June 23, 2010 5:19 PM John Hansen The Sedalia Democrat

An artist using a computer to create art is nothing new, yet they are always using it to push boundaries.

At the Daum Museum’s “Virtual Media: Computer-aided Art from the Collection,” visitors can marvel at pieces that were obviously made digitally and others that seem traditional if you don’t know the story behind it.

Included in the Goddard Gallery's “Virtual Media: Computer-aided Art from the Collection,” are, from left, “Jon,” an ink-on-paper by Mike Lyon, and “Line Operations,” a pigment-based ink, oil and silicone on canvas by Fabian Marcaccio. (photo: Sydney Brink / Sedalia Democrat)

“One of the things that makes this show interesting is some pieces you look at it and say, ‘That must’ve been made by a computer,’ but in other cases it would not occur to you,” said Daum director Tom Piche as he gave a visiting reporter a tour on Tuesday. “So artists have incorporated the ability of computers just as they would a pencil, a brush or a crayon. It’s one of many tools they use.”

In the art world, no one uses the terms “computer artist” or “traditional artist,” because those are not distinct categories.

“Several of the works here show that crossover very clearly,” Piche said. “And that’s why I wanted to call this ‘Computer-aided Art’ instead of ‘Computer Art,’ because I don’t think we call things ‘computer art’ anymore. The computer is so integrated into art-making that its just part of what they do.”

The eight pieces in “Virtual Media,” which can be found in the Goddard Gallery, include paintings, drawings, mixed media and even a sculpture. One drawing was made by a computer programmed by a human. One “painting” was created by a human using a computer and then printed with ink onto a canvas.

For the sculpture, the artist used a computer program to extract the colors in old paintings, then used those colors to make a three-dimensional mash-up that gave an impression of those paintings.

Computer-aided art has come a long way in the last 20 years. The oldest of the eight pieces in the Daum exhibit is from 1992.

“The history of computer art, of course, isn’t that long,” Piche said. “But it’s longer than people might think. Pretty much as soon as scientists started working with computers in the late 1950s, they began doodling with computers. And artists began experiments with computers in the 1960s, but it was difficult to do. You had to go someplace that had a computer, first of all. They were large and bulky and awkward contraptions.

“But with the revolution of the personal computer, a lot of artists were keen to develop the potential of computers. Not to experiment so much, but to make it a serious part of what they were doing.”

Piche recalled his first visit to a computer art exhibit in the late 1980s. At that time, “computer art” generally meant architectural drawings, and little else.

“Artists were using it in very flat ways that we would now consider to be kids’ stuff, because it was all so new, and what you could do was still pretty rudimentary,” Piche said.

Today, the computer is the most versatile tool in an artist’s toolbox.

One of the most eye-catching pieces in “Virtual Media” is a 2009 collage by Sedalia native Larry Thomas, who teaches at Johnson County Community College in Kansas. It’s the visual-art equivalent to what James Cameron did for movies with “Avatar.” “Poser’s Decoy” is on a flat canvas, but it looks three-dimensional thanks to a variety of tricks Thomas uses.

“Even though it’s a flat plain and a stretched canvas, you get the sense that we’re looking into something that has depth,” Piche said.

For more details about Thomas’ piece, see the video on the Swoop page.

In addition to “Virtual Media,” Daum visitors can check out “Arboresque” in the upstairs gallery. It’s a selection of two- and three-dimensional works from the permanent collection centered around trees and the natural world.

But, if you need more proof that computers are now a ubiquitous art tool, one of the nature drawings was created in a computer.

If you go
What: “Virtual Media: Computer-aided Art from the Collection” and “Arboresque”
When: Through Sept. 5
Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 1 to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays
Where: Daum Museum, State Fair Community College, Sedalia
Admission: Free

It was a fairly large show and very fun to hang (and hang with her again)!  Rebecca organized the images in an interesting way — boys on one side, girls on the other!  It made a whacky sort of sense to me!

