February 2020 – Glass & Lead

“Translations” opening March 8th

announcements

Instead of a mosaic pendant as usual, I wanted to let you all know that the show “Translations, a chain of painting, poetry, mosaic and assemblage” will be on display at the Gorse Mill Gallery in Needham from March 2-April 5 with an opening reception on March 8 from 3:00-5:00. The ten pendants that I’ve made based on poems will all be on display as part of the show. I hope some of you can make it!

And, as a special (unrelated) treat, here are a few of the pendants I made this week using Shel Silverstein’s illustrations and texts. I love the rhythm of the poetry and the humor of the illustrations.

Honey-Makers

health pendants

1″ x 2″, beads and glass

This pendant tries to capture a poem that held many ideas, but spoke to me about the treadmill that we’re on, and about how much latitude we might really have to choose what to create. Like bees in a hive we’re all busy busy busy and then what we have to show for our work can be sweet, can be nourishing, but is fleeting; food for the next generation. While honeycombs are geometrically perfect, this one is not. It captures the essence of the hive structure but was made by a very human hand, not programmed for the perfect architecture of the hive. But when it moves it shines, and offers a different kind of gold.

Bloom Where You Grow

health pendants

1″ x 2″, found objects

Captured in the lovely prose poem that inspired this piece is the overwhelming power and beauty of the bloom of life, and the equal, if less overt, power of the other stages; the seed with its potential and the memory with all it carries. The pendant uses found objects to mirror the vibrancy and intricacy of the blooming “bejeweled” bottom with the delicacy and simplicity of the single gem shining above. The continuity of colors and materials shows that the the top and bottom are are one and the same.

Sprouts

health pendants

1″ x1″ glass and found objects

Visualizing another gorgeous poem, these colors and shapes say spring. This pendant finally offered me a way to use millefiori, the flower-shaped sliced glass cane, as flowers! But my favorite part of this composition isn’t the flowers, the stones or the moon-bead, but the tiny lines emerging at the bottom like new sprouts from the earth in spring.