source: sherisimons

The wooden torus is slowly rolled by a 16′ long steel arm that is attached to and powered by a motor anchored 10′ up the wall. As the motor turns at .4 rpm’s, it gradually builds up torque at the points where the axle’s spokes meet the wooden torus. When the spokes torque to their limit the twist is translated to the torus and it takes off with a lurch, rolling quickly across the floor. The piece travels in a 180 degree arc, switching directions when a limit switch is triggered.

Sound: The wood creaks at all times. Strain gauges are hooked up to the radial wooden elements. These read the level of deformation of the wood and translate it into a voltage amount that is sent to a circuit in the hub (see “detail” slide). The circuit uses this information to generate electronic sounds that I’ve designed. The sounds vary depending on the state of tension or compression of the wood pieces that are hooked into the strain gauges. We essentially “hear” the electronic equivalent of the tension and compression experienced by the wood. Because the outer circumference of the structure is covered in graphite, a smudge is left on the floor that traces the arc of the sculpture’s movement.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: sherisimons

Born in Detroit, Michigan thirteen years before the Great Uprising, I was raised on the other side of the 8 Mile border and employed in the inner city after earning a BFA at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

My MFA was earned at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in 1985. Other schools attended for extended training in art include San Miguel de Allende in Guanajuato, Mexico and Banff School of Fine Arts. I’ve recently taken courses on using electronic tools such as Arduino, Max/MSP and sensors.

I am interested in sculpture as an instrument, broadly defined as something that aids in or causes an action or a reaction. Working in wood, sound, and movement for the last eleven years has led to solo and group exhibitions at museums and galleries in the U.S., Canada and South America. Among these are the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Southern Exposure Gallery, Gallery 16 and Catharine Clark Gallery (San Francisco), The Detroit Institute of Arts, Textile Art Centre in Chicago, Florida State University in Tallahassee (show traveled to 5 cities in Colombia, South America), Anchorage Museum of History and Art, San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum, University of Alaska Museum, Alaska State Museum, and Objects Gallery in Chicago.

In 2006 I received a 6-month fellowship from the Japan-US Friendship Commission that allowed for travel and research into the use of portable shrines (o-mikoshi) and festivals throughout Japan. This was a pivotal experience that aided in thinking and building processes as applied to the performative and participatory potential of sculpture. Seeing matsuri’s (festival’s) spectacular use of the gigantic and miniature objects to transmit culture reaffirmed and stretched my use of the embedded languages within materials.

I’ve received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The California Arts Council and The Michigan Council for the Arts. Public arts commissions in California, Ohio, and Washington have provided the opportunity to think large, incorporate pedestrians in art, and experiment with varied media. The commissions I built for three libraries, a juvenile court, and an administration building for the water board are similar to my studio work in their awareness of performance and staging.

In addition to maintaining a studio practice, I am now a professor in the sculpture area of the Department of Art and Art History at California State University, Chico. Prior to this, I taught a variety of courses in mixed media at California College of Art, San Francisco State University, University of California, Davis and the University of Hawaii, Manoa.