#Jay Hambidge

[sunlilys]

jay hambidge. choosing her doll, date unknown.

[0xcachecow]

Square from my geometric renders. The series was inspired by Mondrian, Wright(stained glass pieces), and some writings by Jay Hambidge.

[nyonyia]

At the Tomb of Omar Khayyam - Jay Hambidge

[aic-american]

My Mother, George Wesley Bellows, 1921, Art Institute of Chicago: American Art

“There she would sit, as in a throne,” a niece once recalled of George Bellows’s mother, Anna. In this painting, which evokes the Parisian interiors of such French artists as Édouard Manet, Bellows depicted his mother in a large chair in the Victorian parlor of their family home in Columbus, Ohio. This forthright presentation of a distinguished, elderly woman with a strong character, coupled with the subdued palette, also recalls the portraiture of Thomas Eakins, whom Bellows greatly admired. The painting’s power derives in part from its highly structured composition. Influenced by the artist Jay Hambidge’s theory of dynamic symmetry, Bellows constructed the portrait in an organized, geometric arrangement of proportionate rectangles and triangles. Frank Russell Wadsworth Memorial Size: 210.8 × 124.5 cm (83 × 49 in.) Medium: Oil on canvas

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/9320/

[universalblossom]

Repetition in Contemporary Art

‘These artists use repetition to depict and evoke nature’s processes, with such actions as duplication, folding, and mirroring’

‘Repetition this can generally suggest biological patterns, while replication, another kind of repetition, can share in this organic association or can imply the opposite, namely industrial standardization’.

Levy, Ellen K. “Repetition and the Scientific Model in Art.” Art Journal, vol. 55, no. 1, 1996, pp. 79–84. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/777813. Accessed 22 Feb. 2021.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/777813?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

____________________________________________________________

‘Symmetries, spirals, tessellations, fractals, waves, foams, meanders, stripes, and other natural patterns have been finding their way into artistic endeavours since our ancestors first started shaping stones and marking cave walls.’

‘For example, it is well established that within many contexts, humans exhibit a strong preference for symmetrical over asymmetrical or random shape (Jacobsen & H€ofel, 2002; Reber, Schwarz, & Winkielman, 2004)’

‘Fractals, another form of self-similarity, are also prevalent throughout nature.  They can be found in the forms of trees, clouds, and coastlines. Through exposure to nature’s fractal scenery, our visual systems have adapted to process fractals efficiently—so much so that the specific processing fluency of this pattern has been dubbed fractal fluency. (Taylor, R. P., & Spehar, 2016).’

‘Two specific cases that continue to find support among contemporary creatives are the Golden Ratio/Spiral and Dynamic Symmetry. In both cases, proponents claim that elements can be extracted from a mathematical translation of a natural pattern while retaining the aesthetic impact of the original pattern’

Jay Hambidge put forward his idea of Dynamic Symmetry in the 1920s in which he claimed that patterns found among growing plants and human figures formed “the basic principles underlying the greatest art so far produced in the world.” However, author William Blake stated in his 1921 Criticism of Dynamic Symmetry, “The claim that Dynamic Symmetry in any way expresses the essentials of plant and animal forms is without rational foundation…The attempt to base differences of artistic quality on the distinction between rational and irrational quantities, whether of length or area, is bound to fail — the eye is powerless to make the distinction.” In other words, Mr. Hambidge’s unsubstantiated claims aside, we cannot experience an aesthetic response to something that we cannot perceive.

Waichulis, A., 2020. A Few Thoughts on Natural Patterns. [online] Anthonywaichulis.com. Available at: <https://anthonywaichulis.com/a-few-thoughts-on-natural-patterns/#:~:text=Symmetries%2C%20spirals%2C%20tessellations%2C%20fractals,stones%20and%20marking%20cave%20walls.> [Accessed 22 February 2021].

[kc026]

Title: Tony Smith

Author: Lucy R. Lippard

Born on September 23, 1912, Tony Smith came to be in South Orange, New Jersey. At a young age he was introduced to Jay Hambidge’s books on a concept called Dynamic Symmetry. This concept diverges from static symmetry found in flora, but concentrates on the laws of phyllotaxis. Meaning, the constant angles and spirals of shells and plants. As seen in most of his work, Smith works with a geometrical sense of sculpture. The essence of his work is found in large magnitudes, block-like scaffolding and as the book states, “ a certain awkwardness”. 

