enter the year of the golden sun or spore...

here to say happy new year is a 1961 gold ink drawing by harry bertoia, one of my heroes, who has been mentioned here several times. bertoia worked with the eames in cranbrook (and back here in LA), designed furniture, made incredibly underrated abstract monotypes, worked with sound sculpture, self-released a series LP records of his sound sculpture, created large scale sculpture for public spaces, etc.

over the years i have been lucky enough to buy a few cheaply priced monotypes (some of which i will try to post in the near future); but because the monotype was harry's preferred mode of drawing, actual traditional pen or pencil on paper drawings are rarely seen.

the drawing pictured above was created to accompany a letter describing a sculpture that harry was offering for sale to a collector. it shows a sculpture described in the letter as 7 feet tall with a four foot diameter orb on top and the entire structure resting on a marble base. the selling price in 1961, direct from the artist, was $1200... i suppose the price now would be at least ten times that.

in light of how much bertoia's works were inspired by nature, it seems fitting to post this spore or sun (or blue moon perhaps) as it sprouts up from the ground as a symbol of the new year risen...

the poetry of electro-tubes...

"drawing is a way of learning, a way of finding a truth.
a line commences somewhere, gathers momentum,
spends its energy and comes to an equilibrium
equivalent to a life-cycle.
it could also be said that it establishes its norm
out of balance and dimension.
i draw what i don't know in order to learn something about it.
electro-tubes are extensions as well as magnifications
of our senses.
neither our senses nor the tubes can be faked.
they wouldn't work.
the same physical laws that condition the existence of the tube
are at work in the drawing, if it is to be any good.
there is no place for non constituents.
each and every part is so integrated
that a change by removal or addition would be destructive.
objects can change their form without changing their dimension."

harry bertoia, arts and architecture magazine, 1944
images: two small bertoia monotypes, early 1940's