My Spin Art

My name is Meridith Martens.  My blog is a journal of the process of my Spin Art technique that I developed in 2004 while I was in my residency program at the Vermont Studio Center.  I started the process as an experiment with a window fan modified to attach paper to create my first spin art machine.  After a successful one month run, the motor burned out because I was pushing to larger and heavier paper.  I call this my series I.  With this work I used one color, usually black on white paper or a painted paper.  I liked the austere feel of the simple, sharp black lines.  My return to Vermont Studio Center in 2005 produced my Series II, which was my introduction to use of color.  That fan was somewhat larger and had a remote control...much cleaner and easier to control.  I experimented with two completely different styles of images.  The first was about layering colors to produce the depth and the interesting color that would appear only because of the layering.  It was SO cool!  The next experiment was about isolating the fine lines that I found so interesting and combining that with hand painting, in red, to pull out images that I would see in the tangle of those lines.  I produced close to 100 pieces from the Series I & Series II.  Over the past five years I have received quite a bit of positive feedback and have been encouraged to show this work.  I have also been encouraged to produce larger pieces.  The problem of course was building a bigger machine and having a large space to produce the new work.   This blog is part of that journey.   The new machine is a start toward achieving that goal and eventually I would like to go bigger.  I am now experimenting with canvas as large as 60" x 46".   It has been challenging to produce on large canvas the images I first worked out in a smaller format and on paper.  These paintings are titled NEW WORK in my blog and are still in the experimental stage.  Some of my earlier work from 2004 and 2005 can be seen on my website myspinart.com.

Spin Art Machine

As promised, here are some pics of the machine.

Start with a 36" fan from Lowe's, about $220.  We removed the blade and had a local machine shop fabricate an adapter for the shaft with a 24" plate to hold the foamcore "easel" on which I'll attach canvas or paper.

  

We fashioned a brake using a standard bicycle brake, cable and lever.  About $30.  I found that once spinning, the centrifugal force from the weight of the shaft adapter, foamcore and canvas would keep the motor spinning for a significant time.  The brake allows me to stop the motor quickly and maintain the paint pattern.

I snapped this photo with the foamcore platform in motion.  I used industrial strength velcro to attach the foamcore to the spinning plate, making for easy removal.  There is no canvas on here at the moment, the paint you see is residual from the spin art process.  You'll also notice a well-spattered cardboard wall.  Howard didn't want me painting the garage, only the canvas.  In my next blog, I'll post some spin art I've recently created with this Rube Goldberg.

Spin Art Sample

From my web site.