Woman with Mirror
Well, Claudette has provided us with a little information - here's
what she has to say:
Re my church window, about which you wrote you knew nothing, here's the story: The overall layout was originally lifted from a medieval tapestry, of which I eventually retained very little - certain details on the shoes, etc. The rest was took off into pure fantasy. I used a foto of you for the face (and if you had a decent replication of the piece, you'd see the resemblance.)
I named it (I have this compulsion for naming things, usually before I begin them) St. Maximus Luz.
The thing is big and lives in my solarium at the moment. My original plan was to somehow get it down to SD, encased in a solid, wind-resistant, stand-alone cast-iron frame, and erect it in your jardin without your knowledge, so you'd come upon it as a surprise - as a kind of joke.
What happened is that this sculptor came by, saw it, and offered me a $10K barter deal for one of his pieces. I figured, what the hey, Mark wouldn't even want this thing and would probably be offended if I stuck it in his yard anyhow.
So far (a year or more) we haven't been able to let loose of it - when the sun comes through the 100 year old gold glass I used in it, (salvaged from that church dome I reconstructed) it glows like molten gold - it knows how to vibe, bigtime.
On the left side (the dark side), impossible to see
in the foto, there is The Tree, laden with apples except for one out of which
one has taken a bite, lying on the ground under the tree. On same ground under
tree is a neat little stand of purple shrooms rising out of the grass on their
long stems. On the other side (the light side) there is not one but two (in
dichroic glass so they keep changing color)
space odyssey obelisks, and a reproduction of many of
the features of the dark side echoed, but in light glass. I forget what else
- the thing is full of symbolism, not the least of which is all the very old
glass I used. Many of the designs in the little squares around the periphery
are impossible to do in glass: intricate convoluted figures. It was an enjoyable
project - and certainly does structure one's time!
[Mark sez: ain't no saints be looking like me...]
Sister Sally forwards this piece of Claudette glass in the form of a popular and topical icon whose name i'm not going to mention for fear some search engine will latch onto it and run up my bill or some humorless bean counter will come after us for copyright infringement.
Most of the pictures I have of Claudette's glass work seem
to be in the vertical orientation. I don't know if it's because of the spiritual
overtones of many of the pieces or if she just does that because it's easier
on her back to work standing up (just kidding, just kidding...)
Each Fall for the past 3 or 4 years I've crawled
up on a ladder with a pruning pole to snip and snatch any branches of my neighbor's
Ginkgo Tree that I can unobtrusively reach. Unobtrusively, because I don't have
the neighbor's permission to do so - even though it would be to their advantage
Pheng Shui-wise - to not have the tree scraping and scratching at their roof
and raising the haunts and spectors in their sleep that I figure bothered the
Chinese enough about that sort of thing to codify it into a complex ritual practise.
Anyway - unobtrusively - because Claudette makes some sort of decoction that's
supposed to - um - something or other to do with the mind, or memory - from
this, what? Oh, yes - Ginkgo stuff and having long noticed that there's something
extra tasty about forbidden fruit I figure this clever and stealthily swiped
botanical would a tastier brew. Mea Culpa, but I will add that the leaves all
fall to the ground anyway - I just want to get them before the dog pisses on
them.
Late breaking news. The neighbor cut down the tree so that they could add a
2nd story to their double-garage-becomes-a-house house. This is a beach town
that we live in - Ocean Beach - and both us and the Ginko Tree know that
it's location, location, location. Sayanora Ginko Tree. Us? We're gonna emigrate
to Australia.
I like this piece. I've not seen it in
person, but I like what I see here. I find myself imagining that we're inside
a warm house and there's snow outside that provides the strange back illumination.
It looks as though there's something missing off the top and bottom on the scan of this piece - and it still looks like it when I see it up here. This is a rich and varied piece, with resonant Mideval tones and themes. There's a curious effect produced by the plant-like structures at left front - the glass has the look of giant kelp that provides a watery sensation to the transition to the pop-art look of the window at upper left. I like the hands..
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OR - Check out the website Claudette's partner Lono is assembling to show off her obsessive compulsive Vitreous Labors (and in the process giving Lono a new OCD toy to fidget with...)