The Electric Water House

During my most recent grant writing project I came across one of the first sketches I made for house of calm. My vision at the time included a house frame with 30 water buckets filled with light bulbs under water.
The financial reality of the work at the time was pretty far out of reach for me. Since I am a fan of doing what I can instead of talking about what I can't... I created a scaled down version in my back yard. This was the first in a series of electric water houses I am still working with today.

Wrapping it all up...

Detail image: Close up of wiring from the Electric Water House
The Electric Water World Gallerium is about to begin coming to life this weekend. With a predicted heatwave on the way... (33F) I will be able to find the nerve to actually haul the Dumpster and thrift store piles out.... and start setting up sculptures. As for the House of Chaos and House of Calm which were laid to rest for the winter, I ran off about 25 11x17 color copies today to put up on the walls and re-collect my thoughts on the work as I calculate the elements for the house of transformation. Last weekends dream was filled with bright colors and studio visits that were in a mall that looked a lot like art college only way more colorful. I have transferred the color into some of the new work I am putting together... Lime Green Yellow Orange Red and Marine Blue oil based enamel are on the shopping list.

Static Electricity

I have a futon in my studio... during the holidays I had a chance to take a late afternoon nap... This piece from a sculpture I made around the year 2000 called "Fallen Angels" was at the foot of my bed... When I woke up it was dark, but I thought I saw a flash of light out of the corner of my eye... As I began to move the blanket to figure out what it was... I realized that If I shook the blanket around next to this piece... The lightbulbs would light up while the blanket was in motion.
(for clarity.. I will add, this was not a dream!!)

Flashback: ...to a dream... November 28, 2006
I woke from a Lucid dream about
mapping out the future direction of my work... With a list of things I would be working on...
At the time it left me with a few questions... This happening with static electricity really has me working to put the pieces together. The only other time I have seen lightbulbs light up without being plugged in to a man made energy source was when lightning struck a tree in my front yard... all of the lights in the house lit up whether they were plugged in or not. Discoveries of this nature really affirm scientific thought that we are living in a sea of electricity. Personally I believe that water and electricity co-exist as the positive and negative forces that allow us to experience a physical presence on earth.

HERE IS THE LIST:

ABSTRACT PHYSICS
1. Static, Ground level Electricity, Earthbound Energy
2. Floating Electricity, Suspended Energy
3. Submerged Electrical Current, Below the surface, Buried energy

Observations

The idea is... to heat up the water in the fishbowl and melt the hidden candles under the rocks relesing an array of colorful wax ribbons to the surface.... Transformation.
The fishbowl was filled up... Tossed the light bulb in... started timing and taking notes.... It took an hour for the top of the bowl to get warm... The lightbulb looked crazy wild through the water and fish bowl. There was a golden glow and then a very exaggerated clear glass shell surrounding it. I started around 8 pm... and by 10:30 fell asleep... I like sleeping in my studio in winter for two reasons 1. I love waking up there and thinking about my work fresh out of a dream state. 2. The attic bedroom is cold in winter. I woke up every hour all night long checking on it. By morning...nothing much happened except for an inch of water had evaporated... So for me... back to the drawing board. There are a couple of things I could try. Hotter Bulb...tapeing a rock to the socket so it is at the bottom of the bowl instead of the top... moving the candles... I am definately in the experimental phase of my new work...

Window of Transformation

This image is a watercolor documentation made around 1992. The actual piece was created in the early 80's. My electric water work at the time was was somewhere between a science experiment and the creative beauty of physics. Today I find it has transformed into work that is rich in content. The Window of Transformation is an extension of this piece. The window frame in my Electric Water House will be filled with 16 round glass fishbowls. Each one will have small candles in a variety of colors hidden under a thin layer of small rocks. A lightbulb will be placed underwater. as the heat from the bulb melts the candles benath the rocks, the colorful wax will be released and float to the top of the bowl. I can't think of a more beautiful way to show transformation. I am collecting the pieces to put it all together now. This is the kind of piece that will definately need to be on film. This is one of the things I will be working with over the next few months in completing my Electric Water House series. 16 Candles is another name I am fond of for this piece... My son is now 16 years old, and the Electric water house series is a reflection on my experience as a mother and wife throughout these years. I think God sends us these beautiful angles to make the dark days look brighter....

House of Chaos

Front view at night

Photos: ©David Cervin/All rights reserved.

Side view at night

My mothers Ironing Board

Hanging upside down from the rafters!! Complete with mothers...(well.. OK, Aunt Jamima bottles posing as mothers!!) watching over their little angles below.

Mothers Little angles susspended over buckets of water

I love how this piece ended up suspended in the middle of evrything. I had originally thought of it at floor level. It just makes so much more sense now since that is ultimately where our children grow up.... In the middle of our lives.... for better or worse.

