. He has given me a very large amount to think about.
Current and Future Shows and Workshops
October 7th- February 15th I had an opening for the one-man- show at the Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls SD There are 12 spheres in that show which hangs in the stairwell of the atrium to the visual arts section. I also did a workshop on perspective and a lecture on the Termespheres
October 21st – February 15th There was an opening for my one-man-show of 28 Termespheres at the Octagon Art Center in Ames Iowa. I also did a workshop and lecture at the Octagon Art Center.
February 1st – March 1st 2006 I will be doing a show at the Cam-plex gallery in Gillette Wyoming. I will also be doing a lecture and workshops.
2006 a show and workshop at the Lamont Gallery at the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH
February 4th-10th I will be teaching a week long intensive workshop for DODDS students at Creative Connections in Germany
Shows Taking Place at this Time
This has been a very interesting time for shows of Termespheres. I have two major shows going at the Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls and the Octagon Art Center in Ames Iowa. Another three spheres are in a show at the Hearst Art Gallery at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, California. My Termesphere Gallery in the Black Hills still has a lot to look at. I always have a sphere at the Bay Leaf Café in Spearfish, usually the newest piece. I have a sphere in an Art and Math show put together by Claude Bruter that has been traveling all around France.
Publications
David Salomon is writing a book on Art and Math which will have a lot of information on my six point perspective spherical paintings. He has produced many books in the past and is a retired professor from the Computer Science Department of California State University Northridge California. I am looking forward to seeing this book in print.
Al Seckel is working on an enlarged edition of MASTERS OF DECEPTION which was published last year. I am adding more spheres to this new book.
Dr. Annalisa Crannell from Franklin and Marshall College and Dr. Marc Frantz from Indiana University received a National Science Foundation Grant to do a book on VIEWPOINTS: MATHEMATICAL PERSPECTIVE AND FRACTAL GEOMETRY IN ART by Princetion University Press which I am to be a part of.
The Rapid City Chamber of Commerce is putting together a table top book on what to see in the Black Hills which I am pleased to be part of as well.
Christmas is Coming Again
WE ARE HAVING AN OPEN HOUSE on December 10th from 9:00am to 4:00pm and on the 11th from 12 to 4pm.
Like last year we will have “a 5% off” special for all people coming to the Gallery or buying at my online store.
To receive your Special Once-A-Year-December-10th-11th-Only online discount:
- Go to online store
- Add the products you want to purchase to your shopping cart
- When you are ready to check-out, look for the ‘voucher’ box towards the bottom of the shopping cart page
- Type the word Cheers! into the voucher box
- Click the recalculate button and like magic, your discount will appear
If you have any problems email webmaster@termespheres.com.
If you are looking for unique gifts, be sure to mark December 10th-11th on your calendar.
$30 and up Original Spheres – Captured World Polyhedron Prints –
Silk Screened 8″ Termespheres – Hemismirrors – Perspective Book –
Masters of Deception Book – T-shirts – Magz Sets – Puppets – Markie’s Videos and DVDs of Dragons Are Too Seldom Puppet Shows and Termespheres – Pop-Up Total Photos
Thank you for reading to the end
I hope some of my thoughts will get some comments back from you, positive or negative and, new ideas. I love the way some of my math friends are making suggestions of concepts for me to consider. If you would like to be taken off this newsletter list please let me know. As always, thank you for your tremendous support and encouragement. I would love to hear what you think.
Feel free to call at 888-642-4805 or email me termes@blackhills.com