GEOMAGNETIC TRAVELLOGUE - Artworks for Los Angeles

I consider Los Angeles to be the starting and ending point for
this journey. It is my birthplace, and I have lived here for 36 years.

California is known for its earthquakes, and Los Angeles sits upon
the San Andreas Fault. This important faultline is where the Pacific
techtonic plate slides past the North American techtonic plate. Half
of Los Angeles is moving slowly towards Anchorage, Alaska. The other
half is travelling south.

Los Angeles is home to Caltech, one of the foremost institutions
in the study of seismic and geomagnetic activity, as well as astronomy
and physics. Los Angeles is also home to the historical Mount Wilson
observatory, which is situated directly above my childhood home in
Pasadena. This is where Edwin Hubble made many of his nobable observations
with the now antiquated 100-inch Hooker Telescope.

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farallon(2007)

oil and charcoal on canvas 12" x 13"

The Farallon Plate is the name given to the techtonic plate that has almost entirely subducted under the North American techtonic plate. It is responsible for the long chain of extinct volcanoes that line the San Andreas fault. The Farallon plate is a massive basaltic slab that lies deep below much of the United States.

If Light Can Bend (2009)

oil, charcoal, and paper on panel
chalk on chalkboard

Installation for the exhibit "The Studio as Laboratory"
at California Institute of Technology

If Light Can Bend (Detail)