Program brings out artists in student body
Javier Marquez

Bandsaws buzz and sanders grind at any given hour of the day in the student shop, a small corner of campus notable otherwise only for a large hissing gas tank outside. That’s where a group of Caltech students are shaping metal, wood, and plastic into artworks under the guidance of George Rhoads, Caltech’s artist in residence.

An internationally renowned sculptor and painter from Ithaca, New York, Rhoads accepted a six-week appointment to work with 10 students on sculptures of their own design. Members of the Institute Art Committee selected the students based on their experience in sculpting and their interest in creating art.

Rhoads specializes in what are called audiokinetic sculptures, and true to that description, sound and movement are essential elements in his pieces. Some of his best-known public works are three- to five-story rolling ball sculptures with pun-filled names like Lalaballoosa, Watchama-ballit, and Sweet Morning Love Tower. To the casual observer, they look like large perpetual-motion machines. In fact, they are vertical labyrinths.

By using motors, as well as gravity and the energy stored in springs, billiard balls are sent scurrying up and down ramps, winding their way down spirals and chutes and corkscrews, clicking and clacking and ringing bells along the way. Once they reach the end, a motorized lift carries them back to the top. All this activity takes place behind clear Plexiglas, which protects the sculpture while allowing viewers to follow all the action.

At Caltech, the students’ sculptures are built on a more modest scale but do not lack for imagination, intricacy, or complexity of design.

“For the students, anything goes,” Rhoads said. “They’re doing a whole variety of work: some are doing wind-driven works and others are doing motorized machine-type things.”

Jordan Miller, a junior majoring in engineering and applied science, has fashioned a device out of copper and steel tubing and ball bearings. When completed, a light bulb will be housed inside two nested mesh spheres. A small motor will rotate the spheres in opposite directions, and the result will be ripples and waves, visual effects called moiré patterns. Light from the bulb will cast interesting shadows on the surrounding walls.

Miller has worked in metal sculptures, photography, and painting, and his work has been shown at San Francisco’s de Young Museum. He estimates having invested about 100 hours in his piece and says he is pleased to be working with Rhoads.

“He’s very mellow and happy to have students do what interests them,” Miller said. “He’s managed to collect a diversity of ideas. He’s also left us to be self-motivated on our own projects.”
Rhoads spends every morning at the shop, trading ideas and helping the students find solutions to the problems they encounter. He’s found that many times the students come up with their own creative answers.

“Some of them have a background in art, and all are students here, so of course they have a background in engineering,” Rhoads said. “I’m surprised and impressed at the quality of their inventive ability and their expertise with mechanical things.”

Marcelle Toor, Rhoads’s wife and an artist herself, said that what impressed her was the students’ enthusiasm.

“It seems like the students were really hungry to do some art, and they’ve come up with some good ideas,” she said. “They are using scrap material—really, whatever they can get their hands on.”

Rhoads’s presence here marks the possible revival of the artist residency program that, until about 25 years ago, occasionally brought local artists onto campus to teach and work with the students.

“President Baltimore is strongly interested in the arts,” said Robert Rosenstone, professor of history and chair of the Institute Art Committee, which selected Rhoads and chose the students. “For two or three years, the committee has been wanting to start a resident program again.”

He added that, as far as he can remember, art instruction has always been a part of campus life. Workshops in ceramics, drawing and painting, though not a formal part of the curriculum, have always been very popular with a subset of students, he said.

“The reason we want artists in residence is because it adds to the students’ general education by broadening their horizons,” he added. “Art brings another dimension of the human experience.”

Although Rhoads’s stay here ends next week, few of the sculptures will be completed by then. Nonetheless, an “open shop day,” during which the campus community can tour the shop and view the works in progress, is being discussed, said Denise Nelson Nash, director of Caltech’s Office of Public Events.
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