When I arrived for the opening, Rebecca had arranged for Camille Dautrich (writer for Springfield’s News Leader paper) to interview me which was pretty fun, though I’m no expert at that sort of thing.  Then I presented an hour-long lecture copiously illustrated with slides and video and THAT was a blast!  Maybe 30 faculty and students were present, they had lots of interesting questions and comments, and I felt it had all gone very well.  Several arts faculty took us to a great dinner (Linda and my daughter, Allegra, were with me) and, exhausted and a little drunk, I slept most of the way home while Linda drove.  Very satisfying event!

Here’s a short video walk-through of the exhibition:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVTWyU4pgXQ

North installation view (photo: Rebecca Miller)

East installation view (photo: Rebecca Miller)

North-East installation view (photo: Rebecca Miller)

South installation view (photo: Rebecca Miller)

hour-long slide and video lecture was well received - audience seemed especially to love the many short videos of work in process. (photo: Rebecca Miller)

Drury University

The Department of Art & Art History and the Pool Art Center Gallery

Paintings, Drawings, and Prints: MIKE LYON

Pool Art Center Gallery

940 N. Clay Avenue
Springfield, MO  65802
417-873-7263
www.drury.edu/pacgallery

March 5-26, 2010 viewing hours: Monday -- Friday, 8am -- 5pm and Thursday 8am -- 8pm

Artist Talk Friday, March 5, 6-7pm

Opening Reception Friday, March 5, 6-9pm

This review appeared in the Springfield News Leader:

NEWS-LEADER. News-Leader.com Tuesday, March 16, 2010 78

Artist creates through computer programs

by Camille DAUTRlCH

It’s complicated.

No, I’m not changing disciplines and reviewing Meryl Streep’s recent movie. I’m talking about the process by which Kansas City artist Mike Lyon creates his monumental works of art, now on display at Drury’s Pool Art Center.

Armed with a knowledge of centuries- old printmaking techniques as well as a mastery of how to write contemporary computer programs, Lyon uses his brains, rather than his hands, to create his art. The results, a qmple dozen of which are packed into Drury’s gallery, are fascinating. The more you look, the more you see.

Occasionally, people give him a hard time about the way he makes art, Lyon said, claiming it’s the computer, not him, that’s responsible for the finished product. He begs to differ, however.

“I spend months figuring out the codes for my works,” he said, adding that every movement of the pen or airbrush is an X-Y coordinate. “I write programs that write programs.”

Lyon’s facility with computers came early. With a college degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, he went to work for his family’s cattle- hide processing business in Kansas City in 1976. While there, he developed a computerized system to facilitate the grading of hides.

That idea took off in a big way, and Lyon was able to sell his invention and go to work full time as an artist.

Dautrich/Exhibit should appeal to artistic, analytical

In addition to his architecture degree, Lyon earned a BFA in painting from the Kansas City Art Institute, and before he made art on the computer, he made it like everybody else.

“When I was a student, I stood at an easel and painted what I saw,” he said, “and I did it well.”

Talking to Lyon, however, it’s clear he’s too precise a thinker to spend his days with a brush in hand. Writing computer programs to make prints, drawings and paintings was the logical next step.

Still, history plays a role. He’s heavily influenced by Japanese woodblock prints, as well as by the 17th century French engraver Claude Mellan.

It was Mellan’s “Sudarium of Jesus” that inspired Lyon’s pen-and-ink work of his wife, Linda, a huge portrait created out of spiraling squares that begin at the center of Linda’s nose. Get up close to the work, and it’s a series of incredibly-detailed squares, but back up, and Linda’s face, more than six feet tall, comes immediately into view.

Portraiture, especially faces, makes up the majority of this exhibit, although there are several full-length representations, a couple of landscapes, and a stunning back view of a nude that’s front and center when you enter the gallery. Lyon’s parents, his wife, his son and several self-portraits are all included in the show.

Viewers will no doubt make comparisons to the work of Chuck Close when seeing these paintings and prints, but there is a difference. Lyon has his own agenda and his own techniques, although the largehead format is similar to that of Close.

This exhibit should appeal to both the artistic and the analytical mind, and Lyon believes that he has found a way to combine scientific understanding with aesthetics.

