This framed mosaic piece is entitled 'The Message' and is composed of heat modified, multi-colored CD and DVD fragments.  Click on the image for a larger view.  This is essential for understanding the subtle code that is contained in the pattern of this work.  This code is based on variations of Mayan codex glyphs and a strange inscription similar to Irish ogham script that was recently found by the Mars Rover, Curiousity, on the lower slopes of Aeolis Mons in Gale crater.  Yeah, right.  Actually there is no hidden code in the arrangement of the tiles; it is just random placement of sizes and colors.  But that inscription on Mars is absolutely the truth.

Here is a new, tiny artwork that is titled "Yeah!" It is only 4" x 6" x 1" deep and utilizes the recycled CD/DVD materials as well as the recycled Christmas decorations from the Target store. Simple composition, but less is more you know.

This small 6" x 8" mosaic is another wrapped edge/self-framed piece only 1/2" deep. It is titled "Jewelscape" and utilizes the recycled, torch-modified CD/DVD material.

This piece is called "Thank You!" It is a basic mosaic composition using both the recycled CD/DVD and store decoration materials mentioned in a prior post. It is hung in the Co Art Gallery in the Santa Fe Art District in Denver.

This is a relatively large piece that one of my neighbors commissioned me to do. It is 12" x 24" x 1" deep. It is a self-framed mosaic composition similar to a smaller piece I did some time back, but with different colors and slightly different configurations. It is all torch-modified CD/DVD material. I entitled it "Crystal Kachina", as the compostion of the image is intended to be an abstraction of the Hopi Kachina entities, with a FLL Wright twist.

This piece is called "Code II". It is an 8" x 8" x 1" deep, self-framed wall mosaic art piece using the torched CD/DVD material. It is self-framed in that the CD/DVD pieces wrap back over the wood sub-frame so that no mat or other visible frame is needed. This piece is available for $75 plus any shipping cost.

This piece is entitled "Wow, Man!" and utilizes both the jewel-like CD/DVD material and some new recycled material I haven't used before. The red and orange diffraction-type materials were cut from discarded

Christmas decorations that were hung in a Target store. While normally tossed in the dumpster when the holidays are over, I asked the lady in charge of decorations if she would save that portion for me. She did and I'm glad because I think this material has great color, is very eye-catching and great to work with. The orange is the result of lightly caressing the basic red material with a small torch flame.

I actually did this piece as a gift for her to thank her for going to the extra trouble of saving this great material for me.

This small artwork is entitled "Splitsville". It is tiny at 4" x 4" but is very eye-catching and sparkly. The materials are torch-modified CD and DVD pieces.

This new piece is titled "Fault" and is currently in the CoArt Gallery in Denver's Santa Fe Art District. It is composed entirely of recycled metals and the torch-modified CD/DVD material I invented. Please forgive the poor photography; it looks very nice in person.

Metals used include old bullet casings and various can metals, all flattened and buffed or torched and embossed or simply left the way they were.

This new piece is entitled "Cadence" and is composed entirely of pieces of the torch-modified CD and DVD material. Poor photography does not give the true portrayal of how this piece looks in real life. It is currently in the CoArt Gallery in Denver's Santa Fe Art District.

This new piece is titled "Off Kilter". It uses all recycled materials, such as brass from old bullet casings, can metals of multiple types, foils from various sources and, of course, my unique CD and DVD gems. One new material incorporated is portions of the typical old style CD jewel cases. I was given about a thousand of these and didn't want to throw them away. So I began cutting parts out of them such as the nice micro-ribbed black edges and the flat black textured plastic behind where the CDs lie. These were used in this piece.

Please forgive the poor photography. This was snapped in the gallery because I had to get it up quickly and the lighting was not right for proper exposure.

This small piece is done with the modified recycled CD/DVD material that I inovated and is somewhat inspired by the stained glass works of Frank Lloyd Wright. However, the primary compositional nature of the piece simply the ongoing generation of eye-pleasing juxtapositions using the 45 degree triangle and rectangular shapes to serendipitously create a jumble that looks good. I have used many different colors in this piece, which equates to many different brands or types of CD or DVD, each having its own inherent color based upon my modification process. This process produces gem-like qualities in the CD or DVD pieces, thus the title: Crystal Vortex. This piece measures 5" x 7.5" and is matted in a silver toned 11" x 14" frame. It is for sale and I am asking $180 USD for it.

