The Art of Engineering

-- Kimberly Chapple

This is a story about an artist, an engineering team and a gallery owner who work together to bring the arts to the public. In a Cleveland Magazine interview with novelist Scott Lax, Art Avenue Galleries owner Paul Sykes mentions his reverence for artists of all kinds: "Poets, musicians, writers, dancers and artists show we common people the other side of reality through their art."

Windows 98 by Natasha Turovsky

And, now, so do engineers.

The painting Windows 98 is what up-and-coming Russian/Canadian violinist/painter Natasha Turovsky refers to as her "abstract of windows" completed in (you guessed it) 1998. Her paintings hang in Sykes' gallery with the works of famous artists from all over the world, including Dali, Tarkay, Yarek Godfrey.ow, and child protégé Alexandra Nichita. Priced at about $3,000, the original Windows 98 will surely be purchased soon, and as with any original, just one person will take it home. However, with the creation of the Giclee PrintMakerFA designed by engineers at ColorSpan Corp, Eden Prairie, MN, 199 fine art reproductions will be produced, allowing even more people to own the piece.

Product Development Manager for Fine Art David Hamre led the ColorSpan team's development of the Giclee, introducing it to the public in October 1998. The color performance of 8-print-head technology with the precision accuracy of drum-based architecture provides continuous-tone image quality at an apparent 1800 dpi. The adjustable print head design (shown here) accepts a wide range of media, up to 0.100 in. thick, and can basically print on anything that will wrap around the drum, including rice paper, off-the-shelf watercolor and leather.

At the heart of the system is the Automation Eye, a built-in CCD camera that performs printhead adjustments based on feedback from the printer to the software in the external print server. The system is designed to run at a specific interval, or it can be started by the user from the control panel on the printer. It prints any PostScript file from Mac, PC or Unix platforms, and can also print any TIF or EPS files.

So much for so many. Now if the artists, engineers, and gallery owners could just get the arts back into the schools...

Printmaker print heads

For more information, contact ColorSpan Corp., 7090 Shady Oak Road, Eden Prairie, MN 55344. 612-944-9330. http://www.colorspan.com Circle 560.

Art Avenue Galleries, Tower City Center, 230 Huron Road, NW, Cleveland, OH 44113. 216-621-6312. Circle 561.