Patrick Thompson's Sculpture

Today we installed the sculpture by Patrick Thomson, local artist,in our garden. The piece was included in the 2012 Art Walk Central exhibit and could be seen at the Veterans Memorial Library in Mt. Pleasant.

Click image to enlarge...

Final mural

Panel 8

ATTRACTOR:

A complex systems is hard to understand unless we build a model of it that helps us see what is happening. For example, if we put a magnet on a table with a piece of paper over it, we can see the magnet’s force field by carefully sprinkling iron filings on the paper. The filings follow the lines of force. The magnet is an attractor. When you are in High School, you will perform this experiment. The attractor shown in our panel is much more complex. It is a four dimensional field of energy.

The blue lines moving in every direction flow into and out of the attractor, which mixes them and sends them in new directions, over and over. The attractor may change over time. Imagine your brain as an attractor. Your senses bring information to your brain. You process it, save some of it, or send it to someone else. This is how you learn about the world and how to deal with it.

Click image to enlarge...

Mural 7 of 8

Panel 7

SILENT FREEDOM:

This picture is like a dream. Dreams often tell stories that make us happy. I hope this one does. What strange things appear. We are high in the sky (see the airplane far below us?). The bird is a long tailed Bird of Paradise which has flown out of a cage with an open door. If you look steadily at the cage something special happens: the bottom of the cage moves toward us and the dome moves away. This is called an “optical illusion.” The cat looks on steadily, musing about where the bird will go. Perhaps the answer is in one of the books she sits on. Look, one of the books has a ribbon. That may be a clue. The statue of an old philosopher has grown a stone beard. The other statue of a rhinoceros doesn’t know what to make of his being here. The candy cane floats lazily toward us. What time is it? We can’t tell, because the sand in the hour glass is flowing up-side-down. There is nothing in this dream that threatens us. We are safe.

Click image to enlarge...

The 6th Mural

Panel 6

FLOWER CHILDREN:

Humans began over two million years ago. We are all related as a single species, just as flowers of a specific plant are related. As people spread over the earth, minor changes occurred when groups stayed in a climate for a long time. Dark skin protected people near the equator from the sun. Those in cold climates did better with lighter skin to absorb some heat from the paler sunlight.

Now these people wear clothes appropriate to the weather and can go anywhere. In the panel, the young African American in the upper left lives in Detroit. Next to him is a young native American child from the South West. In the lower right is an Asian girl whose picture was in the newspaper. Next to her is a young girl from Mount Pleasant.

Click the image to enlarge...

The 5th mural of 8

Panel 5

NUMERALS:

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 are “numerals” or counting numbers. There are ten because that’s how many fingers we have. Since 9 is the largest, we gave it half the panel. Since 8 is the next largest, we gave it half of what was left. We kept doing this until we got to zero, near the middle of the panel. The space for each numeral has objects in them. Starting with zero find the objects. Note that each duckling except one is taking a walk. Find the duckling just about to start a walk.

Colors of light include black (the absence of all colors), white (the presence of all colors), grey (a mix of black and white), and the visible spectrum (thousands of different colors). If we shine white light through a special piece of glass, the spectrum appears. Some of the colors are red, red orange, orange, yellow, green, blue green, purple and violet. These are all used in the panel. Can you find them?

4th Mural

Panel 4

HEY!:    

Hey! Diddle Diddle                     
The cat played the fiddle                        
The cow jumped over the moon              
The little dog laughed to see such sport                
And the dish ran away with the spoon

Hidden in the picture are a paint brush, two key holes, and two keys. Can you find them? Behind the cow and moon is the Milky Way, the galaxy we live in. If this were a photograph, which stars would we NOT be able to see? Which direction would the sun be?

If you ask the cat, he might play your favorite song. What would that be? Where do you suppose the dish and the spoon are going? If you had the dog, what you name him?


Click the image to enlarge

Mural 3 for Women's Aid

Panel 3

HUMPTY:  

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall                                 

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall              

All the King’s horses  

And all the King’s men                         

Couldn’t put Humpty together again

Our Humpty is a lot happier than the one in the rhyme. Here the word “fall” means “autumn,” a season of the year. Name some things in the picture that relate to autumn. How about winter? What is your favorite season? Name a holiday that occurs in the fall and another in winter. How many leaves are blowing from the tree?

Do you like to ski or ride on a sled or skate in the winter?

More murals to come...
Click image to enlarge.