Another tiny piece using recycled metals of many differing types combined with the jewels of modified CD material. This is entitled 'Rainbow Machine'.

This piece is a little old but I wanted to post it because, while it uses some of the jewel-like CD/DVD material, it is unique in that it also uses a new experimental material I devised, namely crushed and polished aluminum foil colored with alchohol inks (I like being a mad art scientist, always pushing the envelope with strange and unheard of materials). Click on the image to look at the close-up to see how richly detailed this material is. I plan to do some further work with this inventive use of a common material. The title of this piece is 'Shaman'.

This piece is called 'The Vein' and was meant to be an abstraction of a mineral vein of gold ore intruding through the strata of other rock. It is about 6" x 8" in size.

This little 3" x 3" piece is entitled 'Swirl' and is a mosic in the recycled and modified CD/DVD material. Very jewel-like and glittery.

This metal and CD/DVD piece is entitled 'Tresure' and has a wide variety of metal types: Old bullet casings in brass, copper and steel; aluminum can materials modified in various ways (torching, polishing, embossing); aluminum pie plate; gold foil from chocolate wrappers; foil from the tops of wine bottles, etc. Look close, the details in the metals and 'gems' is cool.

Another in the new series of tiny artworks. This one is entitled 'Twist' and has a slightly more interesting composition that the former piece.

A new series of artworks mixing various recycled metals and the gem-like CD and DVD materials is underway with this tiny piece entitled 'Metal Matrix'. It is only 2.5" x 3" and is very simple in composition. However, the materials are very rich in micro-detail and visually interesting.

This new art work is entitled "Candyapple Metalflake Electric Rainbow Kachina". The basic design borrows elements from the imagery of the Hopi and Navaho kachina figures as well as some of the characteristics of Frank Lloyd Wright stained glass designs.

It uses recycled CD/DVD materials and has over 200 individual elements/pieces in the mosaic. Unfortunately, the photo doesn't catch the spectral flashes and scintallant quality of materials. Though there are patches of rainbow colored bars in the composition, there are also many rainbow flashes from the diffraction of the materials themselves. No doubt, whatever mysterious beings or entities reside in realm of Kachinas, they will bless this new piece with success.

This piece is one panel from a triptich being created for a commission for a permanent display in the City of Thornton Civil Center building. It is entitled 'The Map' and will be mounted horizontally, taking up one whole wall panel above the main Lobby.

This matted mosaic piece is composed of many different colors and 3 different types of recycled disks. The silver pieces are just standard old CDs like you get from AOL or software or what have you. The various deep colors and black are Memorex CD-Rs. The light green ones are regular CD-Rs. The bright plum colored rectangles are DVD-Rs. All have been modified by torching them to just the proper degree, cut to shape and glued to the substrate.

The title of this piece is "Harlequin", referencing the multiple bright colors used in the piece, similar to the clown suit worn by the harlequin characters of Italian operas. It is 18" x 24" and is currently hanging in my dining room.

This eye-catching artwork is entitled Crystal Chaos for obvious reasons. I wanted to depict regularity collapsing into a chaotic jumble. However, it turned out that the chaos dominated to the point that the perimeter matrix of regularity is hard to discern. The chaos took over.

Still, the flashes of color and play of light in this piece are wonderful as you walk past it. Especially in a sunlit room.

This is a new piece that is already matted and framed. The art is 9" x 12" in an 18" x 22" silvery-gold wood frame. This piece is for sale, so if you are interested, please leave a comment with your contact info and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

First come, first served.

Here is a fun little assembly called Robo-Kachina.

Far in the future when only the Native Americans of the southwest have survived the impacts of the asteroid rain of 2012 and are adapting the technologies of the outside world to their traditional ways of life, their ceremonies are now populated by the dreaded Kachinas of old in a new and different guise - robotic monsters, clicking and whistling about the square, chasing the dancers and the children back into their pueblos.

Not very likely.....but it's the best b***s*** I could cook up on the spur of the moment.

CDs/DVDs/sparkle paper. Visions of strange days to come?

