Peter Howells

For a long time I’ve had an interest in patterns in nature, and in the past year I’ve come to have a new understanding about fractal geometry, the Fibonacci sequence, spirals, branching, meandering, soap bubbles hand many other forms that make me see order in arrangements that had once seemed random and incomprehensible. I believe that a role for the artist is to see this order and represent it in a way that the viewer can see it as well, regardless of subject matter.

This pair of charcoal drawings are an application of fractal principles to branching patterns in a tree and meandering patterns in a river.

I think Prince was on to something–the Internet is not dead, but everything we think is cool about it will be dead sooner than we think. We are becoming so accustomed to rapid changes in what is available that we pick up and abandon trends faster than ever, making the life expectancy of new products and services shorter and shorter. YouTube has been popular about 5 years. Most people I know have been on Facebook three years or less and they are grumbling. Twitter was very 2009. This year? App stores and memes that may last a few months or weeks. Fat Booth or FarmVille or Sad Keanu anyone? For free or for a dollar or two you can download the latest cool thing, share it, like it and move on. There are so many trends that there’s not enough time to adopt a small percentage of them before they are replaced. The proliferation of mobile technologies is only hastening this effect (see Grindr and now FaceTime on the iPhone).

The Internet itself is not dying, but whatever someone says is cool about it probably is.

This work is from my recent series of mixed media works, ‘Rearranged World.’ Like other works in the series, ‘Boundaey’ is made from found objects, a type setting tray and small strips of maps curled and placed in the niches. I plan to show these works at Linksoul gallery in San Diego in September.

I’ll post more about the pieces and the show soon.

Yesterday I completed a two day motorcycle class. Unlike most people in the class, I’m not even sure if I want a bike and I figured that taking the class was a good way to find out.

The class was held in a wind swept, foggy parking lot at City College in San Francisco. There were about 30 students broken into three groups. The instructors were enthusiastic and we were all eager to get on the bikes.

The instruction was thorough and some of the exercises were fun, but most of the time was spent either standing, listening to instructions or waiting your turn, which would have been fine but many of the exercises were trickier than I supposed and I felt my anxiety level rise each time we completed an exercise that I hadn’t mastered.

The easiest and most fun exercise was running over 2 x 4s while going in an oval . Executing two tight u-turns in a row was the hardest and very nerve racking. On my second to last practice, the guy in front of me dumped his bike, which had me spooked.

At the end of the second day we were evaluated on three moderately complex maneuvers. The few was the tight u-turns, which I always took too slow and wide. For the test, I became bold and decided to ‘use the force’–doing it the way I was told to and resisting the impulse to go too slow and look whether or not I was within the lines. Nailed it.

The last maneuver was a fairly straightforward brake and turn scenario. I thought it went well but, as it turned out, it didn’t.

Waiting for scores was nerve-racking—I hadn’t felt that way since performing oboe recitals in high school. The instructor met with us one at a time. When it was my turn, the instructor first reviewed some formalities then it was time to talk about how I did. The first two exercises went well even though I had to do the second one twice because I was too slow. Then he listed all the points that were deducted on the third maneuver: I didn’t use boths brakes enough and I didn’t accelerate properly after slowing before the turn. If I had made one more mistake, I may have failed, but I didn’t. I passed.

I left class relieved but pre-occupied with my performance and its implications. Riding the motorcycle was fun but I won’t miss being judged on something I haven’t spent enough time trying to master.

Three Dollar Bill Cafe’s post-closing website came down yesterday. Threedollarbill.com is ready for its next incarnation.