Project: We are Written in the Layers of the Earth
Materials: Architectural art glass, etched red alder panels.
Installed: State Library, Archives, and Museum (SLAM)
Location: Juneau, Alaska
Size: 65 x 9 feet
Year: 2016
This giant work in glass is inspired by the entities this innovative building serves—museum, archives, and library—all of which collect our state's stories.
The wall features three figures—the story collectors: A kayaker, who uses a paddle-sized pencil to steer through a wave over fish and octopus arms, leaving a trail of phosphorescence in the ocean. Another figure, flying alongside birds and wielding a paintbrush, leaves a circuitous 16-foot-long red mark stretching across the sky, to be collected by a dancing sandhill crane. The third mark-maker hunches over the ground, making her mark with a pair of scissors, cutting into the fabric of the earth.
The piece originated from my linocuts which I carved at 1/6 scale. The cuts were translated into glass with a number of treatments, Black lines were laid down with plotter film, and then I scraped away with a variety of brushes to make a grisaille layer to add tonality. Pieces were etched, hand painted, and brilliant colors were cut of hand blown glass and applied to create dimensionality,
The glass wall runs between the state library and state archives, Each institution maintains that their side of the wall is the 'right' side, so you will want to see both sides! Each side captures the light differently. You are welcome to visit the wall during state library hours.
My imagery continues onto red alder panels on the library side.
Story collector from the ocean.
Story collector from the skies.
Each side plays with the light differently. View from the Archives side.
My first panels emerging from the kiln after I added the grisaille layer.
Glaziers shim the panes into perfect alignment on installation day.