[dmasonwest]

Daybreak (1922). Maxfield Parrish. Oil on board, 67.3 cm × 114 cm (26.5 in × 45 in). Private collection. The film trilogy of the Lord of the Rings borrowed Maxfield Parish's imagery for art design of Rivendell, the home of the Elves. Wikipedia: The painting employs a formal layout similar to a stage set, with two feminine figures. Painted using preparatory photographs, the models were his regular models, Kitty Owen (granddaughter of William Jennings Bryan), Parrish's daughter Jean, and Susan Lewin. Only two figures appear in the completed painting, though pencil studies indicate that the artist originally intended a third near the righthand column. The composition is arranged on the principle of "dynamic symmetry" popularized by Jay Hambidge. The painting has always been in private ownership. On May 25, 2006, Daybreak was purchased by a private collector (Mel Gibson's then-wife, Robyn) at auction at Christie's for US $7.6 million. This set a record price for a Parrish painting. It was sold again on May 21, 2010 for US $5.2 million. #daybreak #maxfieldparrish #lotr #rivendell https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz72MXfl3WL/?igshid=1mbn64hxpxp8s

[secretgeometry]

I’m fascinated by proportion, and by the idea that the geometry of the support should influence what happens within it. That said, there has long been a cottage industry of researchers attempting to find special significance embedded within the compositions of various masters. The Matila Ghyka book, along with Jay Hambidge’s Elements of Dynamic Symmetry, helped put forward notions of mystical numbers in art and nature and apparently influenced many artists in the 20th Century. Charles Bouleau’s book contains wonderful diagrams, but I grow skeptical of his arguments as he applies his ideas to certain periods, such as the Baroque. He tends to use complex paintings as examples, where it is easier to find (or create) geometric correspondences. As much as I love the series of decompositions of the Durer self-portrait, at bottom, I don’t buy the website author’s somewhat opaque arguments at all.

“Harmonic Decompositions of the Root 2 Rectangle.” Matila Ghyka, The Geometry of Art and Life (1946).

From The Painter’s Secret Geometry by Charles Bouleau (1963): David, The Death of Marat.

From The Painter’s Secret Geometry: Niccolo dell’Abbate, The Conversion of Saint Paul.

Albrecht Dürer’s Self-Portrait at 28 Years 1500 (Oil on panel, 26.5 x 19.25 inches, Alte Pinakothek de Munich), as analyzed by artist Yvo Jacquier on his website. This seems to me like a rather extreme, somewhat eccentric attempt to find geometric and numerical significance within a symmetrical composition, where such apparent correspondences would be easy to find. He is also working with a slightly cropped image.

[spudart]

