art – Page 3 – Chris Mercerhill.com

Columbus, Ohio #1: Median Home Value

Posted on January 16, 2018 by admin

34″ x 34″
2018
$300

This is the first in a series of maps of Columbus, Ohio that I am making by sewing photographs together. Each map will incorporate some set of data related to the city. This map features the median home value for each zip code from 2015 US census data.

Within each zip code, I have taken a picture of a house for sale at or near the median home value. The photo of the home with the highest value ($310,000) is tinted green while the photo of the home with the lowest value ($55,000) is not. I have then tinted each photo green proportionally to the values in between.

Keeping 576 squares organized.

Through color, a map of the city is formed. The northwest quadrant, much of which is not technically Columbus, includes suburbs (Upper Arlington, Dublin, Hilliard) with very high home values. This green area stretches down past the Ohio State campus (blank, because there are not homes for sale within the 43210 zip code) into downtown and German Village. Another suburb within the city, Bexley, is the green rectangle just southeast of center. Although I have left roads off the map, several are still easy to find. The most obvious to me is I-71, which runs north-south through the top of the map. To the west, median home values are quite high, while to the east they are much lower.

This map, and the data it depicts, is the result of several societal trends and civic decisions over the history of the city. This piece is also a reflection on my ability to create an objective record of that history. This map is a neutral artifact in the sense that it is a set of data that has been put through a algorithmic process. This is the result. On the other hand, it is impossible to design an algorithm without some cultural and personal bias. In this way, this photoquilt cannot be completely free of bias, much like the very map it depicts.

The process of converting the map to a grid was an interesting challenge. The short video below summarizes my process. Look for more data-driven photoquilt maps soon.

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I converted all of the zip codes in Columbus, Ohio to a 24 X 24 grid for an upcoming project. I should've added some music to it. It's just got a rhythmic movement that makes you want to dance, you know? #funkychicken #map #cbus #columbus #ohio #wip #groovybaby #zipcode #zipit #getdown

A post shared by Chris Mercerhill (@chris.mercerhill) on Nov 17, 2017 at 6:43am PST

Ohio Star: Park of Roses

Posted on July 6, 2017 by admin

72″ x 48″
2017
$500

This photoquilt was inspired by a show at Wild Goose Creative, called What Is It About This Place? A Neighborhood Art Show Featuring Works by or About Glen Echo, SoHud, and Clintonville, Ohio. It is part of my series of Ohio Star photoquilts, which incorporate the Ohio Star quilt pattern and feature places around Ohio. This one began with this picture of the gazebo at the Park of Roses in Clintonville, which is a neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio. I took the picture just before sunset, which accounts for both the silhouette of the structure and the color of the sky, which fades from bright blue to yellow to orange.

Original image for Ohio Star: Park of Roses

As with my other Ohio Star photoquilts, I used a different part of the original photo for each row of blocks in the quilt, which is why the different kaleidoscopic shapes evolve from the top to the bottom. The geometric latice-work of the top also contrasts with the curling filigree scrolls of the railing, creating unique and interesting shapes when they meet in different parts of the quilt.

Close up of Ohio Star: Park of Roses

Closer close up of Ohio Star: Park of Roses

This photoquilt was on display at Wild Goose Creative for the month of July, 2017. Even if you’re not able to get there in time for this show, check them out. They are a great, non-profit community arts organization that is worthy of your support.

Photo of the opening at Wild Goose Creative by Erin Aluise, used with permission.

Handmade Chinese Coins

Posted on June 30, 2017 by admin

72″ x 48″
2017
$960

There is a growing “gig economy” though which I can have an Uber driver pick me up, a TaskRabbit organize my closet, and a pay someone a Fiverr to create a customized happy birthday message for my closest friend. But I can’t help but wonder whether the people doing this work feel like they are being treated fairly by their customers and whether this work pays their bills. This photoquilt is a result of my wrestling with this question.

