Artist Cecil Herring shows florals, paintings, sculpture, watercolors

Spacescapes® Art by Cecil Herring

Original Spacescapes

Spacescapes History

First Show Installation view Oct.1971

Original Spacescapes® show at Center Gallery, 49 W. 57th St., New York, N.Y.

I designed the show to be accompanied by Morton Subotnick music, synchronized by a pulsing light system alternating between black lights, incandescent lights and colored lights. Lights, sound and art all synchronized together in the first multi-media show I had ever heard of. People asked me what drugs I used!

Note; I've never 'used' or drank in my entire life.

Subotnick's music, Silver Apples for the Moon, (still available) gives off eerie screams, sounds of collisions, horrible crashes and sounds of chains being dragged, just right for Spacescapes® sounds. I loved it. The darkened room created the effect of colors floating in space. It was a full on experiential experience for all the senses.

First I made the armatures from space junk I got from area junk yards. Remember I lived near Cape Kennedy so the yards were full of 'stuff'' of all kinds of strange configurations. I remember even using an old brake shoe. Then I sprayed the heavy plastic coating over the metal and got these crazy curvilenear planes. Oh how I will I could live through making those sculptures again. A trip of a lifetime.

The sprayable polyvinyl chloride hide covered the welded steel armatures in a very tough orange peel texture, quite thick and has proven very durable. This artistic venture was very successful for me and has made my artistic life what it is today.

This was an experimental medium which has held up well for over 30 years. I now have 12 left in my collection. The environmental protection agency ruled that sprayable PVC was toxic and outlawed it in the 70s. It was loaded with Tolual and acetones and had a very low flash point. It dried in 30 minutes but took several days to harden up. I used a diesel compressor with 85 psi and 23 cfm and a Binks Spray system with a gun to disperse the heavy viscous molasses like material into a spray that sprayed over the welded armature. There were 2 different components: the sprayable cobwebs and then the vinyl. The material had a spanability of 24 inches. It was a miracle material. I envisioned making space environments on the moon! See Trademark History

Personal Dream: I wish we could set up a MOON COLONY instead of going to Mars which is such a hostile environment and highly unfeasible. Setting up a Moon colony would be easier because we have been there and it is closer. We know how to get there and land. Somebody please tell NASA!

I used Day-Glo paints which glowed in the black lights creating the space environmental concept.

Spring, 1971.

Three Spacescapes sculptures ready for final painting.

Pic taken at Melbourne Airport where I had a studio and could work outdoors.

Note: Bardo Passage, middle sculpture later was painted day-glo yellow and is shown below.

Shown below: Spray system and steel sculpture armature and the artist at work.

Oct 1970

Spraying "Phyxis" with the first coat of webbing agent.

Oct. 1970

PVC is applied to armature for "Phoebe's Magic."

2003:

artist note: Creating those original Spacescapes 33 years ago was a really heavenly project.

"A Leap into Space"

This work and its joyous pose was loosely modeled after a photo of Mick Jagger I saw on the cover of Time Magazine. I saw a correlation of our national pride at being first on the Moon! Jagger was leaping in the photograph. This work is life-sized on a steel and pvc base.

Collection Air Force Space Museum Note: may have been destroyed due to a visitor kicking through it.

"Bardo Passage"

This work is my interpretation of that Hindu 'state' after death called Bardo Passage. Since I know nothing of the religion, I saw a soul's passage as being a space ship...

4.5 feet high x 3 feet wide

Collection of the artist.

Note: I created a new digital work from this sculpture, in Digital Gallery as "Bardo Passage Wave "(#15)

"Flight to Ganymede"

Flight to Ganymede is a mobile in welded steel and sprayable polyvinyl chloride, painted with DayGlo colors. It is part of my original collection of Spacescapes, sculptures I showed in an installation in N.Y. City. It is lightweight with a hook for hanging - see photo.

The configurations are unique due to the construction with curvilear planes, crevices and holes. No side is the same, no view is the same. It glows in ultraviolet light and the insides are visible in very organic amazing configurations like a space ship in weightlessness with inside compartments for a space voyager to sleep in. Flight to Ganymede is a one of a kind. I got the concept from a book called Das Mars Projekt by the great rocket engineer and space scientist Dr. Wernher von Braun. Dr. Von Braun was the director of our first space mission called Apollo Moon Project. He also really invented our current Space Shuttle. I worked as a reporter during this period and actually met Dr. Von Braun. He was a genius.

Ganymede is a moon of Jupiter that interests space scientists due to its strange features.

I created my Spacescapes® collection as an imaginary 'fleet' of Space Ships to to travel to the distant planets. Since outside our gravitational field there is no friction and there is weightlessness we really do not need geometric shapes since those shapes would be irrelavant. Form follows function in outer space.

Price on request

"Moon House"

3 feet high x 1.5 feet wide

(Moving company damaged piece beyond repair! Destroyed.)

The First

a very spacey creature, my first Spacescapes sculpture.

I spray metalized it with aluminum.

My idea was to create moon houses with these materials.

Alien Group

5' x 4' x 2'

steel and polyvinyl chloride

commission

"Nergal - Red Tower"

Day-Glo red

2.7 feet high x 10 inches wide.

lost

I left this work at Center Gallery after show. Later, the director said she didn't know where it was and I could not produce a receipt so I came home without it!

