steve roden
vowel constructions, 2005
2005, solo exhibition: fresno metropolitan museum of art and science

these drawings were created as part of a larger body of work, dealing with john glenn's first transmission from space.

in each drawing, i used the vowel structure of glenn's text, combined that with rimbaud's color vowel equivalents, to generate a score for mark making and color sequence.

glenn's text begins: "i am in the middle", which determined the following beginning of the score: "i (red/9), a (black/1), i (red/9), e (white/5), i (red/9),
e (white/5).

while this seems like a particularly rigid way of working, the actual application of these rules is completely intuitive - with most of the drawing being made through intuitive responses to the rules as well as what has already occured on the paper. a red pencil (which red) and the number nine can evoke a ton of responses - such as 9 dashes, a 9 inch line, 9 circles or a circle with a 9" circumference, etc.

each: colored pencil on paper, 22" x 30"





john glenn's original text: "I am in the middle of a mass of thousands of very small particles that are brilliantly lit up like they are luminescent. They are bright yellowish green, about the size and intensity of a firefly on a real dark night. I have never seen anything like it. They look like little stars. They swirl around the capsule and go in front of the window." november 1960

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