View of the Window

The Troubled Window

The Burning Bucket

This piece is in place of my original thoughts for the raining roof. Above it hangs an empty water bucket with no immidiate way to put out the fire. It represents trouble in the home the same way the raining roof would. I still intend to work with the raining roof as more of an isolated time based piece that will involve video documentation over a period of time. One thing I love about the burning bucket is that it has a feeling of hope in it. I feel as if my troubles are somewhat contained and there is a real possibility of getting them under control.

Mothers little angles

House of Calm Meditative Retreat

Photos: ©David Cervin/All rights reserved.

16 Candles

This is another piece of the Electric Water House series... 16 Candles is a combination of pieces I have saved and Held onto over the past 20 years... Primarily, my mothers ironing board, which will hang upside down from the water house frame, and 16 Glass Aunt Jamima bottles. (The #16 has meaning to me because that is how old my son is now, also known as a very important age that bridges us from childhood to early adulthood.) The larger ones will be made into leyden jars (which when pluged in to the transformer will be covered with electricity...) suspended on the ironing board. The smaller bottles will be filled with small lightbulbs under water, in a sand box below. Kind of a mother daughter thing, however, since I have also become a mother since my mom died, and raised a son... I have a ceramic little boy figurine I am adding into the sand box... so actually... it is more about mothers watching over thier children. How the hopes and dreams they have for themselves and thier children are at the mercy of the quality of our personal environment... on a multitude of levels... to see them collapse and crumble or come true.
I bought my own Miter saw and Ryobi drill last weekend from a pawn shop for $50.!! That means I am very close to being able to start constructing the Water House... I have also picked up a tablet of newsprint paper, for illustrating my future creative vision. I was feeling stifled by drawing paper and pencils and forced illustrations (like the one posted here...useful, however I feel like someone has my arms tied up with rope while I am trying to get the idea out of my head onto the page... so hopefully you will get the idea of what I am thinking...), I figured a larger format low budget paper and ball point pen were in order...and lo and behold... the first page has already become a masterpiece!! I have a couple of more to do, and actually these ones are for a future project that I haven't made public info just yet. They will be included in my fellowship proposal under the future creative vision category... and online here....maybe next year...

Waterfall

This piece is part of the Electric water house. I see it as representational of adversity in life, impending danger and all of the things our parents wish they could protect us from, which really brings our fears to the forefront. In reality I think the entire purpose of adversity in life is in perfecting our spirits. Somewhat of an excercise in compassion, discipline, empathy, inner strength... definately charachter building... even if it breaks us... in the end it will build us up... eventually.

Broken Dreams

The first house in the Electric Water World series is the House of Broken Dreams. In it you will find an upside down ironing board, Mothers, daughters, sand, mud, a window you can't see out of and a door you can't walk through, water falling through the roof onto the lightbulbs in the mud, bare electrical wires, and... no walls... which I find interesting that it still has the capacity to leave you feeling there is no way out, when clearly we know that the doors and windows are not the way out in the first place... And the absence of walls is irrelevant because everything we know about houses psychologically places them there for us... somehow we know instinctively that we magically have an x-ray view into a place we don't belong.
I believe in beauty. I am deeply optomistic. I find profound beauty in decay, remnants of lifes challenges and hardship. Isolation has been good for me. All of lifes experience whether riches, glamour & the persuit of perfection, or Chaotic troubled lost in the dark hell all carry an unmistakeable impression on our spirits. When the dark clouds part and the sun shines in our hearts, we look for meaning and see the true beauty in our lives and in our world. The house of broken dreams is a reflection on the struggles we pass on from one generation to the next, and the difficulties we face in changing our fate and that of our children.
**This illustration is of the window I am in the process of creating at the moment for the House of Broken Dreams.**

Chaos Revisited: CONSTRUCTION IS UNDERWAY

This week the first window is under construction. 3' square, filled with 24 home made leyden jars hooked to a transformer... It is the equivelent of holding lightning in your arms with the love you reserve only for the tenderness of a hug with your mother... in the rain.... when you are 5 years old.

Flood Lights & River Rocks

Test Bucket: Work In Progress

Electric Water World Update

ELECTRIC WATER WORLD IS ALIVE AND, WELL... UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!!!
The Money is in the BANK!!!! All of the work that has been on hold.... WAITING for MONEY to arrive is now about to begin... In the mean time I have been doing what I can.... Crumpling up tin foil, coping with insanity, not coping with insanity.... Washing Aunt Jemima bottles out in a bubble bath.... Since I haven't been in a position to create Electric Water Sculpture most of my sons life... and he wasn't present for any of the performances... his first comment when he saw it was... of coarse... Mom... don't kill yourself.... Don't worry... I said... The world isn't finished with me yet.....