Daily Diary, East Village Interactive Drawing Mural, snow day #3

Tossing and turning from a restless night the sun rising slipping in through my curtains. Light slightly altered from a stained glass piece sitting on my windowsill. My indoor studio time yesturday was more task oriented than I'd planned. Working on the mural even through blizzards and chilling temperatures, my "Studio Fresca" as I've named it has been a blessing in so many ways, allowing for experimentation with how my installation pieces react, respond, grow, evolve, effect and interact with the surroundings and spontaneous audiences. As a public work set outdoors, I've become fascinated with how all of this ties together in a cyclical kind of relationship. How art influences or affects simply by it's presence. I play a kind of call and response game of challenge. Making marks, drawing in one form or another, leaving it and coming back to see what kind of reply has been made. The work like it's surroundings is in constant flux. Using reflective metal hard drives creates the ability for the work to see itself and track movements, weather, light, time all are changed and recorded in a temporary way. This is akin to the idea that we could be the reflected images of the universe allowing it the ability to see itself through a different perspective.

The day and night are completely different worlds. The piece is ominous, salacious almost sinister and aquatic at night. Voices become more haunting, light and shadows move as ghosts, traffic blares yelling, honking horns flashing lights and sirens a chaotic storm of sound and light. While day is more calm as shadows slowly fade in and out, more as air currents occasionally kicking up a squall at sea. It's more mischievous, playful in a salacious catch me if you can? Are humans not exactly this way? Human nature- Natures nature- natural nature..? A twisted tale I'm trying to excavate, locate and decipher.  Pouring and splashing blue paint on the snow created a layer of drawing and color to be excavated after it dried. I pulled up a piece with the underlying snow to examine. Science and Art have always good friends as Di Vinci had stated. A relationship  with similarities. Both inquisitive, methods, theories, pondering what if? 

Daily Diary, Interactive drawing mural, East Village, NY

Snow day #2 in New York City. As the city gets back to it's rhythm the snow still falls tho more manageable than the night before. Winter sun is so different. An eery yellow...  surreal brightness to it. There is a strange dark disturbing glow that has always attracted me. The gates were closed in the park tho not locked. The layer of drawing in the snow from yesturday had been completely covered by new snowfall. The idea of vanishing layers tugged at me like a child wanting attention. This morning after coffee I'd decided that I'd take the spray paint but also a little can of cobalt blue to the park. The second layer would be made with the spray paint with the addition of throwing some blue paint into the snow similarly to the original work I'd used for the initial ideas. Splashes of blue in oil were now splashes in the snow. Thicker in consistency, they rest on the top layers of the snow. Thick enough one could if they were inclined, simply pick it up from underneath.

These vanishing layers, black and blue would leave no print for the human eye. They swing into the surroundings C'est la vie ! Tomorrow is only a promise.

"Wild is the Air", 2015 (c) Dianne Bowen, snow day #2, second layer of drawing in the snow

"Wild is the Air", 2015 (c) Dianne Bowen, snow day #2, second layer of drawing in the snow

"Wild is the Air", 2015 (c) Dianne Bowen, snow day #2, second layer of drawing in the snow

"Wild is the Air", 2015 (c) Dianne Bowen, snow day #2, second layer of drawing in the snow

Snow day; drawing in the snow East Village Mural daily diary

"Wild is the Air", 2015 (c) Dianne Bowen, detail of spray paint drawing on snow

Yesturday a blizzard hit New York City. Perfect timing I thought to go do some work on the mural. The park was silent, pristine and empty. Usually a loud siren somewhere but not today, just me, the storm and the drawing. Perfecto !

I paced a bit to and fro thinking about the next move. That morning I'd come up with a loose plan. Using black spray paint I'd follow the lines from the work out into the snow and see what happens? My "what if?" moment. Playing with the wind I'd allowed it to have it's two cents. Holding the spray can close to the ground for clear lines and farther to allow the wind to dissipate the paint mist.

My intention in thought; the paint a mist sprayed onto the snow would vanish to the human eye as the weather changed just enough to change snow to water. "Changing states" it would be released from the snow and allowed to gather or flow into or away from it's current origin or perhaps simply seep deeper still into it's current location? A line which appears, disappears, simply changes states like glass; never really still..

"Wild is the Air", 2015 (c) Dianne Bowen, detail of spray paint drawing on snow

"Wild is the Air", 2015 (c) Dianne Bowen, detail of spray paint drawing on snow

"Wild is the Air", 2015 (c) Dianne Bowen, detail of spray paint drawing on snow

"Wild is the Air", 2015 (c) Dianne Bowen, detail of spray paint drawing on snow

Daily Diary East Village Mural, January 15, 2015

A new year begins ! The mural is beginning to shed it's vines as the winter weather takes hold. The reflection from the metal hard drives adds beautiful playful movements in light across the surface dipping into areas of sky and ground.  Three of them came down with the vines which lay a pile of blue, black, white and yellow on the ground.

The light and shadows of January have changed position and intensity. Now rising from the bottom left of the work. The wrought iron fence in the foreground slowing climbs the piece as the sun rises and descends as it sets. Ominous feeling I took a picture of my shadow with it.
Shadows from the far foreground now begin to create a third layer of interaction. The trees beyond the fence are now visible as they cast their shape across the more minimal left side.

I've edited several video clips which show the diversity of the work during the changing light, seasons and weather conditions. A theatre noir at night and subtle quietness of the shadows appearing and disappearing over the course of day.

Dianne Bowen, documenting interactions of light and shadow, December, 2014