For this piece, I hired workers on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, an online marketplace where workers can be hired to perform Human Intelligence Tasks or “HITs.” Amazon suggests that workers, or “Turkers,” be paid at a rate of $6 per hour, though many tasks fail to approach this rate. I hired 95 people and paid them a living wage ($20 per hour in Columbus, Ohio) to take one picture each. The Turkers were asked to take a picture of the front or back of their right or left hand against a plain background with a minimum 600 by 900 pixel resolution and then provide these photos for me to use under a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0) meaning that the photos belong to the photographer, but I am able to use them commercially. My goal was to treat my workers fairly and from the feedback I received, I met this goal.

The quilt pattern is a variation of a traditional pattern called Chinese Coins. The strips were created by feeding the copies of the hand photos through a paper shredder and sewing them into stacks of “coins” which effectively blends the block of coins into an anonymous average of all of the hands at once. The photos were sewn together by hand using a sewing machine, which, in itself, is a statement on the meaning of terms like “work” and “handmade.”

Thanks to all of the workers who provided photographs for this work (most of whom chose to remain anonymous): A.F., Adan, byesaw, frogman31680, J Dawson, Jamillah, Jessica, JMG, Joshua Johaneman, kenneth, M. M. Brown, Matt, me, Melty, MemeHandsRubberBands, nirmala, Palani, Ron Tropics, shiv, XIX.

This photoquilt was accepted to the Fine Arts Exhibition at the 2017 Ohio State Fair where it was displayed next to Ohio Star: Columbus Museum of Art.

Two of my photoquilts on display at the 2017 Ohio State Fair Fine Arts Exhibit.

Self Portrait: Facebook

Posted on November 19, 2016 by admin

72″ x 48″
2016
$1200

I have a love / hate relationship with Facebook. I use it almost every day to keep in touch with distant friends and family, to keep up with the news of the day, and to share the various highlights and high points of my day. I love that I can do this.

But the fact that I only share the highlights (and that you only share your highlights) makes Facebook an interesting lens through which to view each other. Further, the experience is curated by an algorithm that makes sure I see more of the things that I like to see from the people I like to see them from, which can distort my view of the world. I hate this distortion.

So who I am, on Facebook at least, is largely formed by my network — the people I have “friended” and what that tells Facebook about me. This self portrait grew out of the idea of how my network of friends defines my “self”.

I took the profile photos of the first 144 friends who gave me permission to do so and fed them into a free downloadable program called AndreaMosaic. The software created a composite photomosaic based on my profile picture, which I also provided. The resolution was not great, so I added an additional 144 photos that these same friends had previously used as profile pictures. This provided much better resolution. I configured the software to use everyone’s profile photo at least once and to not repeat any single image too frequently. After several iterations, I finally had a composite that I was happy with.

I printed out the photomosaic and counted up how many of each image I needed. The quilt is 34 squares across and 51 tall, for a total of 1734 squares. Many of the images were included just once or twice, but others appeared scores of times. I assembled the images into 4 x 6 prints and ordered the prints that I needed. I then divided the composite image into 6 x 6 blocks, cut out the images for each block, and sewed them together. A video of this process is below.

Once I had all of the blocks completed, I laid them all out to make sure I had them all oriented correctly. Then I sewed the blocks together into the final photoquilt self portrait.

The finished photoquilt is clearly inspired by Chuck Close’s portraits, of which I’ve always been a fan. And like Close’s work, the experience of this portrait is very different when you are 18 inches away and when you are 18 feet away. The further away from the work you get, the more your eye merges the collection of images into pixels that form the larger whole. But up close, each individual is clearly visible.

Spaghetti

Posted on May 25, 2016 by admin

24″ x 24″
2016
$200

This photoquilt was inspired by a box that my wife and I brought back from our honeymoon in Italy. The box is about six inches wide and is made of strips of semi-precious stones which were likely leftover from the other pieces for sale in the shop. When we asked what the pattern was called, we were told they call it “spaghetti.” We both loved the “use the whole buffalo” approach to the creation of the box as well as the overall effect of the random mix of stones, so we splurged and bought the box.

Last year, we finally had the chance to travel back to Europe where I was struck by the unique and colorful doors throughout the oldest part of Montpellier, France. I took pictures of hundreds of them for Les Portes de Montpellier. When that photoquilt was finished, I still had scores of prints left over. What to do? Cut them into strips and sew them back together, obviously.

