New Exhibit-"Road Blocks"

For a long time I’ve been contemplating how I might build a sort-of modular do-it-yourself art exhibit, involve a matrix of squares designed to fit together visually in such a way as to generate interesting compositions no matter how they were arranged.

Recently it came to me to start creating squares whose common design element would be a road or path running from the center of each side of a square, then connecting diagonally to the center of an adjacent side. That way the paths in each square would always connect in random configurations if the squares were arranged side-by-side and top to bottom to make larger square or rectangular arrays.


I made a first prototype, pictured to the left. The elemental squares were all different, but too uniformly alike in color and design to quite accomplish the end I’d envisioned. For a “beta” version, I increased the size of the squares to 2", widened, simplified the “paths” so it was easier to see them as a basic element of the design, and used more varied color and visual graphic elements in the areas outside the paths. I also scanned the 12 basic “tile” designs and printed copies in both forward and reversed directions, so they can be arranged in quads to make mandala type designs, as below, that can stand alone or be included as part of larger arrangements.

At this point my wife, an avid quilter, accused me of “quilter envy.” So be it, I said. It suggested a possible name for the exhibit: Quilt Blocks. However, upon further thought, I settled on a double entendre, “Road Blocks,” referring to the fact that the element common to all the squares is paths or roads.

This exhibit can be quite hypnotizing if you tinker with it for awhile. The figure/ground relationships that come up have a way of training your eyes to see whole patterns at once instead of only individual squares. I notice that my tendency is to start out by attempting to arrange similar corner colors adjacent to each other, while letting the yellow paths fall as they may. It can end up so that there’s the yellow paths serving as a foreground and other paths, formed from the different colored corner areas, serving as irregularly-formed background paths. The eye tends to flip back and forth between seeing the paths or seeing the background colors and symbols as other paths and designs. After a spell of practice with this, any need to indulge in newly legalized recreational substances is eliminated.

The square designs are drawn with India Ink pen, colored with aqua color pencil, scanned, printed on Canson water color ink jet paper, coated with a UV-filtered spray fixative, then glued to wood blocks with PVA glue.

I suspect that after I’ve taken more time to experiment with this set of squares that other design possibilities will suggest themselves. Stay tuned for updates.

Kevin Jones