This mosaic piece, entitled Udjat Eye, is mainly torch-modified CD and DVD materials trimmed with gold foil from....yes, chocolate wrappers. Though it sounds silly, certain gold foils used for chocolates can be made to mimic gold leaf in a marvelously acurate way. Similarly, the CD/DVD material mimics jewels.

This piece takes its pattern from an actual ancient bracelet found in the tomb of Pharoah Sheshonk II and represents the Eye of the falcon God Horus. It had many magical meanings to the Egyptians, and I doubt if that ancient craftsman had any idea that his beautiful work would wind up being wrought in such a modern way over here in Colorado, a place he knew nothing about. But if there is a life after death and he can look down at this art, I hope he is pleased at my attempt to copy his art. The effort was due to my admiration of the original, probably in the Cairo Museum.

This piece, however, is in a collection in Thornton, Colorado.

This small piece uses CD and DVD pieces of many different colors, mimicing a patchwork quilt. It is in a collection in Thornton, CO.

This piece, 'Jewel Pavement', is the favorite of everyone who's seen it in person. I entered it and several other pieces in the Colorado State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition for emerging artists and it was purchased by a gentleman from Florida. I was excited to have sold another piece, but I kind of hate to see this one go as I really liked it. I'll have to do more in the same genre'.

This CD/DVD-R piece is called 'Razz-Ma-Tazz' and is the companion piece for 'Jazz' shown in a previous post. Wish you could see this piece in person in direct sunlight - it bursts into jewel-like colors that would make a Pharaoh envious.

A new piece using the torch-modified colored CDs and a little more percentage of torched DVD-Rs. It uses red, purple and just a touch of the yellow CD material and juxtapozes these with the irridescesence of the torched DVD-Rs. The purple CD material picks up and highlights the lavendars of the DVD-R material. The best part of the piece though is the crystalline depth of color in the DVD-R's. It is very appealing in a setting where the light falling upon it is from a side angle, but is really spectacular when viewed in direct sunlight. This piece is entitled "Jazz" and is now in a collection in Toronto, Canada.

Here is a new work using colored CDs and DVD-Rs. It uses red, purple and yellow CDs (torched of course) and mixes those primary colors with the irridescesence of the torched DVD-Rs. It is striking in its presence in a way the photo does not capture.

This piece was done to enter in a gallery show whose theme was the color red. It is entitled "Brothels of Oz".

This is a mosaic of jewels plundered from various ancient tombs of kings and queens. After long years of gathering the emeralds, aquamarines, saphires and other stones as yet unnamed in the west, I have set them in a pattern for your viewing pleasure.

Sure.

No doubt you have guessed that I lied about these being precious stones. They are in reality just old CDs modified with the heat of a butane torch and cut into shapes. But they did come from ancient tombs.

OK, I lied again. I actually just gathered various types of discarded CDs to use for this artwork. The different brands and types exhibit different colors when you torch them, but most of them become beautiful.

If anyone reading this has any old CDs please let me know. I particularly want the CD-R type that have the colored optical plastic. Also, any of those DVD-Rs that didn't burn correctly -- don't throw them in the trash where they are just another landfill problem -- give them to me and I will ply them with flame, turning them into a thing of beauty, if not quite ancient jewels.

Opalescent fire and spectral color are well exhibited in this recycled CD artwork. This photo represents the appearance of the piece in one type of lighting. In another light or reflectance setting, this piece will look entirely different. Also, depending upon the viewing angle the colors and character changes constantly. In direct sunlight the spectral colors are the best, but it is a snowy, overcast day here in Colorado and I don't have any direct sunlight for a photograph.

This piece is part of a collection in Greeley, Colorado.

Today's Harv Art is a metal framed field of recycled materials that mimics precious stones and metals. The scan doesn't quite capture the wonderful play of light on the DVD/CD materials, it is still beautiful.

The purple/red fields are torched DVD-R; the deep reds are cut from a colored CD; the silver-black strips are cut from regular CD while the goldy-silver strips are the back side of CD-Rs; all have been torch-modified. The border is cut from a torched aluminum can and carefully folded into a channel shape so as to finish off the edges. All are super-glued to a backer board for rigidity. The size is very small - about 2" x 3".

