Artist Robert Stout – living the American dream

September 9, 2008

(Note: The following story is a supplement to the story “Italian mosaic brings art to Nanoscale Research Facility” that appeared in the Sept. 9 edition of InsideUF.)

Following your dreams may be more of a myth than reality to most Americans these days. But for some, the dream lives on.

For Robert Stout, a well-accomplished American artist, the American dream became the Italian dream when he followed his passion and moved to Ravenna, Italy, to study and create mosaics.

“I was nearly 50 and I said if I didn’t challenge myself, I never will,” he said.

Stout began his art education at the San Francisco Art Institute as a fine arts undergraduate student.

As a fine arts major, he studied history and humanities, but Stout was always interested in science. “I read a lot of science – it’s mind-blowing! The stuff in science is imaginative descriptions of nature and how phenomenal tools can help humans view things that have never been seen before.”

After Stout graduated, he experienced a hodgepodge of paid works; he said he would take whatever work he could find.

Alaska was the next big move for him. He worked on public art projects and met his wife, a fellow artist. When they later moved back to the San Francisco Bay area, he decided to complete his undergraduate and masters degrees in art and architecture. Stout said he intended on teaching but realized that it was not for him. “I just wanted to make art and do stuff.”

Stout’s first experience with mosaics was when he was given the opportunity to assist a mosaic artist in creating a commissioned 2,200- square-foot mosaic project in the Albuquerque Museum in New Mexico. During the creation of the artwork, two other large areas were offered by the museum for commissioned mosaics, and the original artist asked Stout to create his own art for the space. “I got two beautiful sites where I could do whatever art I wanted to.”

He said creating and installing the art took six months, but “it made a light go off in my head.”

The more Stout created public art, the more he wanted to learn about mosaics from the traditional mosaic styles of ancient Roman and Byzantine artists. So in 1990, he moved with his wife and two sons to Ravenna.
Stout and his wife, Stephanie Jurs, now work together in their business named Twin Dolphin Mosaics. Their work combines elements of broken-tile mosaics with traditional Roman techniques.

“One of the things I like about Roman technique is to create patterns through the medium of mosaics. There is a tremendous potential to do motifs from the past and from today, like nanotechnology and things from mathematics and physics patterns from the 16th Century Venetian artists,” Stout said.

Stout said, “I want people to get excited (by my art), and say ‘Ah, cool!’ Then each time they look at it, find something neater, and cooler about it.”

He is a passionate and caring man with a unique talent for art. This was apparent when he spoke about what made the mosaic in the Nanoscale Research Facility special. From his wallet, he pulled a sparkling marble-sized 24-karat Venetian-gold glass piece that had been tucked away in tissue paper. It would be the last piece of the artwork – to be placed in the very center of the mosaic.

Still holding the glass, he asked, “How big is a nanometer?” and then answered his own question with, “ There’s an analogy. If a nanometer is a unit of measurement, and if a nano is the size of a marble, then a meter would be the diameter of the earth.” The gold, glass piece represents the nano in the entire spectrum of the world.”

To view more of Stout’s artwork visit http://www.twindolphinmosaics.com/.

—————————————————————————————-

(NOTE: The below story appeared in the Sept. 9 print edition of InsideUF.)

Italian mosaic brings art fo Nanoscale Research Facility

Take a step into the new Nanoscale Technology Research Facility’s lobby to enter a world where science and art coalesce. A beautiful mosaic floor is the centerpiece of attention – providing a place where visitors are welcomed, new ideas receive inspiration and research blossoms.

If you had walked into the building this past summer, you would have found artist Robert Stout hard at work. The American-born artist, who now lives in Italy, spent six weeks in July and August piecing together thousands of intricate Italian tiles to create his mosaic masterpiece, “Nanotube Fullerenes.”

Wearing ripped, worn jeans and a paint-sprinkled shirt while working on the mosaic that measures 14.5 feet by 15.5 feet, Stout said nanoscientists who saw him installing the art commented that they immediately recognized the science images contained within.

Stout said when he first heard about the new University of Florida public art project, he thought it would be exciting to integrate appropriate science images. He studied nanoscience on the Internet and in books, and then sketched three images to incorporate into the mosaic.

“The science inspired me,” he said. “It’s utilitarian – they (the tiles)… create a whole lot of practicality and beauty behind the meaning of the piece.”

Stout described the mixture between art and architecture “like jazz.” He said there is a structure to the melody, but the artist does not have to follow each note in order to create a masterpiece out of disorder, chance and randomness.

This was Stout’s second commissioning at UF. Several years ago, he created mosaics for the terrace between the Harn Museum of Art and the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Such projects are made possible through Florida State Statue 255.043, also known as the Art in State Buildings Program. More than 100 pieces of art have been created on the University of Florida’s campus since the program began in 1979. According to the law, each state-funded building must set aside up to .05 percent of the total cost of the project – but not exceeding $100,000 – to create an original piece of art.

Stout wants people to get excited when they look at his artwork. He said that while nanoscientists may recognize specific designs in the installation, no one needs to be a scientist to appreciate the beauty of the mosaic.