I have the wonderful opportunity to do some collaborative works with artist and friend Susan Longini. 

Our work together is about humans in our environments – how we are affected by them, how we are changed or not, how we move into our environment or let it come to us, and so on.  These environments might be external, natural, with other people, or even our own internal psychological environments.

We called our first piece Dangerous Opportunity.

Currently we’re working on a piece called Sometimes It’s Bigger Than Us, which we will donate to the Bay Area Glass Institute auction. 

More to come!

Dangerous Opportunity

This is the tree I have been working on.

Night Tree represents those moments in the middle of the night when we wake up, can’t sleep, and there we are, alone with our thoughts, fears, secrets, worries, dreams, fantasies, and who or whatever God is to us. The knothole “pocket” holds silvered acorns – a secret place for us to store all those thoughts, fears, secrets, worries, and dreams.

  
I’m not sure I’m happy with the tree yet, and might experiment with smaller twigs off the main branches to fill it in a bit.

Here’s a new piece I’ve completed, Tumbleweed Before It’s Tumble.  I love the image of those spindly weeds blowing and bouncing across a dusty landscape.  This piece captures the tumbleweed just before its tumble, roots still intact.

Tumbleweed Before Its Tumble

6″h x 9″w x 6″d

Glass, flameworked and sandblasted

March 2009

This summer I am taking a three-dimensional design class at De Anza College taught by Patti Jauch, who also teaches at San Jose State University. 

Our second project is to use paper to make folded, glued or molded forms that we then put together into a larger sculpture.  My initial idea was to make fungus-like pods that would “grow” out of the wall.  My plan was to use reed for the inner structures, cover those with paper, and then paint.  As art does though, the project morphed into something different and I went with that.  It’s a cyclone made of reed and thread.  My plan is to put photos on the cyclone, photos from my life, so it will be an autobiographical piece. 

The basic cyclone structure is nearly complete.  It needs more reed woven and tied in to make the structure stronger.  In the meantime, I’m experimenting with printing my photos on translucent paper, or perhaps translucent cloth.  I want them to look ghostly, like memories rather than actual photos.  Once I figure out printing the photos, I will do some tests to figure out how to adhere them to the cyclone.

I especially like the threads hanging all the way around the cyclone.  They are a fitting metaphor for how fragile life is.

The project should be complete in two weeks.

This morning I have started work on the first of a trio of pieces for the upcoming show at Hodgell Gallery in Florida.  The theme of the show is COLOR.  My trio of pieces will be The Birth of Color:  Red, Yellow and Blue. 

My objective is to create three similar pieces, one for each color, and to make each piece evoke the mood and feelings that its color evokes for me.

I started with yellow, my favorite color.  I want The Birth of Yellow to be an explosion of unself-conscious, happy color! 

The three pieces will take six to eight weeks to complete, and I will post photos when they’re done, with perhaps a few sneak previews along the way.