I find it to be tedious but enjoyable work. It is satifying to some part of my twisted and contorted soul to create beauty from discarded and plain materials.

This is DVD & CD material torched and cut and applied to a board in random mosaic pattern, enhanced with pastel rubs and framed in an aluminum can metal frame with bullet casing brass corner trim.

I've taken many photos of this piece but have yet to catch the absolutely incredible irridescence that results from the sunlight playing off of this material. This scan that I did with a Canon scanner however is better than I can do with my camera. I will try to find someone with a better digital camera and see if they can capture the reality of this material's beauty when is direct sunlight.

For now, lose yourself in the jewel-like beauty of this common material altered just a bit to become something entirely different and pretty.

This art experiment uses repousse' technique on can metal, replicating Mayan glyphs in a wholly new context. It is somewhat time consuming to do as the technique involves impressing the individual fields into the soft aluminum metal to a gradually increasing depth.

After doing this and some other pieces involving Mayan glyphs, all I can say it that those folks must have been doing some heavy duty drugs to come up with a system of writing that involves such convoluted images!

The pastel image for today typifies one of my favorite techniques for quick art that satifies the eye. The technique uses masques and powdered pastel chalks rubbed against the masques to form the hard edges while the pastels are feathered out like airbrush.

This particular image was created some years ago and the first original was sold to a dentist in Arizona. I liked the image so much that I replicated it again. Strangely enough, the wife of a dentist now wants to buy this replication. I guess there is something about this image that is attractive to those in the dental field. I suppose that this is because the inspiration for this image is derived from the oral cavity and dentition of the striped wombat.

Actually I just made that last part up. The pattern is one that I cooked up on the spot just because it appealed to my sense of composition.

Right now I am churning out more of these to take to all the dental offices around town cause apparently dental folks just can't resist this image.

Just kidding.

This image of the famous Lakota chief Red Cloud is something I did some years ago when I had more time on my hands (and I must have been crazy at the time as well, since this piece is done entirely with dots of ink from a Rapidograph pen). I utilized an unfused copier image of a photograph for 'Red' which was then erased once the ink had been applied. I added the custom border to give it a frame and balance and then checked myself into the asylum....because I knew I must be mad to do all those dots (estimated to be in the range of 16 million by the Bureau of Standards)!

I only did one of these and will never do another.

I know what you must be thinking - Harvey's gone mad!

Though you may be at least partially correct, today's art is an experiment in doing mosaic with the torched CD material. It turned out well and is very pretty - especially in certain lighting. In sunlight it is very spectacular, throwing flashes of every color in the spectrum, while in fluorescent lighting it throws predominantly blue-green flashes. Overall, it looks like jewels of various kinds. I used three different varieties of CD on this piece, as well as two small accent triangles of brass bullet casing material.

It is all glued onto a dark blue background board. It took me a long time to do this as the pieces are pretty small and the overall piece is only about 4" x 6". Be sure to click on the photo to bring up the larger version (and to get an even better closeup, wait for the little expander box to come up in the lower right corner as you leave the cursor on the photo).

Next time I've got to work with larger pieces.

This is a pastel image is of my wife when she was a little girl. Ain't she just as cute as a bug's ear?

This piece is wrought with some colored pencil over a photostatic transfer from an old photo and enhanced with colored pastels. Pardon the perspective but it was necessary to avoid the glare on the glass of the framed piece.

Pastel 'rubs' form some background for the image, which is on pastel paper. The rub technique is simply some powdered pastel chalk rubbed into the paper with a tissue or a cotton pad. The use of straight-edge masks helps add interest to the cloud-like gradients of the 'rubs'.

Beware! Today's Harv-art may drive your eyes back into your skull a considerable distance, rebounding off your brain and popping them out of their sockets before dangling onto your cheeks in helpless awe!

OK, maybe not.

But you can't help but like this mosaic of pretty, glittering, irridescent shapes.

This little rectangle is composed of a random pattern of modified CD material. A random pattern of mosaic like this was called Opus Palladianum by the ancient Romans. It is basically just various shaped polygons fitted together to form a whole composition.

