New Mosaic Art: Impel 4
05/14/2012
8" x 8" glass, gold, grout Impel places cognitive experience within a social context, exploring how…
New Mosaic Art: FLOAT | Mist
04/25/2012
In FLOAT a shimmering sphere drifts across an aqueous background. The decaying manmade settings highlight the…
About FLOAT
04/09/2012
FLOAT links directly back to earlier work in the Flow series. Flow explores movement through space and time with inevitable convergences and divergences. Trace (2006) was a four-part composition in this series, incorporating my ever-present circle form and organic interconnecting lines. My experiments with a threaded 24k gold smalti line as a linking device started with Trace. A recent commission for a healthcare facility brought me back to the Flow series which I used as a starting point to develop Float (2011), a multi-piece composition using new materials and cutting techniques.
FLOAT has now been included in my Mosaic Elements series, offering the next iteration of movement through space and time. FLOAT suggests an aqueous setting and visual inspirations include droplets and bubble forms on water. The pieces in the Mosaic Element FLOAT series can be used as a narrative sequence with the shimmering sphere moving across the three pieces. Or a more graphic visual pattern emerges by using multiples of the same piece hung in different orientations. Color palette ‘shine’ suggests a sunlit daytime version while ‘mist’ conveys a shimmering moonscape.
See FLOAT Mosaic Elements
Searching for sparkle
03/04/2012
I’ve had to search for sparkle this brown winter. Regular trips to the lakefront have yielded ice in many forms: countless different icicle formations, air bubbles in ice, ice crystals cantilevered over the sand, ice encrusted grass and trees, ice splashed rocks, ice spicules etc etc. But it just occurred to me that what I’m actually missing is hoar frost.
I have never seen hoar frost in Chicago. The closest we get is when the cement-heavy lake-effect snow weighs down tree branches. But there’s no sparkle. Often branches break. It’s mostly bleak.
Waking up to an Alberta morning where literally every single branch and blade of grass is outlined in sparkling feathery ice cystals that glint and shimmer in the winter sunshine against an intense blue sky is pure magic. For a few hours there is a complete transformation from drab winter into a glittering wonderland, like living in a snowglobe.
I’ve always wondered about the unappealing name. “Hoar” comes from an Old English adjective which means showing signs of old age. If I were naming it, I’d call it “metamorphotic” frost for it’s profound transformation of objects and landscape–or something more poetic like “ethereal” or “gossamer” frost. As a kid, hoar frost seemed like a random phenomenon but I’m sure my Dad could predict hoar frost conditions. It takes a clear, cold night where objects become colder than the surrounding air while a light wind circulates more humidified air allowing ice crystals to form and grow. Their size depends on temperature and humidity levels.
Gradually, the ice crystals fall away and it’s back to winter normal. But there’s always the chance of waking up in that sparkling magical place again tomorrow.
Hoar Frost (2010)*
*Hoar Frost (2010) courtesy of the seriously talented photographer Adrian Michael based in Saskatoon, SK. You can see more of his fabulous images at www.adrianmichael.ca. I am particularly drawn to the familiar canadian landscapes made otherworldly in Adrian’s ‘Rockies’ and ‘Prairie’ portfolios.
