Infinity Box

For another project for the glass class that I took during WinterSession, I set out to recreate the feeling of looking into an infinite sky of stars and celestial bodies.

An ultra deep field photograph taken by the Hubbles Space Telescope.

After brainstorming and sketching, I decided to suspend glowing glass bubbles inside an infinity box made out of mirror.  I wasn't sure exactly how everything was going to work, but this sketch shows how I initially envisioned this project.

A sketch showing my preliminary ideas for the project.

Work in progress- Here I am preparing a cardboard box to become my Infinity Box.

After a lot of work (blowing glass bubbles, filling them with glow paint, and suspending them inside the mirror box that I created), my project was ready for the final critique.

My instructor views my infinite environment through the one-way mirror window.

My mirror box gives the viewer a glimpse of infinity. 

The strange glow and atmosphere that my piece gives off reminds me of the almost frightening strangeness of the universe and how little is known about it. When I saw this NASA photo of a star being born, I immediately saw similarities between it and my Infinity Box. Both seemed capable of instilling an uneasy sense of wonder upon the viewer.

NASA: A baby star creating green jets, each one three times the distance between Earth and the Sun.

Another view of the interior of my Infinity Box.

RISD Poster Featuring my Glass Anemone

I was super shocked when I saw this poster hanging up all over campus at the beginning of spring semester- there was my glass anemone! Although I was super excited to have my work featured on a poster, I felt slightly disappointed.  No one had asked permission to use my work and my name was not mentioned anywhere on the poster.  I later learned that when you agree to attend RISD, you sign away the copyright claims to the work you create here, so I really couldn't be too upset by the whole thing.

Overall, I'm pretty flattered to have my work chosen to be on a RISD Glass poster- especially since I'm not even majoring in glass!

RISD Glass Visiting Artist Poster featuring my Glass Anemone.

Glass Anemone

During RISD Wintersession this year, I took a glass class called Light, Shadow, and Transparency.  For one of my final projects, I decided to create a glass anemone out of many wand-like units.

This glass piece attempts to recreate the characteristics and movement of a bubble-tip anemone.

The bubble-tip anemone is a beautiful animal with distinctive bulb shapes on the end of each tentacle. The more sun it receives in its habitat, the more likely it will develop these bubbles.

A bubble-tip anemone.

Made by creating a marble and stretching out a hot glass stem, each tentacle was created individually and attached together into a ring after being annealed.

My glass anemone.

A profile of the glass anemone's tentacles.

A bubble-tip anemone in the wild sweeps its tentacles through shifting currents to collect nutrients.

When mounted on a wall and introduced to a direct light source, the glass anemone seems to come to life. The shifting light creates interesting shadows that flow across the wall as if underwater.

Light introduced to the anemone.

Work in process- Here I am working on a tentacle in the hot shop.

Birds at my Window

At the Rhode Island School of Design, I'm in this awesome liberal arts class called Birds and Books. For my class presentation, I decided to photograph the different kinds of birds that visit my balcony to eat from one of the many bird feeders. Here is a few highlights from the project.

A beautiful male Downy Woodpecker enjoying some suet.

A female Downy Woodpecker looking super cute.

A male Downy Woodpecker showing off his color.

A female Mourning Dove being curious.

Female Mourning Dove just hanging out on the windowsill. 

Preening and fluffing her feathers.

These birds are so in dove with each other.

Male and female Mourning Doves looking at each other affectionately.

Kisses.

A sweet little Tufted Titmouse watching me through the window

A White-Breasted Nuthatch doin his weird little walk to the feeder.

English Sparrows (male top left, female bottom right) snackin on sunflower seeds.

A Black-Capped Chickadee being adorable as ever..

House Finch/Purple Finch (still so unsure..) just straight chillen