The CD's have been 'mistreated' with a torch to create the interesting visual effects. As they are turned at various angles in the light they refract the colors in ways that mimic opals or gems. Like many of the pieces shown in this blog, this piece is much better in person than in the photo shown here.

So, this piece weaves together the ancient techniques with ultra modern materials to create an 'eye-shattering' image of beauty.

More in the aluminum can metal vein. This piece is just shapes of various textures of mistreated can metal cut precisely together to form a random pattern that resembles the patterns seen when meteorite iron is etched with acid. That iron is mixed with nickel and exhibits a very unique pattern when etched. This piece mimics that.

The spectral color pattern in some of the aluminum pieces is more readily discernable in this photo than in most, but it still does not adequately show the amount of irridescence that exists in this work.

This is in a private collection in Denver. OK, so I gave it to my daughter Shelly for her birthday.

Todays excursion into the dark and twisted realm of Harv-art is kind of an experiment in lots of different textures achievable with old recycled can metal. Using a standard module, I simply did horrible things to these poor little metal objects. Some were torched, others were pounded with hammer on the anvil, some were pounded and then torched, some were scarred with muriatic acid, some were scoured with steel wool, some were pounded onto a wood rasp. Grouping them in a grid pattern, I gleefully display their suffering, pocked surfaces.

Seriously, because the aluminum is so nice and soft and at the same time pretty thin, it is fairly easy to coax visually interesting textures from them. Though not visible in this photo for some unknown reason, I have also used pastel to provide rays of rubbed texture radiating out of the gaps between the panels.

Do not mourn for these aluminum bits, though they have endured all manner of rough treatment, they are still accorded a place of honor upon my mantel shelf.

This piece of art is an amalgum of metals and stone. The flat limestone panel in the center is articulated with pastels and filed areas of flat fields. It also has a small fossil exposed in the top center. I've surrounded it with metals of various types - copper treated with torch, brass from old bullet casings, sheet brass from shim stock (nice soft alloy that is easy to work), can aluminum, etc.

This is an older piece of mixed media artwork that incorporates a flat limestone slab. The slab is articulated with drilled holes (thus the name: Holey Man) and some lines sawn into the surface. I've glued some pin heads into some of the holes as brads/buttons or some such. They provide a shiny counterpoint to the roughness of the stone. The slab has been recessed into the surface of foamcore and copper wires have been extended from some of the holes out onto the pastel paper surface. Also, a beaten copper 'head' shape was added as a focal point on top. The surface of the pastel paper has been patterned by mask-edged pastel rubs in various colors to complete the piece.

I like this stone that I got from around Pueblo Resevoir as it is soft enough to drill and cut with a saw but hard enough to retain its edges and corners. I picked up a bunch of it from there but have never had time to use much of it. I hope to eventually make a lot more of these kinds of pieces to sell on Ebay, the street, door-to-door, on the side of the street at stop lights, etc. I could hold up a sign reading: "For God's sake people - Buy this art!!!"

Well, maybe not.

This piece uses entirely recycled materials like most of my artwork, but it is a little better at transforming common materials into something valuable looking and pretty.

The background material is the gold foil off of a chocolate bar, altered with a torch (the silver circular areas are what the gold foil does when subjected to heat). It is then adhered to a backing of foam core board (rescued from the trash also) and given a subtle arc pattern by smoothing with the edge of a triangle. Then it is further articulated with embossing grooves into the foil in an abstract pattern. This, in turn, is then augmented by jewel-like shapes of torch-altered CD (that particular type of CD transforms to look like gem quality aquamarine!) set recessed into the surface of the foam board. Finally, some brass straight pin heads are placed in a pattern within the composition to add more interest.

It’s shiny and golden and looks like it is set with jewels – it resembles something from an ancient tomb but it is made with stuff that people throw away every day. For some reason I get a big charge out of making this happen.

And now for something completely different. This is a small experimental piece utilizing a wide variety of different materials. The pretty opalescent material is of my own invention – a unique form of a very common material.

I discovered that if a compact disc is subjected to a torch or other flame on the label side the iridescent foil deforms in ways that make the CD look like an opal. Depending on what kind of CD is used, the look and color is different. CD-Rs are very nice when treated in this manner. DVD-Rs are absolutely spectacular when torched – they look like the best fire opals.

