Valerie Roos :: April 11th, '10TIMELESS
Pendulums and moons have a vast array of spiritual and scientific connotations. The pendulum,or plumb bob,an ancient Egyptian instrument, has been used through the centuries for surveying, building , navigation, and spirituality. Egyptians believed that the plumb line was an unerring path that aligned the heavens to the center of the earth. In the 1850’s Foucault used the pendulum to visually illustrate the earth’s daily rotation ( 11 degrees every hr , full circle 32.7 hrs.)
The Antikythera Mechanism, a geared device found in the waters near Crete, proved that for over 2000 years the moon has been used to measure the calendar months and assist in plotting the motions of the heavens. To this day the moon has been the center of superstition, legend and romance.
The pendulum and the moon are a means to measure time and space, yet they possess an ageless ability to fascinate us far beyond the sciences. Admittedly or not, there is a need in all of us to understand the cosmos, and our place within it.
For me the fascination lies in their timelessness. They prevail.
Val Roos was born in Edmonton. She zigzagged her way across Canada from Alberta through Saskatchewan , Manitoba and Ontario. Val took her first art lessons at age twelve. Her studies include Design, architectural Dept., U. of Manitoba, Honors BFA, and Medieval Techniques, U. of Alberta. Val, now an Ottawa based artist, has been teaching art for over twenty years. She has sat as chair and vice chair on CAR, and several visual arts committees. Since the beginning of her career Val Roos has participated in over fifty exhibitions, in the National Capital Region, Toronto, Alberta, and the U.S. Her works are part of several private collections in Canada, the U.S., South Africa, Norway and Sweden. Her “bee” was used as the logo by UNESCO for the “Culture of Peace” presentation in Paris 2009. For the past eighteen years she has worked primarily in Encaustic, an ancient Egyptian/ Greek technique of beeswax, pigments and heat.s
