Eureka! How it all started... I found the photograph.

This is a photo taken in Venice, Italy. It's not a great photo, but read on...

As you may have read previously, I studied mosaics in Italy and Turkey.
The last day in Venice...strolling around... I came upon 2 things that caught my attention. They both had a profound impact on me.

One was a chandelier - multiple branches - with glass pendants. The fixture itself was simple, it was the glass that made me come close to drooling... why? Fruit. Apples, pears, grapes...so many colors...flowers, leaves, beads.
I asked the price - it wasn't too much, but the shipping was hundreds of dollars. About to board a train through Slovenia on the way to Hungary - schlepping a chandelier was not going to work. I took a mental picture... which is easy since I'm eidetic.

What might seem totally off the mark at this stage of the story is a beautiful story book I had as a child. The Arabian nights. In it, Aladdin makes his way into a cave, finds a tree dripping with fruit made of gems [looked like glass to me]. Translucent, colorful, startling...beautiful. Aladdin presents a bowl of these jewel fruits to a Princess to win her hand. The images from that book have never left me [once again, eidetic... I can pull it up on the screen in the air anytime]. I still have that book. So that chandelier really made an impression!

Anyway - as I am known to say - "I can make that," my search through Venice's tourist stores was a hunt for glass fruit, beads, flowers. I found nothing. I went back to the lighting store and asked if I could just buy the fruit? "No." Can you tell me where I can find them? "No." Back to the stores.

Through the door, I saw the stained glass mosaic you see above. I walked into the store and stared at it. Looks like a Mucha. Little squares of glass in many colors. On Glass. Grouted. In a metal framework. This time, the price was too high, forget about the shipping. Took a photo and moved on.

I never forgot the chandelier or the mosaic.

It took me 18 months of searching, bidding on ebay, visiting antiques and lamp repair stores, web sites, etc. to accumulate enough glass and crystal fruit to create my own chandelier. Hard to see, but there are apples, pears, grapes, flowers, pendants, etc.
Of course, within a week of assembling this, a store here in Phoenix is carrying the chandeliers from Venice.

The portrait also stayed on my mind. "I can make that," my mantra... became a reality, of sorts. I found small squares of glass. I glued them to glass, grouted it... not bad. Made a geometric, a flower, a woman. Problems I ran into:

1. I couldn't find the colors I wanted.
2. I couldn't find little squares
3. I don't like to cut glass
4. I didn't want to use stained glass pieces - too thick, too opaque.
5. I couldn't afford to go back to Venice to find out more.

I tried finding more info about that piece online to no avail. Not done, though. What else could I use? At that moment, my parents arrived with a box of greeting cards and a paper cutter.
Aha... maybe I'll use paper, instead of glass!
I pulled a self-portrait off the wall - willing to sacrifice it to experimentation. Cut "tiles" out of cards. Glued them on the painting.
Eureka!


Okay, now that I found the photo [after many years]... I can see that what I do now has evolved from the initial inspiration to something completely different... but that image never left my mind. I credit that moment in a store in Venice with what has become my medium of expression.

I guess when I say "I can make that," I usually do.

Inspiration is a jumping off point... all of us artists - in every medium - start with a grain of an idea and create...everything beautiful.

Thanks for reading!

More Icons...and the connections between them.

I've been thinking about what inspires me to create - and how interesting it is to connect seemingly disparate images or concepts. Funny, too - how a story can set my mind in motion.

I've been wanting to create a series of Icons for a long time. It all started with inspiration from Russian Icons and ancient mosaics, religious themes, etc... and it has broadened.

I completed two new Icons in the past month or so - the Queen of Sheba and a piece I'm titling Rayhanna - she's a djinna.

I recently read "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye" - a book of fairy tales by A.S. Byatt. It started that crazy mind of mine going...reading more about Djinns [genies], female Djinna [there are lot's of them!]... and on. I wanted to create a Djinna with the pattern of cesm-i bulbul in the background.
It's a specific Turkish technique of creating glass - usually a spiral of cobalt blue and white [the nightingale's eye]... but my Djinna just HAD to be yellow and olive with orange hair...so my color scheme got out of whack. So, it's not really true to form, but true to me.

I've had a thing for all things Turkish for about 18 years. And, it's probably one of my favorite places on earth.

I've had a thing for the Arabian Nights for ever... I have an amazing book from my childhood and the images from the Aladdin story are easy to conjure up... especially with an Eidetic memory!

The Queen of Sheba married King Solomon. One of her parents was a Djinn [probably her father since she had very hairy legs!]... and there are stories of how King Solomon enlisted the services of a Djinn.

In Turkey, Solomon is Suleyman...like the Magnificent! Topkapi palace... the Harem...you know. Weird, isn't it? I had the two images in the works for weeks and didn't even think about a connection.

I'm still in the Icon phase... I have three pieces in the works - Ariadne and Theseus [and the labyrinth], Mother Nature and St. Sophia [Hagia Sophia - back to Istanbul again!][Sophia is wisdom].

I never got around to St. Helena, but it's still percolating.