Barrie Antiques Centre, Barrie Ontario by antefixus21 https://flic.kr/p/ZYbFyd R. & O. N. Co. Toronto Montreal Line - Rapids King by artist Henry Hinder (1870-1952). It was one of the ferry boats on the line from Toronto to Montreal before the St. Lawrence Seaway was completed. oldbrockvillephotographs.wordpress.com/2008/09/ Hinder, Henry Francis (Frank) (1906–1992) by Eileen Chanin This article was published online in 2016 This is a shared entry with Margel Ina Hinder Henry Francis Critchley Hinder (1906–1992), artist and teacher, and Margel Ina Hinder (1906–1995), sculptor and teacher, were husband and wife. Frank was born on 26 June 1906 at Summer Hill, Sydney, fourth child of New South Wales-born parents Henry Vincent Critchley Hinder, medical practitioner, and his wife Enid Marguerite, née Pockley. He was educated at Newington College and Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore), and took art classes from Dattilo Rubbo, first at Newington and then at the school of the Royal Art Society of New South Wales in 1924. Rubbo’s injunction to draw rather than copy left a lasting impression. In 1925 he toured Europe with the Young Australia League. Returning to Sydney, having decided to become a commercial artist, he enrolled at East Sydney Technical College, where he worked under Rayner Hoff. In September 1927 Hinder went to the United States of America seeking to improve his graphic skills. Over the next seven years he supported himself designing for advertising agencies and book and magazine publishers while studying and later teaching. He attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to New York, where teachers at the New York School of Fine and Applied Art invigorated him. Howard Giles and Emil Bisttram advocated Jay Hambidge’s system of pictorial composition, dynamic symmetry, from which Hinder developed a theoretical approach that focused on geometric ways of organising and relating the parts of a work. Attending Bisttram’s summer school at Moriah, Lake Champlain, New York State, Hinder met Margel Ina Harris, a fellow student. She was born on 4 January 1906 at Brooklyn, New York, second child of Wilson Parke Harris, journalist, and his wife Helen, née Haist. The family had moved to Buffalo in 1909. Margel’s talent for sculpture was recognised early. As a small child she modelled rather than drew, and at the age of five she attended children’s classes at the Albright Art Gallery. She received a progressive education at Buffalo Seminary. Studies followed in 1925 at the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, under Florence Bach. Moving to Boston in 1926, she spent three years at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, learning traditional modelling in clay and plaster from Charles Grafly and Frederick Allen. She preferred carving. On 17 May 1930 at the registry office, Wellesly, Massachusetts, she married Frank. From 1931 to 1934 Frank taught design and drawing at the Child-Walker School of Fine Art, Boston, where Margel attended his classes and those of Giles. In 1933 he held his first solo show, at Boston. With the Depression biting, the Hinders moved to Sydney in August 1934, where they promoted modern art. For the next five years, they scratched a living as commercial artists. Margel experimented with carving Australian timbers. Interested in the contemporary movement and influenced by Eleonore Lange, they befriended like-minded artists, including Rah Fizelle, Grace Crowley, Ralph Balson, and Gerald Lewers and his wife Margo. In May 1937 Frank held his first exhibition in Australia, at the Grosvenor Galleries. Margel was naturalised in 1939. That year, with Lange, Frank organised Exhibition 1 at David Jones Art Gallery. Margel exhibited her carving and Frank exhibited the painting Dog Gymkhana (1939), perhaps his best-known work. His attempts to draw unity from complex modern-life subjects involving movement were received negatively by critics such as Howard Ashton. During 1939 Frank also helped Peter Bellew to establish the Sydney branch of the Contemporary Art Society (president, 1956). Both Hinders contributed to Australia’s effort in World War II. As a lieutenant (1941–43) in the Citizen Military Forces and a member (1942–44) of William Dakin’s directorate of camouflage in the Department of Home Security, Frank researched and developed methods of disguising and concealing equipment and structures. Margel made wooden models for use in this work. Frank received a war invention award for his ‘Hinder Spider,’ an improved frame for draping a camouflage net over a gun. With the war over, Frank returned to commercial art, and began teaching at the National Art School in 1946; he would continue until 1958. Margel lectured at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) (1948–50), taught sculpture at the National Art School (1949–50), and ran sculpture classes in her home studio (1950–51). In 1949 the couple had moved into a purpose-designed Sydney Ancher house at Gordon. That year the AGNSW bought Margel’s Garden Sculpture (1945); it was her first work acquired by an Australian public gallery. It prefigured her increasing preoccupation with movement, and her ambition to progress from the classicism of a solid shape with a central axis. The spontaneity she sought was difficult to achieve in wood or stone, and in 1953 she began working with metal. Taking her inspiration mostly from nature, such as birds in flight, she made delicate constructions of thin wire and transparent perspex. Asymmetry, and the necessity to move around sculpture to comprehend its form, became central to her approach, and led to the revolving constructions she began in 1954. The Hinders’ work was increasingly recognised during the 1950s. Frank controversially won the second Blake prize for religious art in 1952, although traditionalists derided his painting Flight into Egypt. He was awarded Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation medal in 1953, and won the Perth prize for contemporary art (watercolour) in 1954. His paintings were included in the exhibition Twelve Australian Artists, presented in Britain by the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1953 and 1954. In 1953 Margel was placed among the first twelve sculptors in more than three thousand entries for the international Unknown Political Prisoner competition. She was awarded the Madach (1955) and Clint (1957) prizes by the Contemporary Art Society, Sydney. Frank’s interest in theatrical design blossomed when, between 1957 and 1965, he created seventeen sets and eleven costume designs, with assistance from Margel. His design for the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust’s The Shifting Heart (1957) won the Irene Mitchell award for set design. In 1963 he helped found the Australian Stage Designers’ Association (president, 1964). His work was exhibited at the 1962 Festival of Performing Arts: Theatre Design, Athens, and the 1967 Prague Quadrennial of Theatre Design and Architecture. He was appointed to the board of studies, National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1958. Aware of what he had gained from his teachers in New York, Frank became an advocate for art education. From 1958 to 1964 he was head of the art department at Sydney Teachers’ College, and, in 1968, he resumed teaching at the National Art School. Artistic recognition also continued. His work was exhibited at the 1957 Synthesis of Plastic Arts, Association Internationale des Arts Plastiques, Paris; in Fifteen Contemporary Australian Painters, New Vision Centre Gallery, London, 1960; and at the VI Bienal de Sao Paolo, Brazil, 1961. In 1962 the War Memorial Gallery of Fine Arts, University of Sydney, staged a survey of forty of his works from 1925 to 1961. Meanwhile, Margel had become one of the few women artists in Australia involved in large public commissions. She won the Blake prize for religious sculpture in 1961. The same year, her work was included in the Second International Sculpture Exhibition, Paris. She insisted her large public sculptures should be related to their setting, and reached a wide audience through many commissions that became part of Australia’s environment. Her desire to express movement would ultimately lead her to work with water. After winning a design competition, she was assisted by Frank to construct the fountain for Civic Park, Newcastle; it was completed in 1966. This water sculpture, later renamed Captain James Cook Memorial Fountain, is acknowledged as her masterpiece. While Margel articulated movement with sculptural space in the round, Frank searched for objective order using light. Lengthy experimentation with colour organisation in his own painting, beside stage lighting, design, and rear projection, led him in 1967 to make luminal kinetics, sculpture in which coloured lights and designs interact upon each other. In 1973 the Newcastle City Art Gallery held a retrospective exhibition of the Hinders’ work, their first joint exhibition and the first time that a body of Margel’s work was exhibited. For their services to art, both were appointed AM in 1979. Another joint retrospective exhibition was held at the AGNSW in 1980. Economy of form, spatial mastery, and imaginative innovation were hallmarks of their work. Their dedication to the visual arts was showcased in 1983 in the exhibition Frank and Margel Hinder—A Selected Survey, at the Bathurst Regional Art Gallery. Opposite personalities, the Hinders complemented each other. They were frequently inspired by similar thoughts and attitudes, yet displayed great individuality in their work. As a friend observed, ‘Frank is the cliff, and Margel is the ocean’ (McGrath 1980, 12). Frank was tall, good-humoured, and self-deprecating, with a honeyed voice and avuncular manner. Margel was short, direct, and ardent, a perfectionist with a keen intellect who could be outspoken but also warm. His sharp sense of the comic and the absurd was a foil to her intensity and passion. He died on 31 December 1992 at Killara, and was cremated. Survived by their daughter, she died on 29 May 1995 at Roseville; she was cremated. For more than fifty years, they had formed an artistic partnership, influencing each other in the exchange of ideas and exploration of media, and in focus and style. Research edited by Karen Fox Select Bibliography Art Gallery of New South Wales Research Library and Archive. MS1995.1, Papers of Frank Hinder Art Gallery of New South Wales Research Library and Archive. MS1995.2, Papers of Margel Hinder Cornford, Ian. The Sculpture of Margel Hinder. Willoughby, NSW: Phillip Mathews Book Publishers, 2013 Free, Renee. Frank and Margel Hinder 1930-1980. Sydney: Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1980 Free, Renee and John Henshaw, with Frank Hinder. The Art of Frank Hinder. Willoughby, NSW: Phillip Mathews Book Publishers, 2011 McGrath, Sandra. ‘Marriage of Minds—50 Years On.’ Australian, 21-22 June 1980, 12 National Archives of Australia. B884, N279580 State Library of New South Wales. Frank Hinder Aggregated Collection of Papers, Pictorial Material and Cassette Tapes, ca.1745-1992 State Library of New South Wales. MLMSS 6088, Margel Hinder—Papers, ca.1900-1995