In this little experiment I combined some torched CD panels with some flame-modified, iridescent aluminum fragments, some hammer-flattened copper pot cleaner (the net-like stuff), some brass mesh (similarly flattened and burnished) with a little pastel articulation here and there. All this is glued onto a backing of cream-colored illustration board.

This is the third piece in the metallic Art/Mathematics triptych. It is another composition of Phi-based 'golden triangles', but in this case, the triangles are arranged in a spiral pattern with somewhat diagonal symetry and ascending sizes. If you look closely you can see how the triangles interlock and create the spiral. This is counterpointed with some intersecting golden triangles at mid-height. All are articulated by alternating the colors and types of metals.

The photo of this piece shows a little more of the torch-induced spectral colors in the aluminum can metal than the photos of the other pieces. In reality, there is much more of color but the photo just doesn't capture it well.

This piece is a companion to the one shown in yesterday's post. It is composed of the same materials but a different geometry. Both pieces (as well as tomorrow's piece) were created to reflect a synthesis of art with mathematics. The basic feature in this work is the 'golden triangle', another polygon based upon the Phi ratio. This time, the height of the triangle compared to the length of its base is the Phi value of .618033. Multiple sizes of the same shape superimposed strategically within one another establishes horizontal lines that are then articulated by alternating the different colors of metal. Flame generated spectral color is present in the bronzy aluminum pieces but unfortunately cannot be discerned very well in the photo.

Like an unreasoning bird attracted to shiny objects, or a fish that goes after a gleaming lure, I just love to work in lustrous metals and other glittery/glistening materials. It connects somehow with the core of my primitive brain, initiating certain electro-chemical impulses that my upper level cognitive faculties find pleasurable.

Translation: the Harv entity really likes pretty, shiny things!

Here's one of the pieces that were in a recent show at Space Gallery in Denver. It's an image based upon how the fabled 'golden rectangle' is constructed, with multiple golden rectangles superimposed to add visual interest.

The golden rectangle is special because its sides are in the proportion of 'Phi' to each other. This proportion, symbolized by the Greek letter Phi (φ) is an irrational number similar to the more well known Pi. The Phi ratio (approximated by 1.6180339 to 1) is special because it is not only a mathematical and geometric ideal possessing some unique and remarkable properties within the realm of numbers but it recurs throughout the physical structures in nature and is found in virtually all living creatures on earth. The human body has many components (including aspects of the DNA molecule) that exhibit the Phi proportion. The ratio of the lengths of the bones in the palm of your hand to the lengths of the first joints of your fingers is the Phi ratio. This is true of each succeeding joint of the fingers to the next adjacent ones as well. It's all very cool and almost spooky.

This piece is all composed of recycled metals glued to a backing - soft drink can aluminum, brass from old bullet casings, lead foil from the necks of wine bottles and even foil from the lids they give you at Chipotle for your 'burrito bowl to go' (this is nice aluminum to work with because it is of wonderful softness, cuts easily and takes on a nice luster when polished). I brought out spectral colors in the can aluminum with careful application of a propane torch and also used muriatic acid on some of it to bring out a different color/texture - all to add variety and visual interest. The pieces are much better when viewed in person because the digital image doesn't convey the spectral colors very well.

This is your first taste of Harv-art. It's a piece that I did with homage to the famous Archaeopteryx fossil in the Berlin Museum. The skeleton is done with recycled aluminum from wire and other sources, pounded flat on an anvil to give a texture and then polished with steel wool to give it a sheen. I cut all the little shapes of the bones and glued them to the backing with superglue. The 'bones' are laid out on pastel imprints of the feathers and other body outlines from the fossil image. Further articulation of pastels mimics the surrounding stone matrix. The base for all of this is a pastel paper afixed to a foamboard backing. Michaelangelo could not have done a more excellent synthesis of sculpture and pastel painting, don't you agree?

Well, maybe that is overstating things a tad, but I am proud of this piece and have never seen anything quite like it. I plan to do a larger version someday using copper instead of aluminum. This piece is currently in a private collection in Chicago.

OK,..... so I gave it to my son Aaron who lives in Chicago now. It's still 'in a private collection in Chicago'!