Mel and Dorothy Tanner worked with the same material, acrylic glass, in very different ways. Dorothy liked to have a lot of material around and then begin her construction. Mel Tanner always sketched first, often filling the sketches in with colored pencils so that they were very precise. The drawing(s) very closely resembled the completed sculpture.
Here are some examples of Mel Tanner’s sketches compared to the photos of the completed works:
Sketch of Visitor by Mel Tanner
Visitor by Mel Tanner
Sketch of One Two Three by Mel Tanner
One Two Three by Mel Tanner
Sketch of Post-Egyptian by Mel Tanner
Post-Eqyptian by Mel Tanner
Sketch of Island by Mel Tanner
Island by Mel Tanner
Mel Tanner sketches what will be a lighted wall for an installation
A lighted wall and ceiling installation by Mel Tanner
While it hadn’t been officially announced yet, Dorothy Tanner was notified that she was the recipient of the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Arts and Culture in the Innovation category for the City and County of Denver, 2018. Denver Arts & Venues sent the Zerosun Creative team of James Joliat and his associate videographer Tyler, to interview Dorothy in preparation for a video for the award ceremony on Nov. 15 at the McNichols Civic Center Building.
Zerosun Creative team of James Joliat and his associate videographer Tyler preparing to interview Dorothy Tanner at Lumonics
One day in 1976, Bill Pinella, the sales rep for one of the companies we bought our acrylic glass (plexiglass) from, came by with two off- white geometric shapes. They were a different kind of plastic in the polycarbonate family. Bill said the company doesn’t know what to do with them, and thought that Dorothy and Mel Tanner could put them to good use. He used to enjoy coming over to look at the light sculptures, and once told me that he “wished he had Mel’s brain”. The vast majority of his other accounts used the company’s products industrially.
After Mel did some sketches, the result was Lollipop which was over 7′ tall, and lighted internally with incandescent bulbs. Mel created two arms that were lighted with showcase bulbs that were long and narrow. Lollipop was always a favorite of people who came to Lumonics.
After Lollipop’s transportation to Denver in a crate and through 14 years of storage, Lollipop had a crack in it and needed some other restoration . So earlier this year, we repaired it, added LED bulbs, and used a pulley to get it to our mezzanine. It is wonderful to have Lollipop in the performance space. My teammate Marc Billard has it set up on multiple lighting channels, and it is a joy to behold during the Lumonics Immersedperformances.
Here are photos by Marc Billard of the original Lollipop and how it looks now:
Lollipop 90″T x 35″W x 22″D 1976
Lollipop updated in 2022
You can see Lollipop in a one minute video of Lumonics Immersed:
One of our first restoration projects after Dorothy Tanner passed in 2020 was the 12 Men by Mel Tanner. Some of them needed some repair, and we converted them all to LED from incandescent. They are now in the performance space ( we only have room for 8 ) and are an integral part of Lumonics Immersed. This is the first time they have been seen in Colorado as they had been in storage for many years.
One of the “men” didn’t show up for the photo session so only 11 are in the photo.
The 12 Men were in the original Lumonics Light and Sound Theatre in Miami. At the time, bio-feedback machines were getting recognized for testing whether one’s brain waves were in alpha, beta, theta, or delta, depending on what one’s thoughts were. Mel wanted to connect the 12 Men to a bio-feedback machine and the brightness of the sculptures would change depending on a person’s state. Somehow, we never went that far to connect them. But they were connected to a color organ and created some amazing patterns when music played. Today they are connected to an LED lighting controller and orchestrated live by Marc Billard from the control booth.
We are so happy the 12 Men are part of Lumonics Immersed.