If you have any information on the whereabouts of this

unique work, let me know! I will pay you a reward, no questions asked.

1-386-789-8010 or 1-386-717-4208

e-mail

"Puff the Magic Dragon"

3.5 feet in circumference. 1.5 feet high.

Lights up inside!

Collection of the artist.

"Space Sea Urchin"

18 inches high by 12 inches wide.

Collection of Dr. Harold Reinhartz

3 feet wide x 2.5 deep x 10" high.

Private Collection.

"Menagerie"

Collection of Sydney Hyman. Mr. Hyman sponsored my NY show and was very supportive.

Center Gallery, 49 W. 57th St., NYC using black lights during

Spacescapes® show, Oct 1971

35 works were shown.

1971 - 1973.

Show traveled to New York, Miami, Deland, Air Force Space Museum Cape Canaveral, Stetson University, Art Encounter, Melbourne and Gallery 3, Miami.

"The Mother is Yellow"

Spacescapes® Mobile in 4 parts.

Welded steel and pvc. 40 " long. Day-Glo colors.

Rotates from ceiling.

Collection of the artist. (See in Gallery view)

"Pod"

PVC and steel

painted in DayGlo colors

private collection

"A Setting for the Fabulous Feathers"

Steel and sprayable PVC Sculpture with separate welded steel stand. Painted with Day Glo and enamels.

5' x 5' x 4' high.on welded steel matching base

This work is my rendition of a spacey Japanese Garden for their special fowl with 5' foot long tail feathers, a kind of peacock. The Japanese, in their unique way, create gardens planted with low bushes for these graceful creatures to display their fabulous feathers across. I used my abstract space ideas for this spacescape. Private Collection.

"Chrisalis"

Steel, polyvinyl chloride, painted white 62" wide x 38" high

lightweight Spacescapes®

collection of the artist

"Crater Craft", steel, PVC

27" high x 17" wide x 11" deep.

welded space junk with polyvinyl chloride coating, painted in dayglo and gold.

Wired with black light blinking bulbs.

collection of the artist

"Man with Three Arms" installed at Crealde Art Center sculpture garden. Winter Park, FL.

Crealde School of Art is a picturesque setting with many wonderful outdoor sculptures by talented area artists. There are ponds, tropical plantings, galleries and quaint buildings in the Spanish style on the beautifully landscaped campus. Crealde has year-round art training programs in sculpture, ceramics, painting, drawing and photograph. It is located at 600 St. Andrews Blvd., Winter Park, FL 32792, Ph.407-571-1886.

3/28/2002

I used the play "The Man With 3 Arms" by Edward Albee for my inspiration for this piece. Albee says it is based on the allegory of fame.

email Letter from Edward Albee sent from Albee Foundation 2002:

I just wanted to let you know that Mr. Albee saw your website and the proposed description of his play in relation to your sculpture. He gives you his blessing.

Be well,

Jacob Holder
Assistant

"Basilisk"

welded steel, copper, bronze

@Cecil Herring circa

34" high x 24" long x 11.5" wide

price on request

Tower of Babel

circa 1974- 76

Bronze

49" x 16" x 15"

price on request

"Zek"

welded bronze and cast acrylic

Purchase Award

Collection of Titusville City Hall

Turkey Vulture

welded steel

16" x 15"

price on request

Running Tiger

Welded Steel

24 x 10

price on request

Moon Dog

1976-77

Welded bronze

12 x 24

price on request

"The Family"

ARC Welded steel sculpture. 5 feet x 4 feet.

1974

Commissioned by Gainesville Medical Auxiliary for U of F. School of Dentistry

Sculpture is located at University of Florida Medical Library, Gainesville, FL

"Medusa"

Electroformed head with ruby eyes

1974

3/4 life size.Collection of the artist

price on request

view of my living room and "Erl Konig" on the table (frgrnd) chess set, and "Mother is Yellow" sculpture of PVC and welded steel mobile hanging, "Flying Wallendas" is on pedestal (rt corner) Spacescapes paintings on wall.

Tabernacle Cover

Bronze welded one piece of sculpture collection commissioned by St. Charles Cathedral, Orlando, FL

Edgewater Drive, Orlando.

"Erl Konig"

1974-76

Inspired by Wolfgang Goethe's poem of the same name. welded copper and bronze

24" long x 22" high x 8" wide

mounted on dark green granite base 28" x 14" x 3/4"

garden piece

POR

"Blue Heron"

Welded Bronze

1976

"Maid - 2003"

A modern Joan of Arc

Bronze 24" long x 18" high x 8" wide

Vert butterfly granite base

POR

Stargazer II

Bronze

21" x 5" x 4"

POR

Koi Fish Light

24 x 9 x 12

original work, one of a kind

Finished, lighted piece (shown at Avalon Gallery Jan./2004 in 2 person digital show)

"Hardware vs Software"

wood armature (see above) covered covered with digitally printed rice paper from a pattern I created that was inspired by the Koi digital painting see digital

It is very lightweight and quite strong!

price on request

lifesize

Collection of the artist

see News

Studios: 3242 Bretton Woods Terr., Deltona, FL 32725

Studio Phone 386-789-8010or 386-717-4208

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