[plasmamagazine]

Professional Clowning is Serious Business

Colony Square, in the heart of Midtown’s business district, is going through some changes. The insides are soon to be demolished and renovated starting this summer. This has allowed for a unique opportunity. Through a partnership with the Hambidge Center, an artist’s residency program located in North Georgia, local artists have been allowed to transform the empty storefront spaces into large immersive art installations.

The Hambidge Center was started in 1934 by Mary Hambidge, a former vaudeville performer, who decided to create a space where she could house her new passion for weaving after her partner Jay Hambidge died in 1924. In time she started hiring local women to weave and went on to have pieces in the Smithsonian as well as MOMA. Her passion didn’t pertain to only weaving but to all other types of art, and as the Center grew so did the various types of artists.  The Hambidge Center is now one of the top artist residency centers, but as most things in the art world they are funded by donations and their yearly auction which took place at Colony Square this year.

My experience with the Hambidge Collective Hive project came first hand. I was apart of the team that built the large installations designed by Jason Hackenwerth. We blew up nearly 30,000 balloons for these enormous amoebae looking sculptures that are now hanging just out of arm’s reach of the patrons of Colony Square.

Hackenwerth has been sculpting balloons for over two decades. He did his undergraduate at Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri and his graduate program at SCAD. Since graduating in 2003 he has had his unique brand of sculptures and balloon costumes, he calls ‘wearable mega mites’ appear in galleries and exhibits all over the world, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York and  Summerflugl, Technopark, Zurich, Switzerland.

