Cleveland Public Library “See Also” Public Art Initiative – QUADRATALUX Art Wall

I was commissioned by the Cleveland Public Library in partnership with Land Studio to create a 10 x 30 foot art wall for the South Brooklyn neighborhood branch as part of CPL’s SEE ALSO public art initiative. My work QUADRATALUX will be up for one year.

About the Art:
An outgrowth from my architecture, the tenants I learned about making buildings; structure, composition and the grid, to name some, are relevant to making art as well and they are my guiding principles. In QUADRATALUX, I use geometry and color in an optically energetic composition to instill a feeling of kinetic motion and energy representing a joyous visual song and little piece of me that has been freed from pain.

About See Also:
See Also is a library term for “Look Here”. The series brings innovative and thought-provoking temporary works of art each summer to the Eastman Reading Garden at Cleveland Public Library’s main branch and murals to neighborhood library branches throughout the city.

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– Photo © Bob Perkoski, www.Perkoski.com
– Photo © Bob Perkoski, www.Perkoski.com

ESCAPE HASH – Concept for a Monument to the HASH Sign – A Symbol of Empowerment In The Age of Social Media


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I’ve been working in 3d design, reconnecting with my architecture and I designed this concept for a Hash Symbol monument. Designing this has been a healing experience for me. I’ve been in great pain. I had a serious episode of a slipped pelvis (a complication that happens to me periodically) and was laid up in bed for many days. I used this time to think about art and what I would do next when I could get up and sit again. Having designed a 3d printed sculpture of a hash symbol, with elements making it accessible for the visually impaired for an upcoming exhibition W/O Limits at the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve, I began to formulate in my mind this concept for a Hash symbol monument. As I was confined mostly to bed for a week, the details came into focus and when I was able to get back to the computer, I had everything I needed to get to work and create it in 3d with two 3d programs; MOI for the 3d modeling and BLENDER for the rendering. I would take the master cuboid Rhombohedron shape and blow it up to monumental scale. Within the volume of a rhombohedron, hash symbols intertwine on the front, back, sides and top. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuboid

I see it as a symbol of empowerment in our modern world of social media. It’s surrounded by 4 reflecting pools. They’re not really pools as they are only 2″ deep and would have spray fountains in them to be a cooling area to play in on super hot days; a kind of oasis in the time of climate change. The monument is elevated 18″ so that the pools are elevated. The edges at the perimeter have an infinity edge and the water would gently flow down into a channel and be pumped back, cycling the water. Gently sloping paths on axis with the openings of the hash symbols on four sides lead to a plaza where the monument rests. The plaza paving at the edge of the water is tactile for the visually impaired. The material is textured polished stainless steel. Its polished reflectivity would reflect the water and as the sun makes its arc during the day, it will continually transform as the light changes. A characteristic of the shape of the hash symbol is that it has two horizontal bars intersecting two slanted vertical bars. So that each of the sides and the top of the monument has slanted vertical bars, it is tilted 7 degrees in two directions which forms a rhombohedron.

Installation of QUADRANS CIRCULI at The Cray Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Sears Think[Box] at Case Western Reserve University

I’m honored that my artwork Quadrans Circuli I has found a home at the Cray Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Sears Think[Box] at Case Western Reserve University. On Floor 6, the Cloud L. Cray Jr. & Sally Hunter Cray Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship houses resources for turning an invention into a market-ready product: the Tech Transfer Office, Intellectual Property Venture Clinic, Burton D. Morgan Suite for Entrepreneurship and CWRU LaunchNET for business planning and mentorship.

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QUADRANS CIRCULI I at The Cray Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
at Think[Box] at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland OH
QUADRANS CIRCULI I
archival aqueous pigment print on cotton rag, 44″h x 74″w, edition of 3

Video: Baumwoll Archives Presents -The Art & Healing World of Andrew Reach

My Husband Bruce Baumwoll created this wonderful video featuring my art and the many places it has gone to. My art is always about healing as making each work assists my mind and body with my challenges of coping with pain and mobility and this video expresses that beautifully. With access to all of my images, he curated a range of my work in different periods. The images go by fast; quick impressions building on each other. The speed and music captures the energy he sees in my art. In a way, it’s a love letter to me in video form. We’ve been together over 38 years now and I could not have created this work without his love and devotion.

Here’s what Bruce wrote about the video:

I hope you enjoy this extraordinary experience of the art of Andrew Reach, who happens to be my husband for almost 39 years now. No matter how many times while editing it, I have watched his images, it continually takes me away from self into a world of color, shape and wonder. For those of you who are just seeing the work of Andrew Reach for the first time, he was an architect and because of a rare debilitating spine disease, became disabled and reinvented himself as an artist.

I want to share the following quote by Andrew’s late uncle James Grossman. It was written for us as a comment on Amazon when Andrew had a 2012 Calendar “Circles”.

“The very existence of this art required the intersection of time, circumstance and events beyond normal understanding. Add the needed advances in personal technology, previous education, an overwhelming medical disability, the determination of one young man to fight and create, and the love of another determined to help, that is the story of these works. And with all that, the art still overwhelms the story. Full disclosure requires stating that Andrew and Bruce are my Nephews, and that I love them.”

I invite you to see Bruce’s other videos on youtube and his blog on an eclectic range of his interests.

Click here to go to his youtube channel

Click here to go to his blog Baumwoll Archives