Wheaton Fellowship- summer 2011 some picts

I pulled miles of black cane for flameworking from the black tank of glass we had.

This is a drawing experiment that involves lots of gluing.

Springs made in the Hot Shop.

I feel so lucky to be able to have finished my second CGCA fellowship at Wheaton arts this past summer from May to July 2011. I was one of four artist during this 3 month period- Erica Rosenfeld, Brett Swenson, and Sara Pitt. During this time I was able to experiment, make components for my work, and finish an installation. Above are some picts of works in progress and the 4 of us. To see a lot more wheaton fellowship picts you can go to my facebook page.

"Clenched", Cast and Lampworked Glass

This Piece is cast Bullseye Glass, 52inches long.

Static- glass scribble

This installation is made from lampworked black glass and a glass photogram.

A dream is the experience of envisioned images, sounds, or other sensations during sleep. Sigmund Freud theorized that dreams are a reflection of human desires and promoted by external stimuli such as our environments. Joe Griffin states "dreams are metaphorical translations of waking expectations. Expectations that cause emotional arousal that is not acted upon during the day." "Static" was an attempt at transforming emotion into form. The inspiration for the work comes from a reoccurring dream. Within the dream, an infinite three-dimensional black line fills my vision and releases a low pitch constant hum. I am without body or form just aware of feeling. The line becomes tense and starts to vibrate like a heart beat monitor. The intensity builds until I wake up perspiring.

"FInger Prints" - photograms of glass fingers

Process- To make these images I take a mold from a part of my body and reproduce it in glass. The glass then becomes the negative which light is projected through onto photo-sensitive paper. The images contains qualities of both glass and the body.

In the 18th century, with the use of Technology, the western world changed from a text based society to a visually dependent society. Visual learning became not just a luxury but essential to our modern day life and education. The development of optical equipment made originally to help understand the world now supplies us with mass-produced images. Microscopes, scanning devices, and telescopes allow us to visually reach beyond the limits of our eyes and open up the micro and macro worlds of our existence. Our modern reality exists of fantasized, fabricated worlds on TV and computer screens.

My inspiration for the "Finger Print" series is from documents of early microscopic discoveries. These early hand drawn records showed forms that exist beyond what we can see with our eyes. The photographic process of using the enlarger to project light through an object of glass enlarges the view of the object in the same way a microscope functions. This process creates a metamorphosis of our perception of the object and our body.

              

Saliva Prints- "Spit Photograms"

The "Spit Print" series contains information that exists from human saliva however through enlargement have removed the physicality and cultural connotations of the saliva. The viscous quality of the images can resemble qualities of glass or other fluid materials. The rings of the bubbles look somewhat like a topographical map of a moon surface giving a sense of micro and macro. This metamorphosis of discarded bodily fluid, something socially found to be disgusting, becomes beautiful and unknown.

Process-  I project and focus light through my saliva onto light sensitive paper and develop it as you would normally with black and white photography. These prints are all at least 36 inches wide. 

"Products which cross such boundaries thereby become products of great cultural attention. What is both inside and outside the body (feces, spittle, urine, menstrual blood, etc...) tends to become taboo because of its ambiguous and anomalous status." -Susan Stewart's, "On Longing"