ABSTRACT
C harles Ross was already established as a technologicallysophisticated sculptor before he came to SoHo. With an undergraduate degree in mathematics before he took an M.A. in sculpture, both from Berkeley in the early 1960s, he was the only visual artist I knew in the mid-1960s to read Scientific American over a solo dinner in a restaurant. His initial specialty was optics, or optical effects, initially with clear liquid-filled prisms, often large, that refracted light in surprising ways. Especially in arrays, these sculptures were quite spectacular; and when exposed to natural sunlight, the rich spectrum of refracted light would change continuously in response to the moving of the sun (actually the turning of the earth).