   Working with Jason Hackenwert was a glimpse into his creative process where design, planning and reality all come together. Hackenwerth’s vision is precise but after working with latex balloons for more than two decades, he has come to know their limitations as well as what to expect from his team. While blowing up and tying balloons seems like every five year old’s dream job, it can be quite grueling on your hands. We had to apply protective medical tape every morning before work to keep from peeling the skin off our fingers. It’s serious business being a professional clown.

   The construction lasted from Friday, April 21st through Friday, April 28th. A full week of nine hour work days slowly blowing up countless balloons with aching fingers. The first two days were definitely the worst, but after that you just lose feeling except the occasional palm cramp. I never knew there could be such an art and technique to tying balloons off. Jason allows ‘softies’ for the first two days but after that he cracks down. He’s always willing to show you his technique for any of the procedures but when you start to hear a series of successive balloon pops you know it’s a bad sign.

Brian Morfitt, Jason’s long time assistant and friend, are a unique collaborative team. They are kindred spirits and have obviously spent many long hours in balloon pits hashing out the inner workings of these latex sculptures. The way they work together is almost mechanical. There is a symbiosis in their work. However, Brian’s reaction to popping balloons is one of thin sarcasm and slight humor. He always blames the closest person when it could have been almost anyone’s fault, even his own. Brian’s flamboyant sense of humor was a nice balance to Hackenwerth’s intense work.

Jason’s intensity was mostly seen through his work ethic when he would put in his headphones and belt out his favorite dance tunes and wildly dance around while folding balloons one over the other. The only time, and it was warranted, we saw Hackenwerth have an outburst was when Chris McGrath got the rope that was soon to be holding one of the giant balloon sculptures wrapped around one of the giant industrial fans. Luckily McGrath luckily was able to stop the fan and reverse the rotation before it got too out of hand.

After about four days when you’ve exhausted all the conceivable conversations you can have things get strange. The interdimensional portal starts to blur and everyone gets quiet then delusional. Our access to a large set of speakers helped get us over the hump of the monotonous workload. Once we had the structures hanging and started putting the outside embellishments on the ‘nests’ the beauty of them was finally coming into full fruition.

The team had done almost all the embellishments on the last day when, Hackenwerth decided to go mad balloon scientist wanting us to add as many clear balloons as humanly possible. All sharing in delusional laughter we kept adding balloons, till our eyes were bulging and our hands were throbbing. We then lowered the already decorated sculptures to replace popped balloons. You don’t end up in the Guggenheim and galas across the world by doing  a half ass job.  All in all it was absolutely worth the long hours and hand cramps.

Jason Hackenwerth’s pieces can be seen at Colony Square for the next two weeks and keep an eye out for the details on the forthcoming dance party where sculptures will act as the dance floor!

Written by Stephen Wilkins

[jaynehat]

Women’s Home Companion, December 1909

Illustration by Jay Hambidge, for “The Christmas Present Man” by Zona Gale.

[stavrosmartinos]

Jay Hambidge, 1920.

[aic-american]

My Mother, George Wesley Bellows, 1921, Art Institute of Chicago: American Art

“There she would sit, as in a throne,” a niece once recalled of George Bellows’s mother, Anna. In this painting, which evokes the Parisian interiors of such French artists as Édouard Manet, Bellows depicted his mother in a large chair in the Victorian parlor of their family home in Columbus, Ohio. This forthright presentation of a distinguished, elderly woman with a strong character, coupled with the subdued palette, also recalls the portraiture of Thomas Eakins, whom Bellows greatly admired. The painting’s power derives in part from its highly structured composition. Influenced by the artist Jay Hambidge’s theory of dynamic symmetry, Bellows constructed the portrait in an organized, geometric arrangement of proportionate rectangles and triangles. Frank Russell Wadsworth Memorial Size: 210.8 × 124.5 cm (83 × 49 in.) Medium: Oil on canvas

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/9320/

[latinvulgate]

Like Fondly Remembered Stars

Like Fondly Remembered Stars

Source Images

“At the Tomb of Omar Khayyam,” by Jay Hambidge

“The Pay Line,” by Jay Hambidge

“Dandelion Seeds, 3d generated, black background,” produced using the Fibonacci sequence and golden ratio experiments Link

“Mandelbrot set rendered using Python and OpenGL/GLSL,” Link

[vintagenewyork]

The insolence of New York

Jay Hambidge

1909