1940: BORN AND RAISED IN LINCOLN NEBRASKA, but that was not my fault.

1945: I GOT REAL EXPERIENCE OF BEING AN ARTIST, ages 5 and 6

I made small plaster molds of animals. After I painted them, I put them in a basket and walked door to door selling them, escorted by my 8-year-old sister.

1951: FIRST GROUP ART SHOW, city-wide student show, age 11

1952: FIRST ELECTRICAL WORKS

At age 12, I made a conceptual desk lamp. At age 13, I made a crystal radio.

1958: UPON ENTERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA, I CHANGED MY MAJOR FROM ENGINEERING TO ART

1964 – 1972: FIRST ARCHIVAL PERIOD; ‘DIMENSIONAL SHIFT’

I took a photography class at university, and after graduating I started working with high-contrast black and clear photo transparencies on glass, mounted 4 inches in front of my painting on the same subject. This combination created what I called “push and pull of space.” These images shift with the viewer’s movement.

MY CONCEPT OF EXPANDING SPACE IN ART HAS CONTINUED WITH ME.

1964: INDEPENDENT “LIGHT AND SPACE” IN NEBRASKA

I may have been one of the first artists outside Los Angeles to use the conceptual elements of “Light and Space” in art, even before there was a recognized named art movement. The California “Light and Space” movement was unknown to me until about 1978.

1965: MOVED TO LOS ANGELES TO PURSUE THE ARTS, age 25

I became inspired by the infinity of space joining with the vast horizon of the ocean.

1968: ROCK & ROLL WITH STAGE LIGHTING

These were my first mature experiences with the art of electric light.

1969: GOT A STRONG URGE TO TRAVEL OUTSIDE OF THE STATES

My first taste of being a global free spirit. While in Trinidad, West Indies, I appreciated my creative side and realized that someday I would become a professional artist.

1970, rejecting the norms in art, age 30

1971: FIRST YEARS OF BEING A FULL-TIME ARTIST, age 31

Silver Lake district, Los Angeles, CA: I was not happy with my early body of work from the 1960s, so I experimented to become more original and more interesting. By 1973, I had stopped looking at other art to avoid influences. I wanted to be original.

1973 – to now: EARLY CONTEMPORARY, SECOND ARCHIVAL PERIOD; BOXES

I was early into “Art and Technology,” using fluorescent, neon, and L.E.D. lighting inside sculpture. My conceptual art includes a primordial push and pull of darkness and light, which makes infinity art within the optically expanded space inside a mirror-box.

1973 my first self-portrait, with a good friend

1973: MY 10-YEAR COLLECTION OF COMPONENTS

(1) I experimented with “push and pull of space” since 1964. (2) I invented an original artform in 1973, which I call “infinity light and space.” (3) The artform is viewer interactive. (4) I focus on the phenomena of light and space in art by merging electric light and vacuum coated glass. (5) My minimalistic graphics become complex-looking when reflected hundreds of times inside geometric mirrored structures. (6) I use aerospace technology.

These components are my teachers, telling me their capabilities and limitations, which led me towards making a complex artform. From these rare parameters, I was able to create original art. My choices for making art is a mysterious set of coincidences, just like my new artform is mysterious looking onto itself.

MY 4TH DIMENSION

The viewer’s interactive kinetic movement is 4th dimensional: defined as a 3-D object moving through space and time. To complete my sculpture, viewer movement is necessary, and it  yields a 4th dimensional sensation.

In my 4-D art, like meditation, there are common sensory elements present: light and Darkness, balance and harmony, participation and stillness, the essence of infinity, inner Beauty and joy. I am a light and space sensationalist, and I want spectators to feel these qualities when looking into my art.

MY OPTICAL ILLUSIONS

My art draws the spectator into an environment of paradoxical contrasts – stillness and motion, space where there is no space.

Inside the glass sculpture there is a visually extended space where it is physically impossible to extend that space.

1974 – 1977: THIRD ARCHIVAL PERIOD; COLOUR THEORY

During meditation studies I learned about the energy “chakra” system in the body. Each of the seven chakras is related to one color of the visible wavelengths of light. This led me to color theory studies, which fascinated me so much that my art images became open sequences of rainbows. My rainbows were not decorative rainbows and not about “flower children” in this era of the free spirit. I was parallel to them, but my free spirit led me to create art.

1974 – ‘Repeating Waves’ inside a 30” x 30” x 16” deep box.

               A piece I conceived while surfing at Santa Monica beach.

1975: MY FIRST GROUP MUSEUM EXHIBITION

San Francisco city-wide “Rainbow Shows:” My art was in both the Legion of Honor Museum and in the de Young Museum during this exhibition.

