Lögberg-Heimskringla - 26.09.2003, Page 4

page 4 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Friday, 26 September 2003
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Val Dempsey Valgardson Teaches the “Coolest Class in the Country”
Val created this bench of walnut and cherry wood, for the
Brooks Museum in Memphis, TN
Dilla Narfason
Gimli, MB
Summer time is a good time
to travel and one destina-
tion for Val Dempsey Valgard-
son and his family was Gimli.
Here they spent a few days
with his grandparents, Ree and
Dempsey Valgardson and also
his father Bill, who happened
to be visiting from Victoria,
BC.
While talking with Val I
discovered that his goal in life
was to be an artist. He took
classes at the University of
Victoria where he obtained a
Bachelor in Fine Arts. What
interested him the most were
the professors and classes in
kinetic sculpture.
Because expression of his
ideas through three-dimen-
sional creations was what-he
liked best, he furthered his
education at the University of
Califomia in San Diego. There
he received his Masters in Fine
Arts.
He now teaches at Rhodes
College in Memphis, TN, a
private Liberal Arts college of
approximately 1500 students.
As a sculptor, I assumed
that Val would be working in
clay or stone or some such
medium that we associate with
sculpture. Yes, he did create a
bench of wood which was
commissioned by the Brooks
Museum in Memphis. Of the
many submissions, four were
chosen, including Val’s pro-
posal. Val was chosen to cre-
ate the bench.
The bench, he explains,
was a rounded, four-sided
bench. He used walnut wood
alternating with cherry wood,
250 pieces, 4” x 4” x 26,”
glued and formed into one
flowing piece of art that was
also comfortable to sit on. It
was well received as a unique
creation for the museum.
Other projects, far more to
his liking, are much more con-
temporary. They conjure up
images one does not usually
envision. He describes this as
working with kinetics, sculp-
turing and electronics.
This may have had its
beginning while he was in San
Diego when he became aware
of cockroaches scurrying here
and there, but not really wel-
comed everywhere. So he
built a box to put them in. The
box is at the centre of a sculp-
ture and the movement of the
cockroaches moves the sculp-
ture around the room.
A more serious endeavour,
as Professor Harold Cohen’s
research assistant, he built a
plotter arm for a computer that
makes its own decision about
what to paint and then paints
it. The research and creation
of this arm took four years.
When it was completed Val
and his wife Kristin took it to
the Computer Museum in
Boston where they displayed it
to the public.
For a show in Memphis,
he created a machine which
was located in a corridor
where a person could enter and
walk toward the machine. For
each step the person took, the
machine moved backwards.
As the person retreated, the
machine advanced. The work
was entitled, ”Two Step.”
A similar machine was
given the title “Polka” since it
performed the polka step as it
read the infrared from the per-
son interacting with it. For the
Children’s Museum in Mem-
phis, he constructed a machine
and greenhouse where a plant
began to grow sideways and
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then made its way upward
when it found a minute space
to grow through. It was Val’s
desire to also mystify the par-
ents so he named this creation
“A Bricoleur’s Investigation
of the Locus of Control
Through Negative Reinforce-
ment.”
For a juried art show, Val
created a structure whereby a
Bonsai tree would be automat-
ically watered when required
and the tree would be automat-
ically trimmed so that it was
always in a cube shape. This
entry he called “One Life to
Live.”
Another entry was named
“As the World Turns” and here
an automated hedge trimmer
was programmed to come out
of its station and trim the
hedge and then return to its
station again.
At the College Val has also
been involved in team teach-
ing a course with a teacher
from the physics department.
The students must produce
autonomous robots. They can
put their credits for their robot
toward either arts or physics in
their regular course work.
Minnist
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This has become a fun course
to take and was written up as
“one of the coolest classes in
the country” in the Chronicle
ofHigher Education.
Obviously Val’s sculptur-
ing has developed into many
interesting art forms, both in
his teaching and in his individ-
ual works. These futuristic (or
maybe not so futuristic) cre-
ations would make for an
interesting show.
Val met his wife Kristin
Siemens in British Columbia.
His father, W.D. Valgardson,
through the typical questions
about family, discovered that
Kristin comes from the Julius
family of Selkirk, MB and
therefore would be related to
the renowned poet K.N. Julius
of North Dakota.
In Val’s case, he was
named after Bill’s great uncle,
Valentinus Valgardson who
was also a teacher for many
years in Moose Jaw, SK. Val
and Kristin have two children,
Jordan five years and Holly
three years.
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