About the Artist – Steve Emery

I love Michelangelo’s comment about his sculpting, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” I do share that feeling. My subjects are already there. They are just waiting for me to find them with the right illumination and spark to bring them to life.

I have worked with computer systems for over 20 years. While I have dabbled in the arts over the years, I just hadn’t found my place. ChipScapesTM came about as a confluence of hobbies. I am a collector of vintage computer chips. And I have been an avid photographer since I was a teenager. The idea for ChipScapesTM started when I began framing old computer chips with photographs as gifts for my family. With their encouragement I shifted the focus from the physical chip to the artwork you see today.

In my home town of Winter Park, FL, we are fortunate to have a world class museum, The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art.  The Morse Museum has the largest collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany's artwork. The museum is only a 10 minute walk from my home and I visit it often. Tiffany was a genius with many artistic talents. His choice of glass as his primary medium led many to relegate him to the industrial arts, rather than the fine arts. I feel a certain affinity with Tiffany, in that a lot of my work can be thought of as industrial art. Also, although we come at it from very different angles, both our work is based in glass. Chips, and my artworks, are made possible because of the SiO₂ (Silicon Dioxide) insulation layers used in their construction. The more common name for SiO₂ is glass. Tiffany and I were attracted to glass for the same reasons, namely the way that it reflects and refracts light. Whereas he sought to create the light in his works, I attempt to capture it in mine. Many of my artworks have a stained glass feel, which is not by accident.

Ultimately, I view myself as a kind of 21st century pop artist.

To each of my works I attach a short narrative. In these I try to share a little of my inspiration and a little of the work’s context. Some say art should stand on its own. I am from a different school that believes that the greatest appreciation of art comes from an understanding of the influences and circumstances that surround its creation.

My pictures are joys for me to create. As I acquire new chips I revel in their technology and place in history. Under the microscope, I study their designs looking for uniqueness, a quirk, an unusual aspect or quality. These are the basis for my pictures. I look at the circuits that make a chip special and see if I can highlight them. It is a treasure hunt. I am sometimes disappointed, but not often. I am truly humbled by the genius of the designers of these chips and hope my work does them some tribute.

Shakespeare put forth a question, “To be, or not to be.” There is much debate about what exactly he meant, but I believe, beyond the confines of Hamlet, it is a call to live, to see the beauty in the world. That’s what makes life worth living. We can live our lives ignoring the beauty all around us, but I chose “to be.” I choose to seek out beauty and share it with others. My hope is to inspire people to find the art in all that they do. After all, even in the coldness of technology we can find beauty … if we look for it.

Steve Emery

Here is a running log of news, events, etc:

October 14th, 2005

A lot has happened since I started this journey. I am now an "award winning and internationally collected artist". This statement seems pretty outrageous to me, but even more bizarrely, is true. I am told I should exude confidence, as successful artists do, but I am just humbled by the acceptance my work has received. I guess I never had a vision of where my artworks would wind up, but they are going into homes, offices, and even museums.

The picture of me, above, came from a article in the San Jose Mercury News that ran in September about Chip Collecting. Click here to read the article. It was pretty cool to be in the newspaper that covered the growth of Silicon Valley. I was happy to see Chip Collecting get some more exposure. Now that the Smithsonian has its own chip collection, I guess there is some merit to the hobby after all :)

Another exciting project was a collaboration with artist Kim Sterling. Kim was asked to provide some artwork for a new a cafeteria at the corporate headquarters of major chip maker in Santa Clara. Kim used my Towers artwork to create part of her work. Click here if you would like to see the finished project.

March 20th, 2006

My biggest project was about a dozen original works I created for one of the world's foremost collectors of personal computers. To have my artwork associated with this collection was truly an honor. This collection of low-serial-number and one-of-a-kind machines is truly amazing.

One of my more fun projects was a book cover I created for Silicon Valley great, Steve Liebson. I created the artwork for his new book, "Designing SOCs with Configured Cores" (Click here if you would like to see the book on Amazon). The artwork shows the major waves of chip technology: transistors, logic chips, and microprocessors, which have led up to the topic of the book, Systems on a Chip.

I created several new artworks for my Historical Series. I have been experimenting with some new 3-D mixed media designs. It seems I have been in an experimenting mood lately. I need to move some of these projects to a more finished state.

January 12th, 2007

I am in the process or re-opening my eBay store. I have been restructuring the store to accommodate my newest artworks. The creative process is what turns me on. Around October, I went on a creative binge trying new styles, so now I'm doing a little housework getting these artworks into my store.

January 31st, 2009

I had several of my artworks requested by a very prestigious museum for their collection and I recently finished the donation process. It is great to be recognized for creating something unique and to know these artworks will be enjoyed for a long time to come.

April 21st, 2009

I am re-inventing my eBay store once again. Every time I think I've got it just right, I start down another path that requires more tweaking. I have started work on a series of large format canvas works. Actually, I started about three years ago creating images I knew that would only look best in a large format (i.e. greater than 16"x20"). I have been putting on final touch-ups, printing, and stretching for about 3 months now. I wanted to put at least 12 in my store for the startup. I sold out on my smaller 11"x14" canvases, so I am ready to start another phase.