EXHIBITION REVIEW:

San Francisco Examiner 3/27/1975; by Frankenstein: “The light sculpture by Ray Howlett is the only artwork in this exhibition worthy to be displayed in a major art museum.”

1975. ‘Rainbow Vortex’ exhibited at the
de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA.
Image inside a 30” x 30” x 16” Deep box.

1976 – 1978: FOURTH ARCHIVAL PERIOD; REALISM

While exploring the world around me, I recognized my appreciation for the natural world. I turned images into pseudo realism inside my box-shapes.

1976
‘Portrait of Mom and Dad’

1976: I MOVED MY STUDIO TO MALIBU, CAlIFORNIA

I wanted to get away from the congestion of the city, and I wanted to get closer to the infinity and dazzling light at the beach.

1977
Self-portrait, in my Malibu studio. Age 37

1978: I WAS ONE OF TWO FATHERS OF THE “DICHROISM” ART MOVEMENT

The most vital aspect of my artistic growth came with my discovery of California aerospace industries that produced “dichroic light filters.” These highly reflective thin-film coatings make color shift with different angles of view. 1978 onward, all my color is dichroism.

2004 ‘Homage to Victor Vasarely’
Detail image inside a 2-foot box.
My favorite example of Dichroism.

1978 to now: FIFTH ARCHIVAL PERIOD; TRIANGULAR

I grew curious to explore structural shapes beyond the boxes. One of the shapes I wanted to make required a light bulb that had not yet been invented. I was able to start this new series when the bulb became manufactured in 1983.

Pinnacle (Detail), 1983

1983: MOVED MY STUDIO TO SANTA MONICA, CA

Inside my Santa Monica studio:

A disappearing ghostly self-portrait, with me
stepping into a time-exposure photo of my
sculpture.

1984: MOVED MY STUDIO TO VENICE, CA

I soon realized that I was too shy to go meet the Light and Space artists of Venice, even though I was near the action and not so isolated as I was in Malibu. A highlight of this Venice period was getting into the Frederick Weisman art collection in Los Angeles.

1989: MOVED MY STUDIO TO TOPANGA, CA

Once again, I grew tired of being in the big city, and wanted to live again in the peaceful hills, but close enough to still have access to the Los Angeles art world.

I had been moving my studio too many times, taking too much time to take down and resetup. I decided to put my studio on wheels. I bought a 30-foot delivery truck and outfitted it into a working studio, with efficient workstations, and installed big windows all around. It was cost effective and a very efficient use of space

1990
Studio truck parked on a hillside in Topanga, with camouflage
nets covering the truck, where I continued to make my art.

1991: MOUNTAIN LIFE SUITS ME BEST

It seems like an unreasonable contrast between the three worlds I like best: reclusive mountain life, technology in my art, and the fine-art world. One alignment that I enjoy is the development of the new generation of science fiction films. One highlight for me was getting my art into one of the greatest film series, ‘Star Trek.’

1991

‘Star Trek, The Next Generation, Reunification Part 2’

1995: MOVED BACK TO LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, age 55

My father had passed away, mom was lonely, and there was a recession in the art market, so I drove my studio to Lincoln. This period was some of my best creative years because of the security in my life.

1997
At mother’s home in Lincoln, Nebraska

1998: SOLO MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS BEGIN

From my mother’s suggestion, I started making “presentation” road trips. She said, “People cannot understand this art by seeing only photographs or video; they need to see one to really know the art.” Traveling east of the Rockies, I presented to about 150 curators who wanted to see my work: 1997 to 2008. It paid off; 25 museums gave me solo exhibitions and 25 Museum collected my work.

2008: MY MOTHER PASSED AWAY

Her passing made me realize the futility of life. I saw that I had not contributed as much to humanity as I thought I could through my art. I was vain in my own way, so I took time off from art, after seeing there was a greater need in the world for my help.

2017: MY CABIN IN THE CALIFORNIA MOUNTAINS

I bought a cabin in the Pine Mountains, A 2-hour drive north of Los Angeles. For me, the refreshing silent mountains is ideal for making my kind of light and space art.

Working inside my new studio, Pine Mountain, CA. Age 79.

2019: MY GOAL IS TO MAKE MAINLY MONUMENTAL SIZE ART

The new art will be “walk-through” light sculpture, to be like taking a short walk through a strange new world.

MY SELF REALIZATION

I wake up each morning to realize that with the birth of a new day I get to use my imagination and skills. It makes me marvel at what a person can do when filled with thankfulness and a free spirit.