“The Distance Between Two Points”, Geometric Spectrum Series, No. 69

Geometry goes beyond just the mathematics of shapes, but delves into the mathematics of circumstance, time, and connection. Our lives are built on the architecture of non physical, but circumstantial math that begs the question “How did we get here, and how are we connected?” The end piece to the Geometric Spectrum series paints a portrait of metaphysical geometry, closing this chapter as a means to awaken the viewer to the possibilities of our connections.

I started this piece as an accident one afternoon off of St. Marks Place at the Yaffa Cafe in New York City. Having just finished “Susquehanna”, a piece on TransAmerican conversations becoming an integral part of art, I picked up a rolled up blank canvas, and promptly set a coffee cup to flatten out its shape. The coffee cup was wet with its dark brew, and created a stained ring at the top of Mickey’s face. With my head heavy from seeing the multitude of connections created from “Susquehanna”, my view of this coffee stain was more than an accident. This stain existed at this specific time and this location, and therefore would never exist again at this same time and location on this piece. This created a beginning point of geometry where people, time, circumstance, and location formed a shape unknown and unformed until its end creation.

At that time and place, I realized that metaphysical and emotional geometry was a shape I could not see, but I sought to create. I would not know when I was going to complete this, or how it would look, and there was no formula in my life to bring this together.

Here is where it led me, and this is where it was painted:

1. Yaffa Cafe, NYC, NY (Beginning, 8/25/2013 at 2:00PM)
2. L Train to Brooklyn, NY
3. Rented Apartment, Brooklyn, NY (Influence Point)
4. Flight 2913 NYC to Los Angeles
5. BRU Cafe, Los Angeles, CA
6. Edgemont // Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA
7. Flight 783 from Los Angeles to Chicago, IL
8. Flight 2024 Chicago, IL to Berlin, Germany (Influence Point)
9. East London Restaurant, Kreuzberg, Berlin
10. Mehringdamm Flat, Kreuzberg, Berlin (Influence Point)
11. Flight Schönefeld Airport to ORLY France
12. Simplon Flat, Northern Paris, France (Influence Point)
13. Montmarte, Paris
14. Le Marais, Paris
15. Flight ORLY France, to Schönefeld, Berlin
16. East London Restaurant, Kreuzberg, Berlin (Influence Point)
17. Mehringdamm Flat, Kreuzberg, Berlin 9/26/2013 8:00AM (Influence Point)

The influence points in the location sectors are people who helped me formulate how this piece would form. On the street, in my flat that I was sharing, or just people on the street, I asked “Where should this line go?”, and from there the form of the piece would change. The influence points are pivotal markers in the painting that ultimately changed the direction, and therefore connected the location and the people together.

Geometry is more than just shapes, and it connects us in ways we take for granted. As artists, we are conduits and storytellers that bring images to life by means of other people, time, and places. This painting is a reminder of this geometry that exists in the air within us.

This piece is called “The Distance Between Two Points”, and is the last of the Geometric Spectrum Series. In the top frame you will see two coffee stains. One is the beginning coffee stain, created at Yaffa Cafe, in St. Marks Place in NYC, NY. This stain was created on 8/25/2013. The 2nd coffee stain was created in the Mehringdamm flat in Kreuzberg, Berlin on 9/26/2013 at 8:00AM using the previous days espresso from the East London Restaurant.

This created a time difference of 768 hours (46,080 minutes), and the distance of 3,988.38 miles marking ‘the distance between two points” which is noted in the marriage of these two stains.