A few weeks back I wrote about this piece-in-the-making, and I have now completed it. 

There are times when I particularly fall in love with certain pieces, and this is one of those instances.  I am very happy with the way my idea turned out.  I’m exploring ideas and situations of life and depicting them in a botanical vocabulary.  With this piece I wanted to depict a tree, yet not realistically, and to depict the notion of harvest and saving for the future, tucking away provisions for the “winter.”  The tree needed to be hardy enough, yet I didn’t want it solid – I wanted to be able to see through the tree and into the acorn stash inside.  And just enough leaves to say “tree” without branches or a realistic tree form. 

The trunk is made of an interesting color called Dragon’s Eye.  When I initially received the raw glass, it looked black and rather boring.  As I worked the glass though, the flame created streaks and spots of blues, greens and browns.  And I discovered the base color is actually not black, but very dark green.  When lit, the tree trunk is a beautiful translucent dark green with streaks of other colors!

The trunk is now on its way to the Ariana Gallery in Michigan for their exhibition titled “Playing With Fire.”  The Ariana Gallery of Contemporary Arts and Crafts opened in November of 1987 and is run by professional art consultant and artist Ann E. Kuffler.  Ariana carries a variety of both decorative and functional work from artists all over the world, representing the gallery’s philosophy of openness to a wide range of art topics and styles including the more unusual and sometimes controversial examples of artists and their work. 

See the Ariana Gallery website at www.ArianaGallery.com

“Playing With Fire” is Ariana Gallery’s exhibition for Michigan Glass Month, an annual event now in its 28th year, celebrating and promoting artists primarily working with glass.  Visitors can see glass art in many different forms including flameworked, cast, leaded, molten, etched, assembled and ground.  Galleries, art centers, museums and businesses throughout the state and the greater Great Lakes region host shows, seminars, demonstrations and other celebrations of the art of glass. 

Another amazing gallery near Ariana is Habatat Gallery.  Habatat is owned by its founder and president Ferdinand Hampson and his wife and business partner Kathy Hampson.  Ferdinand has been involved with artists working with glass for 36 years and is recognized internationally as a noted authority and historian in the field of contemporary glass.  This Saturday Habatat celebrates its 37th International Glass Invitational Awards Exhibition featuring over 90 artists from around the world. 

Visit the Habatat Gallery website at www.Habatat.com

One of the most pleasurable types of work I do is designing and creating art for a specific person, couple or business.  Drawing from my prior career experiences in organizational development, educational design and management, coaching and leading teams, and my over 20 years studying philosophy, I have developed the skills of listening to people and discerning what has meaning for them, what brings deepest satisfaction to their lives, and then designing works of art that will signify and represent that meaning and satisfaction. 

Given that my clients are not all local, I have developed a process of working with long-distance clients to design and create such works of art.  Here is the story of one of these art works.

Dawn Repola and Dan Hancock of Littleton, Colorado, asked for a special work of art to celebrate and signify their appreciation of each other and their years of marriage together.  Through my design process we decided the piece would reference one of Dawn and Dan’s favorite activities – cooking together.  Southwestern fare is their favorite.  They grow tomatoes and peppers in their garden so their culinary creations are fresh with just-off-the-vine vegetables.  Growing the vegetables, experimenting with different types of tomatoes and peppers each year, discovering new recipes, and cooking together is one of the activities and rhythms of life that strengthen Dawn and Dan’s marriage and friendship.  We decided the artwork would include tomatoes and peppers to celebrate this aspect of the life they have built together.

Once we settled on this general idea, I went to work on the design of the artwork.  Working with yarn and colored paper, I sketched the layout of the piece on my big table.  This enabled me to “see” the piece in actual scale and to know how many of each type of tomato, pepper and leaf I would need.  Throughout this process, I emailed Dawn and Dan photos of the work in progress so they could be involved in its creation.

Dawn and Dan’s home is decorated in burgundy, teal and sienna, and their other works of art are equally as rich in color.  Their art piece would need to be robust in color and form to stand up within this colorful environment.  I researched tomatoes and peppers online.  I spent a good deal of time experimenting with various combinations and layers of colored glass to achieve a variety of reds from the deep wine reds of heirlooms to the sunny orange-reds of the jubilees. 

Slowly but surely, glass tomatoes, peppers and leaves replaced their paper stand-ins on the table.  Metal vines replaced the yarn.  I made glass vine sections and built clusters of the tomatoes and peppers that would hang on the metal vines. 

Eventually all the parts were complete and the piece ready to ship.  I traveled to Colorado to install it with Dawn and Dan.  I thoroughly enjoyed the delight of Dawn and Dan discovering their piece, cluster by cluster as we unpacked and installed. 

 

 

I titled the piece Picante (definition:  prepared so as to be very hot and spicy) in reference to the zest Dawn and Dan bring to their life together.  Picante now resides in their living room, celebrating Dawn and Dan’s marriage and partnership and it’s continued growth.