Photos by John A. Peralta
John A. Peralta began taking things apart long before he was compelled to truly pursue art. “I was always breaking things open to see what was inside. I’ve had such wonder for the tiny components that make something work,” he says.
Now a self-taught artist based in Austin, Texas, Peralta has a unique taste for both science and how things work as well as art. While working as a business consultant, he began painting as a way to tap into and satiate his creative side. The exploded diagram, which has been an essential engineering tool, melds Peralta’s contrasting interests and inspired his work.
An exploded diagram of a bike on the back of a magazine was Peralta’s original inspiration, but since then, his work has begun to evolve over the years. “It’s more about a concept that imagines that these machines we use — that we often take for granted and use every day — they hold our memories,” according to the artist. “And sometimes in literal ways. The typewriter has an imprint of every letter, every document permanently imprinted on it. It could never be deciphered today, but nevertheless it’s in there.”
Peralta’s art reveals the inner workings of a time in history or a memory. The contrast between machinery and emotion creates enchanting displays and elicits a feeling when you see them. The idea of machinery holding memories extends to all of our objects, according to Peralta. “It’s why we become nostalgic years after for antiques or whatever it might be. We attach emotion to these things and they hold our memories and it’s sort of two-way relationships with the objects in our life.”
Peralta describes a large pile of items in his studio that he might one day choose to take apart, but there is a method to deciding which items he will display. “I usually choose something that would be considered iconic. Something highly recognizable, and familiar, but most of the time, it’s also something that is no longer in use,” he says. Often, he chooses items that people may have seen in their grandparents house or in an antique store. “Those items have a lot of emotion and nostalgia connected to them. I’m also looking for things that the designers and architects put a lot of time and careful thought into.”
“For some reason, it has a strong appeal. I’m not entirely sure why,” Peralta says about the exploded diagram concept, explaining that most people see them in their everyday lives without realizing, but their eyes still light up when they see it displayed like this. “Because it’s not like you can’t see the string. At first, I tried to hide it. I tried all different things to try and hide the suspension. But I began to realize that I actually shouldn’t hide it. The string really contributes to the piece.”
In the Future
Working mainly on commissioned pieces these days, Peralta is still working on a few ideas that continue to push the boundaries of the exploded diagram concept. When asked what his dream projects are, he says, “There’s actually two. I’ve been wanting to do — and I haven’t really gotten anyone to pull the trigger yet — and that’s a grand piano. I think it would be very impressive. I imagine it in a large hotel with a high ceiling or something like that. And the other one is a fighter jet, which would obviously be a very big piece. It would need a superstructure to support it. But I have some really cool ideas of how it would look.”
Freedom Learning Group's President
Stacey Ecelbarger
A collaboration between two organizations ensures that the scientific and technical expertise of military spouses is fully deployed.
In our appreciation for active military service personnel, the sacrifices made by their families — including military spouses with advanced degrees putting their own careers on hold — are sometimes overlooked. A partnership between Freedom Learning Group LLC (FLG) and the Society of Military Spouses in STEM (SMSS) aims to fully utilize the talents of these men and women in technical fields.
CEO Nathan Ecelbarger, a former police officer and U.S. Marine Corps reservist currently deployed to Stuttgart, Germany, co-founded FLG in 2016 with his wife, Stacey. She serves as president and has a keen appreciation for the challenges facing military families. “When we arrived overseas, I realized that highly qualified military spouses were getting jobs at the coffee shop on base just to fill a gap on their resume,” recounts Stacey. She remembers thinking, “This is not right. These underemployed attorneys, engineers and scientists should be able to utilize their expertise even while stationed overseas.”
As an adjunct professor in law enforcement, Nathan was introduced to the use of educational content experts by college textbook publishers like Pearson and McGraw-Hill. “Subject matter experts are a lifeline to publishers. Compared to full-time tenured professors (with many competing priorities), military spouses are more motivated, more committed to quality work and always meet deadlines,” reports Nathan, who says those nomadic specialists are not just looking for employment, but for continued professional credibility. “A Ph.D. in civil engineering doesn’t want to work as a barista, but as an engineer,” he says, yet notes the transient nature of military life and language barriers overseas make that challenging. “Through contract work with FLG they can use their training to develop the educational standards for their own industry,” explains Nathan.
“The need for reliable, qualified subject matter expertise is continuously increasing across the educational publishing industries,” says Stacey, adding, “Military spouses are extremely efficient, team-oriented and intrinsically do things right the first time.” Her husband, who explains that FLG trains content providers to write like educators, quips, “Having to navigate their way through the military bureaucracy as part of their lifestyle, military spouses are already, by definition, project managers and educators.”
“We’re thrilled to partner with SMSS, as our missions closely align and we share a common goal to empower and support military spouses,” explains Stacey, whose company also has affiliations with organizations representing specialties like law and healthcare. “By providing high-quality, affordable services to our clients, we look forward to employing more science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals, keeping them working in their chosen fields from any location on the globe,” she says.
Nonprofit SMSS was founded in 2016 by military spouses determined to maintain their careers despite the challenges presented by the military lifestyle. “We’re delighted to partner with a company that understands the needs for remote employment in STEM, and also has personal knowledge of what veterans and military spouses face,” says SMSS co-founder and Director of Outreach Michelle Aikman, who is herself a chemical engineer.
“We’ve been really fortunate to employ almost 100 military spouses,” says Stacey. She reports her company’s first military spouse hire, an unemployed engineer stationed in Germany, has since been promoted to FLG’s Senior Project Director developing educational content for the world’s biggest publishers while managing editorial teams of military spouses just like her.
