Video: Baumwoll Archives Presents -The Art & Healing World of Andrew Reach

My Husband Bruce Baumwoll created this wonderful video featuring my art and the many places it has gone to. My art is always about healing as making each work assists my mind and body with my challenges of coping with pain and mobility and this video expresses that beautifully. With access to all of my images, he curated a range of my work in different periods. The images go by fast; quick impressions building on each other. The speed and music captures the energy he sees in my art. In a way, it’s a love letter to me in video form. We’ve been together over 38 years now and I could not have created this work without his love and devotion.

Here’s what Bruce wrote about the video:

I hope you enjoy this extraordinary experience of the art of Andrew Reach, who happens to be my husband for almost 39 years now. No matter how many times while editing it, I have watched his images, it continually takes me away from self into a world of color, shape and wonder. For those of you who are just seeing the work of Andrew Reach for the first time, he was an architect and because of a rare debilitating spine disease, became disabled and reinvented himself as an artist.

I want to share the following quote by Andrew’s late uncle James Grossman. It was written for us as a comment on Amazon when Andrew had a 2012 Calendar “Circles”.

“The very existence of this art required the intersection of time, circumstance and events beyond normal understanding. Add the needed advances in personal technology, previous education, an overwhelming medical disability, the determination of one young man to fight and create, and the love of another determined to help, that is the story of these works. And with all that, the art still overwhelms the story. Full disclosure requires stating that Andrew and Bruce are my Nephews, and that I love them.”

I invite you to see Bruce’s other videos on youtube and his blog on an eclectic range of his interests.

Click here to go to his youtube channel

Click here to go to his blog Baumwoll Archives

Wire – – Less

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Wire – – Less, 2019
UV cured inkjet on composite acrylic/aluminum panel
38 x 76 inches, edition of 3

In the past I’ve worked with circles organized as a matrix of dots but a regularized grid (x and y are equal) makes the axis of diagonal rows of dots at an angle of 45 degrees. So, I thought, what would happen if the grid was modified to make the axis at 60 degrees. I further thought, how could I create a further sense of movement. I substituted circles with ovals and rotated them along the long axis at a 30 degree angle giving them some tension.

For a little insight into my process, above is also sketch of mathematical layout in pixels I worked out first. This allows me to place guidelines in photoshop at 300 pixels vertically and 173 pixels horizontally giving me the accuracy I need to construct it.

For this first piece using this grid and rotated ovals, I spell out the words Wire Less. At first glance it could be read as wireless, a nod to the ubiquitousness of wireless technology. But another reading is Wire – Less; a message to metaphorically unplug once and a while.

Art for the New LBGT Community Center of Greater Cleveland – Test Print

It’s been wonderful working on a commission for the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland. Their new building, by Architecture firm WMF, with lead architect David Thal, in the Gordon Square Arts District in the Detroit Shoreway Neighborhood on Cleveland’s west side, is nearing completion. The building is modern, with its metal, glass and masonry planes. Yet, it also nods in respect to its neighbors, where it feels at home in its historic context.

I’m honored that my work will be part of the life of the building and the people of the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland. I hope the joyfulness this artwork makes me feel, is also experienced by those who interact with it. As a gay man, together with my husband Bruce Baumwoll for 38 years, we’ve lived our life proud; fought for civil rights; cared for each other. So, it’s especially meaningful, to be in a place where the LGBT community is served.

About The Print

TEST PRINT

The type of print is UV cured inkjet on a composite aluminum panel called Dibond. A UV Curing Inkjet Printer cures the ink practically instantly as powerful UV light is applied while the ink is being laid down. The other feature will be that the print will be cut to shape on a CNC Router.

The artwork will be made of of 53 diamonds. The diamond shape was given the name Rhombus by the mathematician Euclid, hence the title of the work Fifty Three Rhombuses. A Rhombus is the geometric name in Euclidean Geometry which says it is a simple quadrilateral whose four sides all have the same length. The most famous Rhombus of all is perhaps the Baseball Diamond. Each Rhombus is divided up into four triangles, each of varying color. For the test print, I did 5 of these Rhombuses at full size (see image above). I used this test print, not only to check color, but also to test the accuracy of the cutting. To my delight, the CNC router cut it with exacting accuracy; important because of the exacting nature of the geometric forms. The overall size of the final print will be 118″wide x 56″high.

Doing the printing is Vista Color Imaging in Cleveland. They do great work. I Enjoy working with them and they enjoy working with artists. Thank you Kim and Scott and the rest of the team!