“I don’t know how to describe how I feel,” he said, “but I do feel. Also, I like figuring stuff out.”

The exhibit continues through March 26 at Drury University’S Pool Art Center, 940 N. Clay Avenue. Gallery hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, and 8 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday.

For more information, call 873-7263.

Camille Dautrich reviews the arts for the News-Leader.

The emotion in Mike Lyon’s artwork is inspired by old Japanese prints. The shapes are determined by the contours of the faces of his closest friends, friendly strangers, and the outcome hinges on the mechanics of his latest digital tools.

“Figuring it out: Prints and drawings by Mike Lyon” is on display until July 18 at the Beach Museum of Art.

Bill North, senior curator at the museum, said though Lyon has always had an artist’s touch and studied art in college, he got his start when he went to work in Kansas City, Mo., for his family’s cattle hide processing business in 1976. While working there, Lyon invented a computerized system that made it faster and easier for the workers grading cattle hides. His idea was wildly successful, and Lyon was able to sell his new machine and go to work as an artist full time.

This type of automation and machinery play a large role in Lyon’s work, along with a taste for Japanese print work, North said. Lyon has a collection of nearly 2,000 Japanese prints.

“One thing that really attracted me to his work is that few artists are using digital technology in a responsible and judicious way,” North said. “This marriage of Western and Eastern traditions and ways is so fascinating.”

At the entrance to Lyon’s gallery at the Beach Museum, five oversized faces stare out, full of ambiguous emotion, each wrinkle and hair clearly defined in a maze of ink squiggles and geometric shapes.

Lyon said he starts his process by having the model for each piece come in to his Kansas City studio, where he takes hundreds of photos of their face. He then spends several weeks painstakingly selecting the perfect photo to turn into a print piece.

“Most people don’t look like art,” he said. “But the right image — I know it when I see it, it’s just the aesthetics, I can’t explain it.”

He then programs a machine called the ShopBot with data converted from the digital photographic files to trace the image with a simple ink pen. The files tell the machine how far to move the pen along X, Y and Z axes for each bit of the piece. Lyon said this process is long and tedious and requires him to watch the machine to replace the pens when they run out and make sure the thick paper he prints on stays in place.

Lyon said he has been criticized for using technology so prominently in his work, but he feels that it takes just as much artistry to create his own computer programs and machines to make his pieces come to life.

“My ideas and my blocks and my shapes and my designs are not done by a computer,” Lyon said. “That comes from me, from my mind, and then I just make it happen, whether it’s my hand on the pen or my machine — just another tool.”

“Linda,” a featured piece in the gallery, is one Lyon printed of his wife, Linda Lyon. According to research compiled by North, this piece is 77-by-46 inches and took more than 12 million lines of code and 11 days of continuous drawing on the ShopBot.

Linda said she enjoyed posing for Mike because it gave her a chance to see him work.

“I never know how he is going to do something!” Linda said, laughing. “Every piece just turns out to be his own blend of the thoughts in his head.”

Video walk-through of exhibition

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB5Mn9A0eeE

Linda, Sandy Kemper, Mary Feigenbaum, Christine Kemper, Frank Wewers, Helen Wewers -- the champagne begins!

The group arrives at the Beach Museum of Art in Manhattan, Kansas

Group photo at the Beach (standing l-r): Bill North, Helen Wewers, Christine Kemper, Sandy Kemper, Frank Wewers, Mary Feigenbaum, Linda Lyon, Hanna Blick (reporter), Mike Lyon lying down on the job (photo: Thomas Park)

Bill North explains something or other to Sandy Kemper

Frank Wewers is blown away by a large pastel drawing

Helen and Frank Wewers with Christine Kemper

Mary Feigenbaum and Linda Lyon

Frank Wewers speeds by 'Jessica Paper Dolls' drawing (or print?)

