I have been involved in the arts all my life. I moved to the United States in 1952, taught for many years at the San Diego Community Colleges with credentials for all the arts and crafts. Simultaneously I worked on commissions, mostly sculptures, where I specialized in reliefs done in wood, bronze and stone.

Twelve years ago I was introduced to the computer, and as soon as I discovered the potential of the digital tool, I decided that I would not like to try and make a digital oil painting, a watercolor or even a wood cut. Nothing could substitute for the beauty of the real thing!

I started investigating the possibility of taking advantage of what the programs written by special programmers could give me. And starting from a gradient, a photograph, a doodle or even sometimes a fractal, and transforming them with the use of filters, I develop, most of the times, abstract compositions.

I like abstractions and non objective works. The reason is that I like the viewer to look at my work and feel, through his eyes, what a piece of music would make him feel by listening to it, through his ears. Too often, people looking at a painting, get side tracked by the subject and never get to the real beauty of the work.

I like to travel to discover new worlds, new habits, new ways of doing things, and knowing new peoples. In all my travels I take lots of pictures, and my inventory of places and details of architecture especially, are transformed into works of art.

I rely principally on two computers. One is my workhorse- a Dell Precision 690 Workstation and the other a Dell Precision 670 workstation that assists with network distributed rendering and older software versions. I use a LaCie 321 color corrected monitor for viewing and a Wacom Cintiq 18sx ‘tablet-screen’ for drawing. Large prints are on an Epson Stylus 9800 and an Epson stylus Pro 4000 for proofs and small prints. Scanning is done on an Epson 4780. Print Color correction is calibrated with a X-RiteColor dtp41 and the LaCie monitor uses its included calibration module.

I print on different substrates and make editions of 10 to 25 prints each, numbered and signed. Sometimes, when a work lends itself to a bigger size, I print it on canvas which can be stretched on bars and then it assumes the aspect of a painting.

I am extremely elated to have discovered the computer! It is clean and terribly stimulating.

I enjoy work. I think it is the greatest blessing we humans have been given. I try to make every minute count. I think it is a shame that we have to sleep so many hours and wish we had the possibility of canning the time so many people waste and use it for ourselves!

http://www.spiazzi.com

During my professional career in the computer graphics industry which began in the early 1980’s, I was in the television & broadcast production fields in National and Regional Sales and Marketing positions. I have taught and lectured extensively about computer graphics, and been the focus of industry publications.

Having received a concussion on the glass ceiling, I launched my own company, Online Design, in the early ‘90’s. With this endeavor I was able to combine my graphic arts talent and my extensive computer graphics experience. See photos of these transformations on my website at The Artist.

Happily and contentedly, I now create Fine Art Paintings on a full-time basis using my own extensive gardens for source material. Combining 30 years of painting experience with 25 years working in the Computer Graphics industry I create Botanical Mixed Media Paintings in both Digital and Traditional forms.

When I paint in oils I use a classical approach to process derived from the working methodology of the 17th Century Golden Age of Dutch floral painters. Rejecting their more traditional style of botanical imagery, I bring a fresh, new and modern use of color and scale to these centuries old glazing techniques.

My Digital Mixed Media Paintings combine digital image capture techniques with graphic design and Virtual Painting. This work is infused with my extensive traditional painting skills creating a seamless blending of digital imaging, graphic design, virtual painting and botanical accuracy.

I seek to make people conscious of the uniqueness of the objects and plants surrounding us in nature. I make tiny things larger than life. I want to stir people up to look around them with a different eye, to evoke a sense of awe and a respect for our world. I create for the pure joy of doing so.

You can visit my website site at: http://www.MaryAhernArtist.com

Read my garden blog at: http://www.MaryAhernArtist.com/wordpress

So let me talk to you a bit about myself and my art/photography.

I’ve been around photography a very long time (35 years) and digital imaging all my adult life. I received my first camera at 14 to put on the telescopes I loved. From there my photography gradually came down to earth and I started shooting many other subjects. I started working in the darkroom at 16. I also painted. At university I did a computer science undergraduate degree and got into computer graphics in 1978. From then on I had two strong imaging passions: photography and the digital image, along with my other big passion, teaching. Along the way I also picked up a post-graduate electrical engineering qualification. I have spent my whole adult life teaching at the university level. A 17-year stint as a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science and running a computer graphics research group has been followed by teaching digital imaging, photography and web design at various institutions, as well as running my own workshops and seminars.

My photography and image making went through the normal ups and downs and changes that are part of life. I got back into darkroom work after a 12-year lull with dedicated color and BW darkrooms at home. It was in this period that I started exhibiting both my photography and digital art, and also writing about photography. In those days I photographed the computer screen to get a negative or slide that I could then print conventionally. It is amazing how good a low resolution (by modern standards) image can look when reproduced in this way on a 16×20 inch cibachrome or 24×36 inch silver gelatin print.

My work has changed in character substantially over 35 years, but constant threads have been abstraction and experimental imaging, such as astrophotography, infrared, pinhole and photomicroscopy. I closed my darkrooms finally about 10 years ago and went all digital in my printing, getting my first large format printer and printing on watercolor paper. In this period too I started writing much more seriously, writing for all the major Australian photography and design magazines, as well as several US ones, plus editing some of them.

I now concentrate on photography that has two strands: highly manipulated multiple image constructions and the virtually unmanipulated single image. I am shooting a lot of digital infrared and loving it. I also make digital art with mathematically generated images. I publish my online magazine, The Digital ImageMaker, publish my blog Digital ImageMaker World and the new, developing site Experimental Digital Photography, conduct workshops and seminars. I also have a number of other writing projects underway, including blogging for HP on photography. I am currently doing a Master of Arts (Photography) by studio practice at RMIT University. My wife and I also run a business doing websites for other creative people, making use of the expertise we have generated in workign with content management systems for our sites. I have also returned to shooting a small amount of film, scanning this and printing digitally. I have also been experimenting with the old alternative processes using digital negatives.

My photography and digital art has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is in many private collections. I currently print my work on two HP large format printers, a 130NR and a Z3100, as well as several smaller Canon and Epson printers. I use a mix of fine art and photographic papers, depending on the image and end use, as well as canvas and films, and non-digital papers like Japanese and Nepalese Washi. I also use outsourced printing for special purposes. I am experimenting with a number of alternative processes for printing my work, including a return to some of the older photographic printing processes using digital negatives, digital printing on unusual substrates and working over the top of digital prints with traditional art materials.

Another strand of my non-photographic work is using digital audio as a generative medium for art. More on this soon.

The gallery of art and photography by Wayne J. Cosshall

Wayne’s own website of his art and photography can be found here