JIM LEISY STATEMENT

ARTIST STATEMENT

Amateur Physics is a visual ramble from the literal to the metaphysical, with an occasional dash of humor. The series illustrates an idea, process or device from science or mathematics. Almost all the images were created using a small set made from a pasteboard box. The overarching goal was to make photographs that can be appreciated without knowing the back story. The image making process embraces technologies that bridge the 21st and 19th centuries. Each photograph is captured in a digital camera, from the digital file a computer-generated negative is created to make a Van Dyke Brown contact print. The prints are made in spring-back wooden contact frames that are placed in my backyard to capture ultraviolet (UV) light from the sky, a method known as “printing out” or “sun printing.”

Amateur means “lover” in French. In 19th century England amateurism was a badge of honor and amateurs made many scientific breakthroughs. Amateur scientist of enormous stature Sir John Herschel invented the Van Dyke Brown process in 1842. The method improved upon his friend William Henry Fox Talbot’s groundbreaking photographic efforts (1839) in that the chemistry and process is pleasant, permanent and less hazardous.

Last fall, while convalescing from a broken ankle, I was inspired by the gift of a Crookes’ Radiometer, which was invented in the 19th century, and began experimenting with it photographically. The radiometer became the intellectual traction for these images and led me to the series title Amateur Physics.
I have been interested in science for a long time. Our family moved from New York to California when the Soviets put Sputnik into earth orbit. Science began to fascinate me. I was given a chemistry set and worked my way through all the experiments in the little manual that came with it. Later, I was selected with a few other boys to be in a special elementary physics class with a charismatic teacher named Mr.Van Vlack. It was in this class that I first laid eyes on the curious scientific instrument called a Crookes’ Radiometer.
Art, too, has been a part of my life. My mother is a painter. She taught me to sketch and to paint with watercolors; and gave me my first camera. With like-minded high school friends I learned how to make photographs and the basics of darkroom chemistry.
Science and art were equal pursuits in my youth. I entered my watercolor paintings in school art competitions and created projects for science fairs. My most ambitious science fair project was an analog computer that could do addition and subtraction.