Thomas Park (right) is happy to see us

Bill North begins a tour of the curatorial, storage, and framing areas under the museum

Christine, Mary, and Frank in one of the works on paper rooms

Sandy and Christine Kemper relax outside the Manhattan Courthouse after our visit to the Beach Museum and a quick tour of the Strecker Nelson Gallery

We arrive at Cafe Beautiful in Lawrence, Kansas

Linda and Mary at Cafe Beautiful

Interesting 'stuff' including this 16mm projector decorate the dining room (across from a hookah parlor) at Cafe Beautiful

The first of eight courses at Cafe Beautiful - egg and shrimp custard baked in a squash shell

Mmmm-mmm good! Sandy LIKES it!

Linda and Mary during first course

Christine and Helen, too!

Sandy and Frank deep in conversation

Hashi on green ceramic platters

Beautiful and delicious fruit are being served by Cafe Beautiful owner, waiter, dish-washer, Chef Ken Sukan

Chef Ken Sukan was our very gracious host

The fruit course was (temporary) sculpture and VERY edible!

the group enjoys a moment of conversation between courses

Chef Ken Sukan puts the finishing touches on a 'salad' of veggies in a cucumber roll bowl -- DELICIOUS!

A snapper shashimi was served

hamachi wrapped california rolls with grilled unagi (OMG)!

Check out that sculpted cherry tomato!

STILL having a LOT of fun halfway through the two hour service! WHAT a day! What a wonderful evening! What a great time with the best of friends!

Senior Curator of the Beach, Bill North, met us and guided the group through a tour of the permanent collection.  I THINK everyone got to see the exhibition rooms with my work, but I’m really not sure because a reporter for the K-State newspaper, Hanna Blick was waiting to interview me…  I think I talk WAY too much — she had LOTS of questions and I enjoyed looking at the work with her and describing my various processes and techniques and what interested me about each…  When we finished, Bill gave us a tour of the museum’s extensive storage for works on paper, paintings, his office which was FULL of books and articles and lots of stuff organized in piles on his desk and bookshelves and floor and everywhere — lots to look at in there!  And in one of the file drawers he showed the large 10-drawing proof sheet I’d made over several months with different approaches to “Jessica Paper Doll” — it was a thrill to see that again after some months and I appreciated it much more.  I realized that I’ve been missing it!

I was pretty tired as we boarded the van for a 90 minute drive to Lawrence, Kansas for a special dinner at Chef Ken Sukan’s ‘secret’ Cafe Beautiful.  Sandy and Christine had been raving about the Cafe for months.  Reservations must be made at least six weeks in advance.  Even though Cafe Beautiful does no advertising and doesn’t even have a sign out front, it seats only six (seven for us) and is very populer.  Now I understand ‘why’!  WOW!  Chef Sukan was born in Korea and trained there, in Japan, in China, Taiwan, France, and decided to move to Lawrence, Kansas after folding a map of the United States in half both ways and Lawrence, home to the University of Kansas, was exactly at the center.  He spends eight or nine months a year serving two to six guests in two seatings daily and the rest of the time he travels and teaches cooking and his special ‘Midwest’ sushi technique.

Cafe Beautiful shares the second floor of a downtown Lawrence storefront at 728 1/2 Massachusetts Street (785-84307423).  The other tenant is a very smokey bar aptly named Hookah House where (duh) people sit and smoke tobacco from hookah pipes, drink, and chat away.

Dinner was relaxed and elegant in eight beautifully designed courses.  Although I was exhausted when we entered, when the first course arrived I woke right up!  It was all delicious and gorgeously plated!  Really wonderful dining in an unusual setting and the best company. Chef Sukan made it all look easy and this was the perfect finish to a long and wonderful day.  Two minutes after we arrived home, I was sound asleep and felt just great in the morning (which is truly amazing given the mass quantities of champagne, wine, and sake I consumed throughout the day)!!!

