Exceptionally Cool Tools

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Twilight Calculator view of sun and moon rise/set directions for Santa Fe, NM

We are living in an age when technological miracles have become commonplace. Especially notable are the incredible new applications of global positioning data, which allow us not only to locate ourselves anywhere on the planet with our telephones, but also to locate just about anything else as well. When we use GPS, we are extending our reach into outer space to gather information about our planet. Extremely high-resolution cameras are constantly looking down on us, giving us, through Google Maps, detailed visuals of the structure and sprawl of our cities and roads along with the terrain we are trekking through. Artists are even beginning to incorporate space camera imagery in their art. John Louder’s recent paintings show the space view along with his personal view of the landscapes he paints.

A favorite and very useful iPhone application we use when traveling is real-time weather radar. This amazing app ga…