A Day in the Studio – Thinking About Tibet

Today, I’m thinking of naming this baby “Tibet.” The decision will be made just before the last edge piece is leaded into the panel. Can’t really name the baby till she’s come to life!

Making progress. The full sized cartoon nears completion. More details and careful review.

Focused on transforming full size cartoons (drawings) into glass patterns for three leaded glass clerestory windows.

Below: Artist’s hands at work.

Captivated by the design, glass pattern pieces have been made from a meticulously drawn full sized drawing with most all of the fabrication details worked out. When completed, this will be as immensely colorful as the culture in Bhutan from the view of an outsider. The art glass will be a colorful reminder to the homeowners of a journey through Tibet and the Bhutan region of the Himalayas.

Three full sized windows with very fine detail are reduced to three piles of paper! Nearly two hundred prayer flag patterns. I am always amused when I can hold a window in my hand.

Patterns are sorted by color and type of glass.

At last, getting ready to cut glass. Patterns are being placed on top of the full sized cartoon. It’s like putting a paper puzzle together. It’s a hot summer day, but please, don’t turn the ceiling fan on!  

Many artistic processes will be utilized to create subtle layers of dimensional detail – all which will contribute to a design that is free of technical barriers so that the creation is true to my vision. The next steps are to paint and etch test samples. These will add to the breath of the design.

With over 20 different colors / types of Lamberts mouth blown sheet glass, who's afraid of color! Watch for progress in the future.

Home stretch

The mosaic is nearly done. Been at it for awhile. Getting ready to start the third shift for the day. Listening to Andreas. Did my stretching. Finishing up my tea. The tape marks you see in the photo are my targets for each thirteen to fourteen hour day. Man oh man, this is the home stretch. Think I can do it by Monday night!

Coming together

Coming together

WITH COMPLETION IN SIGHT

Moving right along here with a mosaic for the ABVI Goodwill Donor wall. Hit the halfway point which is really more than halfway since the design narrows in the second half. Finally, the two halves of the mosaic substrate are together so I can now see the complete leaf like form. The color blending and the flow within the leaf is really coming to life. For now, I carrying on with thoughts of "More blue and green, or more dark green and light green, more light, more yellow and green. S t r e t c h." Can't wait to see it up! Got it all figured out; six inches a day which equates to a very long day, seven days a week with a day for clean up will allow for installation before our annual Society of American Mosaic Artists conference in Tacoma.

You can do it . . . you can do it . . . you can do it . . . choooo . . . choooo. . . !

Loose, but not exactly spontaneous

DOUBLE TIME IN THE STUDIO

The creative process for smalti mosaics is different from my etched or leaded glass work. In my other glass art work, cutting, line placement, color and texture is largely determined on paper prior to creating the design in glass – although some changes occur as the art comes to life. For smalti mosaics, tesserae is cut from hand poured smalti from the Orsoni Smalti Veneziani foundry in Venice, Italy. The hand made smalti varies in size and color. Today, one of the colors I am working with has four different shades for the same color number. Details for the mosaic's form, general design layout and colors are determined before any smalti is cut. Before I begin a mosaic I have a sense of where I want to use which colors and how I envision the andamento to run. Andamento is the flow of the tesserae. It's the artistic design element that carries the eye through the mosaic. It's the movement and a major part of the life of the mosaic. The other critical component of a smalti design is the blending of colors. A mosaic as a whole is best enjoyed once you step back when the individual colors blend together to make an image somewhat like today's pixels on a computer. The difference is that the smalti mosaic has wonderful visual and physical texture that gently glistens in the light.

For this mosaic, I am constantly referring to the scaled drawing and stepping back to look at the mosaic by way of a photograph or viewed from a step ladder. Few lines are marked on the board the mosaic is being built on. The color is not drawn out on the board. The andamento and color blending are created right then and there. I might layout the color ways for a two to three inches out at a time, then go back to cut and fit the smalti.

So, for now, it's loose, but not exactly spontaneous like all mosaics, inch by inch, but for nearly forever.

And here, Oliver doesn't want to miss a thing as he waits for me to wrap things up for the evening.

 

Inch by inch

In the studio. 

Moving right along, as only a mosaic can progress, inch by inch. Every now and then, and at the end of a session, I step back to take a look at the color blending and the andamento. In this photo, part two of a donor wall for ABVI, Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
What you see is part of a fourteen foot wide abstracted leaf being created as a smalti (glass tesserae made in Italy) mosaic. It will hang over the donor glass panels which were installed last week. The full design is shown in the upper right corner. Follow the progress here.

Memorial Art Gallery "Art Reflected 1913-2013"

What started as an invitation to participate in Art Reflected 1913-2013, a centennial exhibition opening February 10th at the Memorial Art Gallery, has turned into a personal historical journey for award winning Rochester glass artist Nancy Gong. The objective of the exhibition for forty regional artists is to create new art inspired by a selection of art in the gallery’s permanent collection. It’s part of a fundraiser for the gallery’s Centennial Celebration.
Drawn to a story about Native American women’s experiences, Gong chose the contemporary work of Juane Quick-To-See Smith’s Famous Names.
Through a new (to the US) laminating process originated in Germany, the artist takes the lead in developing a dimensionally intriguing vocabulary in art glass. It combines old and new techniques weaving six layered surfaces of painted and etched photographic images and textures into one piece.
Gong, a first generation American born Chinese, traces the history of the 1880 Chinese Exclusion Act, its quotas and its repeals up through a recent apology in 2011 from the U.S. Congress for the discriminatory immigration law aimed at a specific ethnic group.
 War Bride, designed by Nancy Gong, is inspired by the artist’s mother. It is an interactive design that comes alive with light as the viewer moves around. The design celebrates the strength, courage, forward thinking and experiences of a modern woman from 1925 through the 1980’s by tracing a War Bride’s life.
Searches of ship manifests, consulate records, service records, in depth conversations with her father, a new connection to an uncle never met, photos from her sister’s travels, weeks of internet research blended with the artist’s personal connection to the culture helped pieced together facets of the war brides life. The glass artist has collected many stories along the way to generate a vivid picture of her experiences. The artist claimed “There were so many detailed questions. The curiosity was like that of a child.” The art unveils mysterious colors and multiple layers of images carefully sorted out to capture a sense of time. Meanwhile, informing aspects of the brides life in the east, a young armed forces member and his war bride being carried in a sedan chair to the groom’s village, a wedding in a small village, life in the villages, rice fields and the progression of the journey to the Golden Mountain - the US are revealed. Gong hopes the art will help to bring an awareness of the War Brides’ time in history as the beginning of a greater presence and beginning of Chinese and other Asian families and their experiences to people of all walks of life, of multiple generations.

Moments in Time

Themes of sailing and outdoor adventures come to mind as the sailing season closes with cooler temperatures and shorter days. Missing the summer light, hikes in the woods, the trees, mountains and sailing are the early catalysts for small framed works of art. Working with color seems to warm things up at this time of the year. Colorful flashed and cased mouthblown sheet glass set the backdrop for freestanding framed vignettes. The colored portion of the glass is delicately etched and carved to reveal a design that evokes memories of a special time and or place. Each work of art from the "Moments in Time Series" is designed to be a vignette that can help us extend our relaxed state of mind into our busy daily lives. We need to breath. Art can help us do that. Each work of art is one of a kind. For the holiday season, here's where you'll find them.
If you hurry, there's still time to create "Moments in Time" from images of your special adventure or place.