Sunspot Drawings — Working Notes
January 2025

In no particular order:

• In all of my current work, and my recent Sunspot Drawings in particular, I am committed to the concepts of deep awareness, deep observation, deep focus, and deep reflection.

• I’m a naturalist and adhere to the idea that only natural laws and forces operate in the universe, as opposed to supernatural ones, although I’m fascinated by the history of mythology and religion.

   

• I want the drawings to be the antithesis – or maybe even the antidote – to the fake, staged social media culture of today. The works exist as real entries, a kind of diary documenting all of the conditions and context of their making. They present precise renderings of sunspots made during direct observation of the sun’s surface through my telescope, as well as other critical information including the date, GPS location, town and state, elevation, temperature, and weather conditions.

• The works are in a way “time-stamped” and present the day of the week, month, day, year, and hour of the day. This is a direct reference to On Kawara’s Today Series / Date Paintings started on January 4, 1966.

• My favorite day of the week to make drawings of the sun is of course Sunday, usually my one day off from work each week. Sunday is obviously named after the sun, the noun derived sometime before 1250 ACE from the word “sunedai”, which itself evolved from the Old English “sunnandæg” circa 700 ACE, literally meaning "sun's day".

• The drawings are primarily made in my garden in South Orange, NJ, which Rossana and I conceived, designed, and restored over the past five years after moving from Brooklyn in summer 2019. The garden has no large shade tr ees making it an ideal location for viewing the sky, both day and night.

• The GPS location of my garden, along with my town, state, and elevation, are all cited on each drawing.

• I make Sunspot Drawings, as well as photographs and videos during the day. I also make celestial drawings, photographs, and videos at night, weather and sky conditions permitting.

• South Orange village is illuminated by old-fashioned late 19th century / early 20th century gas lights making it rather dark at night. However, overall light pollution in the NYC / Newark area is still very high at night. The Bortle scale class at home is 8-9. The highest class is 9 for the most extreme amount of light pollution.

• In September 2022, we installed and launched a new solar energy system at home. My house and studio are now entirely powered by the sun, including my telescope and camera.

• With the goal of reducing the carbon footprint of the artwork I make as much as possible, in my Sunspot Drawings I use the minimal amount of art materials possible, including paper (sometimes recycled at least in part), gouache, water (sometimes rain water collected from my roof in a rain barrel), and graphite.

• In the back of my mind, I loosely contemplate the presence of the four elements in these works: gouache (water) on paper depicting images of the sun (fire) as viewed through a telescope in my garden (earth) while being subjected to the weather (wind).

   

• The sun is one of the first things we learn to draw as children. Rainbows too, which is the product of refracted sunlight. The sun is universally understood by all humans, as well as all other life on Earth.

   

• I think of my drawing process as being aligned to a life drawing class in art school, except in this instance, the model is not a human but rather a celestial body.

   

• I engage in intense, direct observation with my own eyes aided by a relatively sophisticated technological tool, a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. I want my images to be empirical, as is the additional ambient information they present. Everything is experienced first-hand.

   

• Using a telescope to view the sun is rather tricky, and I need to be careful and exacting when doing it. It risks instant and permanent blindness. I use a special solar filter on my telescope that blocks all infrared and ultraviolet light, as well as, 99.999% of visible light (only 1/1000 of sunlight passes through). I use various lenses to view the sun, usually a 32mm for overall viewing, supplemented by more powerful lenses ranging from 8mm to 24mm for viewing details.

   

• I work outside during all four seasons. It is equally challenging to work under the blazing hot sun during the summer and in the freezing cold of winter. I find it challenging to draw wearing a heavy winter coat, knit hat, and thick gloves.

   

• I prepare my drawing papers in advance in my studio – I call them blanks – but the drawings are completed outside very much in the tradition of plein air painting. Hudson River School painters Asher B. Durand (Maplewood), George Inness (Montclair), and Thomas Worthington Whittredge (Summit), among others, lived and worked nearby.

   

• I make the drawings clipped to a rigid drawing board which I place directly under the lens of my telescope. I use both of my eyes at the same time, but independent of one another. One eye observes through the lens while the other oversees the drawing process. I’ve learned to switch between them individually in my brain when working without having to move my head.

   

• The Sunspot Drawings are often annotated with ambient information in the form of supplemental drawings, sketches, diagrams, and texts. “Ambient” is the brilliant word Leslie Roberts uses to describe her work.

   

• The information presented alongside the sunspots in the drawings includes literally “anything under the sun”. This includes the flora and fauna present at the moment in my immediate surroundings, such as the blooming of specific flowers, the migration of birds, and occurrences in my life. I have given myself permission to make work about any subject matter of my choosing.

