Please click on the links below to see these images full-screen:
http://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Stone-Circle/1855
http://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Holy-Cove/1915
http://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Wide-Bridge/2239
http://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Winter-Labyrinth/2594
http://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Fall-Labyrinth/2779
http://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Spring-Labyrinth/2874
http://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Intelligent-Design/3021
http://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Natural-Selection/3097
https://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Eternal-Return/3463
http://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Stone-Circle/1855
http://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Holy-Cove/1915
http://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Wide-Bridge/2239
http://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Winter-Labyrinth/2594
http://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Fall-Labyrinth/2779
http://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Spring-Labyrinth/2874
http://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Intelligent-Design/3021
http://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Natural-Selection/3097
https://www.artplode.com/artwork/F-T-Kettering/Eternal-Return/3463
How do these artworks connect with “the wisdom of Olympus”?
A biographical link: For me, learning about ancient Greek religion involved images as well as texts. I first became fascinated with the gods through myth and poetry. Only later, thanks to their vivid representations in painting and sculpture, did I begin to feel their emotive power.
A formal link: My work would never be mistaken for the visual creations of ancient Greece. Yet these remain my inspiration for their formal clarity, adaptations to surrounding shapes, limited color palette, simplicity of line, multiple sorts of balance, figure-ground relationships…
A symbolic link: References to the ancient Aegean, its gods, and its symbols appear frequently in my work. No surprise, as the furniture of my mind sits on a Mycenaean rug over a Minoan floor.
A content link: What we observe, what we discover, the art we make--inevitably all are shaped by our particular way of understanding the world. In my case, I can't look at a landscape without seeing Artemis, and can't fashion a response without seeing Apollo.
A spiritual link: Honoring the gods and goddesses of Olympus is a metaphor for honoring our humanity. Historian of religion M. Eliade praised the Greeks for learning "to exploit the wealth of the lived instant." This is just what my diptychs attempt to do.
A biographical link: For me, learning about ancient Greek religion involved images as well as texts. I first became fascinated with the gods through myth and poetry. Only later, thanks to their vivid representations in painting and sculpture, did I begin to feel their emotive power.
A formal link: My work would never be mistaken for the visual creations of ancient Greece. Yet these remain my inspiration for their formal clarity, adaptations to surrounding shapes, limited color palette, simplicity of line, multiple sorts of balance, figure-ground relationships…
A symbolic link: References to the ancient Aegean, its gods, and its symbols appear frequently in my work. No surprise, as the furniture of my mind sits on a Mycenaean rug over a Minoan floor.
A content link: What we observe, what we discover, the art we make--inevitably all are shaped by our particular way of understanding the world. In my case, I can't look at a landscape without seeing Artemis, and can't fashion a response without seeing Apollo.
A spiritual link: Honoring the gods and goddesses of Olympus is a metaphor for honoring our humanity. Historian of religion M. Eliade praised the Greeks for learning "to exploit the wealth of the lived instant." This is just what my diptychs attempt to do.
How are they made?
I call my paired images antikons. They are meant to be seen together, with each left panel looking outward, observing a landscape; each right panel looking inward, responding to that landscape. The word antiphon is Greek for "answering voice"; antikon suggests "answering image."
Looking Out
Imagine standing in a field--or on a beach, or on a bridge--holding a camera. You look up, down, and all around, while turning in place. Next imagine a transparent globe around your head, or better, a transparent icosahedron: five triangular windows face the sky; five face the ground; and ten alternate, above or below the horizon, as you turn. Now take twenty photos in rapid succession, one through each window, meaning five shots up, five down, ten all around.
Already you have made both practical and aesthetic choices: where to stand, how to avoid shooting into the sun, where to aim the first shot (which affects all the others), and how strictly to follow your icosahedron template.
Many more choices, selections, alterations occur in the studio. The camera's twenty rectangles must be cut to twenty triangles. Those, when laid out flat and recombined, should fit together well enough to evoke the original scene. The resulting image will be a recognizable map of your moment in the field--not so much "raw data" as constructed data, like most of human experience.
Looking In
How did you respond to what you saw when you saw it? How do you respond now, to the image you created? Do you have a reaction to each triangle or to the twenty together? Is it a matter of color? Of line? Of form? Of content? In my experience, the process of "looking in" is freer, less rule-bound than "looking out," but much more complex. You are beyond selecting, recording, and arranging objects of sight. Now you are dealing with objects of memory, some already visual, others waiting to be made visual. The first step, and the only rule, is simple: You begin by flipping the left panel horizontally, because the right panel is meant to mirror it. What will the mirror show?
Looking Again
Now the antikon takes off--for as the right panel develops, the left panel develops along with it. The two are in dialog, each image reflecting changes, additions, subtractions in the other. Your "landscape," already a construction, is constructed a bit more: a single triangle may be darkened; another triangle may change in scale. Similarly your "response," never set in stone, evolves further as the landscape evolves. Eventually, when the two halves appear to work well individually and also as a pair, your creative effort is over.
And Again
Still your antikon is only half completed. It requires an artful viewer.
To contact F. T. Kettering, please email: ftkettering@gmail.com
I call my paired images antikons. They are meant to be seen together, with each left panel looking outward, observing a landscape; each right panel looking inward, responding to that landscape. The word antiphon is Greek for "answering voice"; antikon suggests "answering image."
Looking Out
Imagine standing in a field--or on a beach, or on a bridge--holding a camera. You look up, down, and all around, while turning in place. Next imagine a transparent globe around your head, or better, a transparent icosahedron: five triangular windows face the sky; five face the ground; and ten alternate, above or below the horizon, as you turn. Now take twenty photos in rapid succession, one through each window, meaning five shots up, five down, ten all around.
Already you have made both practical and aesthetic choices: where to stand, how to avoid shooting into the sun, where to aim the first shot (which affects all the others), and how strictly to follow your icosahedron template.
Many more choices, selections, alterations occur in the studio. The camera's twenty rectangles must be cut to twenty triangles. Those, when laid out flat and recombined, should fit together well enough to evoke the original scene. The resulting image will be a recognizable map of your moment in the field--not so much "raw data" as constructed data, like most of human experience.
Looking In
How did you respond to what you saw when you saw it? How do you respond now, to the image you created? Do you have a reaction to each triangle or to the twenty together? Is it a matter of color? Of line? Of form? Of content? In my experience, the process of "looking in" is freer, less rule-bound than "looking out," but much more complex. You are beyond selecting, recording, and arranging objects of sight. Now you are dealing with objects of memory, some already visual, others waiting to be made visual. The first step, and the only rule, is simple: You begin by flipping the left panel horizontally, because the right panel is meant to mirror it. What will the mirror show?
Looking Again
Now the antikon takes off--for as the right panel develops, the left panel develops along with it. The two are in dialog, each image reflecting changes, additions, subtractions in the other. Your "landscape," already a construction, is constructed a bit more: a single triangle may be darkened; another triangle may change in scale. Similarly your "response," never set in stone, evolves further as the landscape evolves. Eventually, when the two halves appear to work well individually and also as a pair, your creative effort is over.
And Again
Still your antikon is only half completed. It requires an artful viewer.
To contact F. T. Kettering, please email: ftkettering@gmail.com