The similar palettes first gave me the idea that this could work. The jewel tones in the doors of Montpellier are what first drew me to photograph them and the link to the colors in the box was obvious. The European connection and the approach to making use of otherwise discarded materials also tied the two together. There is also a sort of re-imagining of the image here. Unlike most of my other quilts, the subjects of the photos are almost completely obliterated. This results in a focus on the almost painterly surface instead of the details of each individual photo.

The spaghetti box and the Spaghetti photoquilt are two of my favorite souvenirs of our rare European adventures.

Les Portes De Montpellier photoquilt — *Les Portes de Montpellier* photoquilt

spaghetti detail 1 — *Spaghetti* – detail #1

spaghetti detail 2 — *Spaghetti* – detail #2

spaghetti detail 3 — *Spaghetti* – detail #3

Ohio Star: Columbus Museum of Art

Posted on November 4, 2015 by admin

72″ x 48″
2015
$500

In the fall of 2015, the Columbus Museum of Art expanded into the new Margaret M. Walter Wing, a modern, copper-clad box with a glass wall at each end. This photoquilt includes the copper walls on the side and bottom, the first floor glass at the end, and the cloudless sky. As the quilt evolves from bottom to top, more of the sky appears between the reflected corners of the building.

Update: This photoquilt was accepted into the 2017 Ohio State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition where it won a Crow Timber Frame Bart Art Retreat Scholarship. Handmade Chinese Coins was also accepted.

24″ x 24″
2015
$200

Ohio Star: Columbus Museum of Art block
12″ x 12″
2015
$100

Two of my photoquilts on display at the 2017 Ohio State Fair Fine Arts Exhibit.

Ohio Star: PAES

Posted on November 14, 2012 by admin

72″ x 48″
2012
$500

This photoquilt is based on a picture taken inside the PAES (Physical Activity & Educational Services) building at Ohio State, just inside the Scarlet Skyway, a red glass bridge that connects it to the RPAC. Like in Ohio Star: Scarlet Skyway, the red glass gives every surface a warm pink glow. The overall effect is of jewel tones and shapes. The photos are sewn into a traditional Ohio star quilt pattern. Individual blocks from this quilt, which were completed as part of the design process, have also been framed and displayed (below). These blocks are from the top and bottom row of the quilt, which illustrates just how far the quilt evolves from one end to the other.

Ohio Star photoquilts | Other photoquilts

Ohio Star: PAES block
12″ x 12″
2012
$100

Ohio Star: Physics Research

Posted on November 7, 2012 by admin

60″ x 48″
2014
$500

This photoquilt is based on a picture of the stairwell inside the Physics Research building at Ohio State. The palette is restricted to browns, golds, pale blues, and whites. The photos are sewn into a traditional Ohio star quilt pattern creating the overall effect of an Escher-inspired series of neverending staircases.

As I normally do, I started by creating four 12-inch blocks which I sewed into a 24-inch square. I do this with lots of my quilts. Some go on to become full-size quilts, but many do not. I custom built a frame for the 24-inch version (below) and then decided to make a full-sized 4′ x 5′ version (above). The full-size quilt received The President’s Award at the 2014 Ohio State Staff Arts and Crafts Show.

24″ x 24″
2012
sold

Ohio Star photoquilts | Other photoquilts

Ohio Star: Scarlet Skyway

Posted on November 7, 2012 by admin

72″ x 48″
2012
$500

This photoquilt incorporates an picture taken inside the Scarlet Skyway, a red glass bridge that connects two buildings on the Ohio State campus. From inside, pink light shines through the red glass giving everything a pink glow, including the structure which supports the bridge. This piece was a reaction to the strong lines and contrast in Ohio Star: Stadium Gates, which is all black lines on blue sky. Scarlet Skyway is a riot of color. The photos are sewn into a traditional Ohio star quilt pattern.

Ohio Star photoquilts | Other photoquilts

Ohio Star: Stadium Gates

Posted on October 24, 2012 by admin

48″ x 72″
2012
$500

Ohio Stadium, home of the Buckeyes, is surrounded by these gates, which incorporate the university’s “Block O” logo. In this photoquilt, the Block O repeats across the gates and is transformed into other shapes. The photos are sewn into a traditional Ohio star quilt pattern.

Ohio Star photoquilts | Other photoquilts