   

• In 2011, I curated a small group exhibition of Hunter Color School painters Gabriele Evertz, Vincent Longo, Doug Ohlson, Robert Swain, and Sanford Wurmfeld entitled “Pointing a Telescope at the Sun” at MINUS SPACE in Gowanus, Brooklyn. The title of the show was inspired by the lyrics of the song “Red Angel Dragnet” by The Clash.

   

• I have been interested in the subject of color for my entire lifetime. The source of all color, and all resultant color theory, is the sun. Color is light, white light emitted by the sun, which can be broken down by a prism into the visible spectrum of colors organized into ROYGBIV (400-700 nanometers in length). The sun also emits energy wavelengths that are not visible to the human eye, including gamma rays, x-rays, and ultraviolet light (shorter wavelengths than the visible spectrum), as well as infrared, microwaves, and radio waves (longer than the visible spectrum).

   

• The colors I initially selected for the sun portion of the drawings were classical warm hues: yellows, oranges, and reds. I quickly realized, however, that the sun can be depicted using any color in the spectrum, again because the sun is the source of all colors.

   

• The sun has almost always been depicted as yellow, orange, or red in nearly all cultures throughout history.

   

• The works are essentially monochrome paintings, augmented with drawn information in graphite.

   

• A circle or elliptical form floating near the top of a larger, vertically-oriented field is a recurring motif in my work since the mid-1990s.

   

• I made well over a hundred works on/of paper during the mid- to late-1990s and early 2000s concerning astronomical topics. Many of them were titled “Cosmic…” something. For example, Cosmic Radiation, Cosmic Energy, Cosmic Poles, etc.

   

• Then and now, my work is indebted to Prehistoric Art, Cycladic Art, Minoan Art, Mycenean Art, Ancient Greek Art, Tantric Art, Abstract Art, Geometric Art, Minimal Art, Post-Minimal Art, Op Art, Conceptual Art, Land Art, and Konkrete Kunst. This also includes diagrammatic art, which was the subject of two recent curatorial projects “Some Artists” at MINUS SPACE (2014) and “SUM Artists” at the Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY (2019). I also wrote my graduate thesis in Art History on the painter Alfred Jensen.

   

• Our sun is a star.

   

• The astronomical symbol for the sun is a circle with a dot in the center of it.

   

• The sun is the brightest object we can see in the sky.

   

• It is also the largest, comprehensible object clearly visible to us with the unaided eye on Earth.

   

• The sun’s age, 4.6 billion years old, and size are incomprehensible to me, which I find utterly sublime. Within the field of art, I immediately associate the word sublime with the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, as well as George Inness’s late Tonalist paintings, among many others.

   

• The sun comprises 99.86% of the total mass of our solar system. Our solar system essentially consists of the sun, plus some unremarkable space debris orbiting around it, which includes the planet we live on.

   

• The diameter of the sun is 864,000 km wide or 109 times wider than Earth.

   

• The volume of the sun is 1.4 x 1027 cubic meters. About 1.3 million Earths could fit inside the sun.

   

• The mass of the sun is 1.989 x 1030 kilograms or about 333,000 times that of Earth.

   

• The sun is a smaller star relative to others. For comparison, the star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion is 700 times larger than the sun and 14,000 times brighter. I have also observed and photographed this star through my telescope in the past.

   

• Every second, the sun converts 600 million tons of hydrogen into helium.

   

• The core temperature of the sun is approximately 15.7 million degrees Kelvin.

   

• The sun’s energy takes 10,000 to 170,000 years to escape from its core.

   

• Light from the sun takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds to reach the Earth. For me, this is immediately reminiscent of John Cage’s work 4’33”. 8’20” will be the title of a future solo show of these drawings, if I’m ever given the opportunity.

   

• The sun is a nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma. But even the sun isn’t perfect as its height and width differ by 10km (only).

   

• The sun rotates counterclockwise around its axis and its equator rotates faster (25.6 days) than its poles (33.5 days).

   

• The sun's magnetic field completely flips approximately every 11 years, meaning the sun's north and south poles switch places on a regular basis.

   

• On average, the solar cycle takes about 11 years to go from one solar maximum to the next, with the observed duration varying from 9 to 14 years.

   

• Each solar cycle is divided into ascending, maximum, declining, and minimum phases.

   

• The Solar Maximum, when the Sun’s magnetic polarity flips, is the period of time when the sun has the most sunspots (maximalism). 2025 is predicted to be the next peak.

   

• The Solar Minimum is when the sun has the least number of sunspots (minimalism). The last Solar Minimum was in December 2019.

   

• Our current solar cycle is Number 25 and started in December 2019, which means that the Sun has been slowly ramping up its sunspot and flare activity for the past few years.

   

• The sun approaching Solar Maximum is likely why the Aurora Borealis has been visible in New Jersey several times in 2024. I photographed this geomagnetic phenomenon at home during the fall 2024.

   

• Sunspots are phenomena on the sun's photosphere, its outermost layer, that appear as temporary spots that are darker than the surrounding areas.

