email: scaravillidesign@sbcglobal.net

A contemporary art gallery and digital design studio located in the heart of Cleveland's Little Italy.

Featuring fine art from local, national and international artists including original paintings, archival quality prints, photo-art, jewelry, ceramic art, blown glass, titanium, and ceramic sculpture

I have used the bicycle as my preferred mode of transportation as well as a way of seeing the world, and I feel deeply connected to them, both mentally and physically.

While traveling in Europe, I was taken by all the unusual, un-American bicycles I saw casually leaned against ancient stone walls and architectural masterpieces. They took on a sculptural quality for me – even their colors interacted beautifully with their exquisite backgrounds – and I began to photograph them to try to capture this effect. I wanted to express my appreciation for both the architecture of Western Europe and the people there who use bikes with the same kind of necessity and affection as I do. With these photographs, I am also seeking to promote the European bike-riding culture to America, to make drivers more conscious of bikers, and most of all, to celebrate the freedom and unconditional youthfulness that bicycles have given to me over the years.

I have always been fascinated with movement and dance. When videotaping a modern dance concert in the late 1980’s, I came to an inspirational understanding of dance choreography. By bringing dancers into a video production studio and through the process of following them with the camera, I began to anticipate their postures and movements and to create new movements in my mind’s eye. I realized that I could influence the choreography by using special effects on the video control panel to manipulate the images of the dancer much like a sound engineer manipulates sound with the special effects on a sound board.

The abstraction of imagery became as interesting to me as the dancer and her abstract movements; I began to focus on that aspect of the videotaping.

The Process

In the 1980's, by using effects such as Chroma key, and adjusting various controls on the switcher I created trails og feedback as I videotaped. With this I began to choreograph the dancers’ movements. In turn, she could see the manipulated images of herself on the monitor and began to shape her movements in response to my interpretation. I felt as though I was dancing with her, and that I could finally be a dancer and a choreographer through the use of the video technology.

I fell in love with the images I’d created and decided to add new photoshop filters and effects to them to bring the technology of 1980 and 2007 together creating new works of art.