peacocking

Another dream project swung my way.  I have wanted to do a peacock feather for a long time and kept throwing it out to organizations in proposals and finally got a YES!  Plus, they asked for a companion piece, and I chose a whole peacock. On the 30th, I get to see them both hung up.  I can't wait!  there is so much iridescent in this mosaic. The eye feathers have a ring of irid and also the highlights on his head and neck.

At the beginning, I started to question my decision to go multicolored. Once it was done, I think it makes this bird look even more cheerful.  Both of these go in the MICU in Penn State Hershey Medical Center. 

The feather incorporates tiles made by faculty at the Med Center. They did a fantastic job as you would have guessed.  I regret not having many close-up photos, but I had a phone mishap and lost a bunch of stuff.  I had a great photo of hospital peeps here in my shop working on tiles but unfortunately, that was one that is missing. 

One of the tiles made here at my shop was a cute little ice cream cone.  I had to have that one piece of feather swoop down so the ice cream cone would be upright. It is hard to see but that little drip has an ice cream cone on it. 

weird times

Each of my residencies is unique and offers it's own challenges.  This one involved collaborating with people that I did not even get to meet!  Obviously, I would have enjoyed working in person WITH these people but we dealt with the restrictions at that time, I did get to go in briefly, but most tile making was done at Penn State Hershey Medical Center, by the staff, with glass that I dropped off. 

This mosaic is 3x5 feet and is a different recipe than I have used in the past.  It features the tiles made by participants like in most of my residencies. The part that was different was that I assembled the mosaic myself.  I love assembling with a group, but when I work myself, I am able to do more complicated work than I can accomplish with the hands of 20 glass newbies working full speed ahead all at the same time.  

This art was definitely a "labor" of love.   The project was intended as an artistic outlet to benefit staff that has been on the front lines of the grind through a historically challenging time. I proposed my fingerprint idea as a way to symbolize the way these people touch our community. 

 There's so much personality in here.  I absolutely LOVE when people can point to the part or parts they made... where they were able to do whatever they wanted. Moving forward, I am hoping to find a lot more projects just like this... but hopefully in person.