Moments Frozen Under Glass

May 11, 2009 by Ange

Ever been in a creative frenzy?

It seems to happen a lot to chronic artists.  Immersed completely in their craft, they tune out all external stimuli not directly connected to their immediate needs and process.  A strange, obsessive madness occurs in which a technique is plumbed to its depths and iteration after iteration of work is produced…

Er, what month is it?

So, what has brought on this MindGarden MIA status?

I have discovered a new medium.

Ooooh, the shivers!  The itchy fingers!  The frantic firings of fantastic flowing forms flitting through my brain!

What is said medium, you ask?

Glass.

I have had a love affair with glass ever since I was in grade 11.  I saved up the money I earned after school and weekends working at the local IGA deli so that I could go on a group tour with the ‘Travel Club’.  We visited Italy… oh my gosh.  We started in Venice.  Everything after that paled in comparison.  Burrowing through the cobblestone alleys, ducking into the warren of tiny shops, hesitantly touching the handmade Commedia dell’Arte masks.  We were there in March and the misty rain in the air made it feel like we’d never left Vancouver Island.  Our group booked a demonstration at a glass gallery.  We watched a man turn molten lava into a dancing horse.  It was amazing.  It was like watching Vulcan at the forge.

Ever since then, I’ve been obsessed.  I relished the opportunities I had to go into Starfish Glassworks and watch the artists at work from the balconies.  Carefully peering through the exotic jungle of sinuous, stretching forms, the flying eyeballs with iridescent wings, the disk with the swirling vortex of black crows etched into it, along with the lightly and cheerfully menacing mixed-media hanging from the walls and ceiling has been one of my all-time favourite memories here in Victoria.  I have had nothing but the internet to observe since they closed their downtown Victoria studio a couple of years ago.

That is until now…

I’ve discovered the most exquisite of mediums.  Glass with a microns-thick crystalline structure not unlike gemstones grown onto its surface.  This illusion of stability (glass is actually a liquid) that I can create my own unique gemstones out of has become the obsession of my creative heart.  Dichroic glass is the most beautiful, most radiant material I’ve ever worked with.  The best thing is that I’ve discovered how to work it so that it can take on a specific design or pattern.  Layering this glass, not unlike traditional silkscreen printing, creates a composed image of incredible detail!

I have included a couple of examples of the process so far.  I’m still perfecting my technique, but I hope to have many gorgeous pieces like these up in the shop soon!  The photos truly do not do these pieces justice.  Due to the nature of the dichroic layer (which literally means 2-colours), the glass transmits one colour and reflects another.  This means that when you look through the glass, it appears to be one colour, but when it’s backed by an opaque glass, it actually reflects (looks like) a different colour.  Cool, huh?  As such, it’s pretty much impossible to capture the glory of these beauties in a digital medium, but I’ll do my best!

I’ve created these using different colours of dichroic glass including iridescent green, purple and silver. The amazing thing about dichroic glass is that it gradiates between the most amazing colours. For example, the green actually shifts from cyan to spring grass green to golden yellow. The silver can have shots of magenta and/or cerulean blue. The purple is as dark, rich, deep and mysterious as any Byzantine Emperor could dream of.

I’m so excited about these! The detail on them is absolutely amazing! So much better than I could have imagined. You can see images of poppies, a fan of silver and one of purple foliage, three intertwined oak leaves, and a pine bough with a cone and a graceful green curl of seaweed.