   

• Sunspots are regions of reduced surface temperature caused by concentrations of magnetic flux that inhibit convection.

   

• Sunspots appear within active regions, usually in pairs of opposite magnetic polarity.

   

• Individual sunspots or groups of sunspots may last anywhere from a few days to a few months, but eventually decay.

   

• Sunspots expand and contract as they move across the surface of the Sun with diameters ranging from 10 to 100,000 miles.

   

• Sunspots have two main structures: a central umbra and a surrounding penumbra.

   

• The sun is the origin of all life on Earth.

   

• The sun is responsible for the seasons, which are each marked by either a solstice or equinox. Solstices occur in the summer (June) and winter (December), while equinoxes occur in spring (March) and fall (October).

   

• The word solstice comes from the Latin words sol, meaning "sun", and sistere, meaning “to stand still”. The solstice occurs twice each year, once during the start of summer and a second time during the start of winter, when the sun appears to stand still in the sky for a few days – at its highest point (summer) or its lowest point (winter) on the horizon – before reversing direction again.

   

• For my home in South Orange, the maximum solar declination (height in the sky) at the summer solstice is 72.7 degrees. The minimum solar declination (height in the sky) at the winter solstice is 25.8 degrees. The average solar declination (height in the sky) during both equinoxes is 49.3 degrees.

   

• The sun is the source for the Gregorian calendar, including its Leap Year adjustments every 4 years.

   

• The sun moves 1/365 (or nearly 1 degree) against the background of stars every day of the year. This is an apparent motion, not an actual one.

   

• The sun is pre-human and will be post-human. The sun is completely indifferent to human existence and all of our folly.

   

• The sun is the only thing all of humanity shares in common, but no one can ever own.

   

• The sun appears throughout recorded history. It has also been depicted in art across the globe throughout history.

   

• Prior to 800 BCE, the earliest record of sunspots is found in the Chinese I Ching. The text describes that a “dou” and “mei” were observed in the sun, where both words refer to a small obscuration.

   

• In 364 BCE, the earliest record of a deliberate sunspot observation also comes from China, based on comments by astronomer Gan De in a star catalogue.

   

• By 28 BCE, Chinese astronomers were regularly recording sunspot observations in official imperial records.

   

• The ancient Greeks were the first to accurately measure the distance to the sun at 93 million miles.

   

• Circa 300 BCE, the first clear mention of a sunspot in Western literature by ancient Greek scholar Theophrastus, a student of Plato and Aristotle, and successor to the latter.

   

• On March 17, 807 ACE, Benedictine monk Adelmus observed a large sunspot that was visible for 8 days. He thought it was the transit of Mercury across the sun.

   

• In 813 ACE, a large sunspot was observed at the time of Charlemagne’s death.

   

• On December 8, 1128 ACE, English monk John of Worcester made a drawing of sunspots, the oldest surviving depiction of a sunspot on record.

   

• In the late 12th Century, Andalusian polymath Averroes provides a description of sunspots.

   

• In December 1610, English astronomer Thomas Harriot made the first observations of sunspots through a telescope.

   

• While in Rome in 1612, Galileo Galilei showed sunspots to several observers. He had no idea what they were. That same year Galileo wrote letters about sunspots to German banker, politician, and astronomer Mark Welser, which were published in 1613.

   

• In 1917, astronomers at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California started drawing sunspots by hand, a tradition which continues until today.

   

• The sun has been worshipped as a god, deity, and mythological entity throughout most of recorded human history.

   

• The sun controls the day. The moon the night.

   

• The sun rules the cosmic order. The king rules the social order.

   

• The sun’s movements across the sky from season to season, including the spring and vernal equinox, summer and winter solstice, have been observed, understood, and tracked throughout most of recorded human history. Humans have built countless monuments dedicated to the sun or a sun god, or that track the sun’s annual movement across the sky. This includes Stonehenge and countless others.

   

• In ancient Egypt, a celestial cow gave birth to a golden calf, the sun.

   

• The sun god Ra was honored and worshipped at Heliopolis since the beginning of recorded history in Egypt.

   

• The sun was also called Horus, the Falcon god, who has one eye as the sun and the other as the moon. When combined, Ra and Horus are called Ra-Horakhti.

   

• In ancient Egypt, the sun has many names. The disk is called Aton. The rising sun is named Khepri. At its zenith, the sun is Ra. At sunset, it’s Atoum.

   

• In ancient Greece the sun was personified by the god Helios. Helios is often depicted with a radiant crown and driving a horse-drawn chariot across the sky. 

   

• I’ve developed a separate document listing all of the sun gods across the globe throughout history. There are well over one hundred.

   

• Humans are responsible for our greatest existential threat currently in the form of climate change due to global warming, which is the trapping of the sun’s heat in our atmosphere at unsustainable rates. Heat from the sun will eventually lead to our extinction.