THANKS so much Sandy and Christine for organizing this — you were GREAT hosts!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=27jBIlBDtfg

from the Beach Museum of Art web site:

Figuring it Out: Prints and Drawings by Mike Lyon

April 14, 2009 -- July 18, 2009

Donna Lindsey Vanier Gallery

Kansas City-based artist Mike Lyon is the 2009 Friends of the Beach Museum of Art gift print artist. This exhibition features a selection of the artist’s recent prints and drawings, as well as examples from his extensive collection of Japanese prints. Lyon earned a BA in architecture and fine art (University of Pennsylvania, 1973) and a BFA in painting (Kansas City Art Institute, 1975). In 1976 he put his career as an artist on hold and joined the family business, a cattle hide processing operation in Kansas City his great-great grandfather started. Lyon invented a computerized system to automate the cattle hide grading process. In 1978 he founded Grading Systems, a computer hardware and software design company. Longing to make art full-time, Lyon sold his business interests and returned to his studio in 1991.

Lyon’s interest in computers and machines informs much of his recent work as a visual artist. His large-scale prints and drawings (as large as 84 × 45 inches) are based on his digital photographs of the human figure and inventively merge traditional art making methods and computer technology. Lyon’s work also demonstrates his keen interest in Japanese aesthetics. For example, his bust-length portrait heads recall the tradition of okubi-e (big-head picture) images. Lyon has an abiding passion for Japanese art and culture and is an avid collector of Japanese ukiyo-e prints.

Lyon’s prints and drawings are created with the aid of a ShopBot CNC (computer numerically controlled) router, a programmable machine designed for woodworking applications. He has modified the ShopBot to create a giant drawing and block cutting machine. With data from the digital photographs, he calculates millions of lines of movement code with which to program the ShopBot. This code instructs the machine how far to move an ink pen or a router bit along the X (length), Y (width), and Z (height) axes for each mark or cut. The final images can require as many as 12 million lines of code and nearly two weeks of non-stop drawing or cutting.

“Figuring it Out” is sponsored by the Friends of the Beach Museum of Art Business Partners.

Cover of catalog from the Beach Museum 2009 exhibition

distorted panorama of exhibition

sign at front door advertising the gallery-talk

Linda with "Annette" and "Linda"

Crosby and Anthony drawings - senior curator Bill North at right

Printmaking with Extreme Technology (Erik Brunvand, Chair with Edward Bateman, Stephen Hoskins, and Mike Lyon) 10-11:30am Friday, March 27 at Columbia College, Hokin Lecture Hall, 623 S. Wabash Ave, room 109

Printmaking is an art form that celebrates and embraces new technology in a way that other media do not. This panel gathers an international group of artists that are using extreme technology to make works that can only be called prints, but that are far removed from traditional printmaking techniques. These techniques include printing on silicon chips with image sizes measured in micrometers (millionths of meters), prints that include LEDs and other electrical components, 3D printing where the result is a solid object, the use of 3D computer modeling tools to create virtual worlds that are then printed digitally, and a wide variety of ways to use CNC routing in the printmaking process.

(l-r) Erik Brunvand, Steve Hoskins, Ed Bateman

The auditorium begins to fill 20 minutes prior to our talk - once underway, every seat was filled and people were in the aisles along both walls.

There were 120 – 140 in the audience when Erik introduced our panel and we got underway.

Ed Bateman is an assistant professor of art at the University of Utah and a working artist.  He described 3D modeling, adding skins with texture and color to wireframes, ray tracing, and sometimes days-long output to printing equipment.

Stephen Hoskins is the Hewlett Packard Professor of Fine Print and Director of the Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of the West of England in Bristol, UK and Vice-President of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers.  Steve talked about his work in rapid prototyping with binder and powders (including firable ceramic powders ‘printed’ on his equipment), and showed some colorful nested models he’s produced.

Erik Brunvand is Associate Professor in the School of Computing at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah.  He teaches chip design and described the process of printing transistors and capacitors in layers on silicon wafers.  He showed some of the colorful images he’s ‘printed’ microscopically in empty areas of some of the  micro-chips he designs.

