Termesphere History

Over the years many spherical paintings have been created with many different themes. Most have played with the six point perspective but a few have also explored how the different polyhedra fit onto the sphere and other designs which enjoy the endlessness of the spherical surface.

Here are a few:

A good example of a Termesphere that uses the perspective in a pure way with very little realism added, would be CURVED SPACE (fig 1) 1979, a 24" sphere owned by the Denver Art Museum. Half of the sphere uses an open cubical (ice cube tray) effect which shows the shifting of the planes around you as you observe it turning. The other half of the sphere has cubes which have pulled out of the tray side.

(fig 1)

INBETWEEN 1976, (fig 2) puts the ambiguous cube into six point perspective. The inbetween spaces become important by the way color is used.		(fig 2)		(fig 3)
SOLID CORNERS (fig 3) 1981, owned by the South Dakota Art Museum. It has cubical corners that flow out to the six vanishing points in an open ice cube tray grid.

(fig 4)

The opposite of these spheres would be the famous interiors, which show the total interiors of great buildings and wonderful architecture. One of the first spheres to take on the interior of a building was the DAKOTA DOME 1987, (fig 4) owned by the Aberdeen Convention Center in Aberdeen, S.D. I stood in the middle of the Rotunda in our state capital building and sketched the whole scene onto the sphere. Later, half of the Rotunda lines were transformed into outside scenes of South Dakota.

(fig 5)		One of the next spheres was GOD'S EYE VIEW 1988, (fig 5 &6). This sphere played with the interior of S.Lorenzo in Florence, Italy. Later, I realized this was designed by Brunelleschi, an architect/artist, one of the first to discover the concept of perspective. To draw his building in six point perspective was only befitting.		(fig 6)

(fig 7)

THE PARIS OPERA 1992, (fig 7) owned by Dave Ellis of Rapid City, South Dakota, grew from a trip to Paris in 1992. That particular trip to Paris was also responsible for the creation of SAINTE CHAPELLE 1993, (fig 8 & 9) owned by Anne and Gayle Verret from Florida, and later, NOTRE DAME 24" (fig 10) 1995, owned by Bernie and Jerry Kranbeck of Spearfish. The excitment of being able to capture these incredible environments

(fig 8)

(fig 9)

that have never before been seen in their entirety, unless you have visited them, was truly awe-inspiring. The PARIS OPERA is considered one of the most famous buildings in the world. I spent six days sketching it on the grand stairways.

In SAINTE CHAPELLE, I projected myself above the floor some forty feet so I would be looking straight at the wonderful stained glass windows and away from the floor so you could see the incredible designs that you miss when you're standing beside hundreds of other people.

(fig 10)

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