Our talks seemed to be enthusiastically received and there was time for 30 minutes of questions and answers.  VERY FUN!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtjGGkCWwlQ

panorama of Backstage Pass at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City

“Sarah” April 5, 2006, 7 x 3.75 feet, pen and ink drawing, Permanent Collection, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

“Arthur”, Oct 31, 2006, 77 x 42.5 inches, pen and ink on Rives BFK paper, private collection

Mike Sims of Lawrence Lithography Workshop with 'Arthur' -- future collaborater

Exhibition catalog cover

Roger Shimomura, Chuck Close inside catalog

By pairing artworks from area private collections with examples by the same artists represented in the Kemper Museum’s permanent collection, this exhibition offers visitors a rare opportunity to see outstanding paintings, photographs, and sculptures by internationally acclaimed artists, including Willem de Kooning, Duane Hanson, Deborah Butterfield, Helen Frankenthaler, Lezley Saar, and Mike Lyon, among others, normally housed in private homes and offices. The diversity and quality of the featured works are not only a testament to Kansas City’s rich history of supporting the visual arts through public and private patronage, but also proof to the thriving support and enthusiasm for the arts in the city today.

Backstage Pass showcases noteworthy paintings by prominent American artists Richard Estes, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, and Frank Stella, highlighting the level of commitment and intensity shared by many area collectors.

Equally important are the collections that include works by artists that reside in the Kansas City area, such as Wilbur Niewad, Roger Shrmomura, and Michael Sincair. Portraits by Andy Warhol and Kansas City-based Mike Lyon illustrate the gratifying relationship that often develops between artist and patron-arguably one of the most enjoyable facets of championing living artists.

Rachael Blackburn Cozad, Director
Christopher Cook, Curator
Backstage Pass exhibition catalog

Wow! What a thrill!

The opening Friday, September 1 of “Mike Lyon: Large Scale Drawings and Woodblock Prints” was a pretty humongous party! I suppose more than 600 people passed through the gallery that evening between 7 when the doors were unlocked and about 9:40 when Sherry Leedy shooed the last of us out the door. I saw MANY old friends which was just wonderful.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbhP6GzapK0

My 1974-1975 painting instructor, retired chair of the Kansas City Art Institute’s painting department, Wilbur Niewald, was there — he just returned from a Guggenheim Fellowship spent painting in the Southwest US. He had the most wonderful time and we’ve got a dinner planned to find out all about it. Wilbur’s close friend, another retired painting professor at the Art Institute, Michael Walling was there and bought my “Fixing Hair” print. That was very nice.

Another KCAI retired faculty member, Victor Babu (of ceramics fame) visited and really seemed to love EVERYthing! He’s an enthusuiastic guy and characterized my big “Sara” reclining nude woodcut this way: “Omenish, very very omenish — the deep-deep-darks and the figure turned away — as if she’s sad or angry and maybe she’s talking about it — but what’s she saying? She’s rolled away up there but there’s that comfortable knitted thing up front — it’s soft, but she’s turned away from the comfort thing and us and all those deep blues — oh-menish… very VERY oh-menish!” — I asked him to please write my artist’s statement! (ha, ha)!

The director of the Kemper Museum, Rachel Blackburn, was there and bought the big “Sarah” drawing for their permanent collection. That felt great, I can tell you! Doug Freed, Director of the Daum Museum was there earlier with Dr. Daum and bought bought the big “Jon” drawing for their permanent collection! Wow and double-WOW! Very validating to me that these two excellent regional contemporary art museums stepped up and collected my most recent work on opening day!

The place was a veritable BUZZ of activity all night long — people pressing their noses right up against the prints and drawings, pointing and talking and it all seemed very energetic and positive! Now I’ve settled down a bit and am waiting for post-partum depression to overwhelm me!

“I was most impressed with Anthony‘s boldness and directness — the content itself — its scale, its lack of sentiment, the graphic beauty of the contrasts. the immediacy, I guess, of the image, married to a technique which seemed to my uneducated eyes to perfectly support that image. It is so monumental as well, which stood out among works that had to be limited to a certain dimension. Most people make small or medium sized works when the dimensions are medium-scaled. Yours was monumental in a really satisfying way.” Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, Curator of American and Contemporary Art Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art The University of Texas at Austin