Forest Lights: trees, moon, and spirit installed in backlit found drawer
This work depicts an enchanted forest, softly lit and safely contained. There is no risk or danger in enjoying evening fall in these woods, with a sunset soft sky. When this work is lit with the installed LED rice lights, the woods are suffused by a diffused glow and mysterious soft lights that you can imagine moving through the trees. A benign forest spirit lives in these woods, and a gentle green hued full moon rises above the trees.
Dimensions: 17.5″ x 10.2″ x 3″
Mixed media relief installed into found drawer: wood, acrylic, resin, paper, pigments, LED lights (12volt plugin transformer for std. U.S. residential power).
This work is freestanding, or add D-rings & wire to hang on a wall.
Still in progress: nothing is final until the resin pour! But I have settled on the pink-green background and the last arrangement.
This has been a difficult piece! I arranged, re-arranged, and changed almost everything in this work several times. At one point, trying to fix damage to the background, I had way too many “clouds”. It was a mess. The clouds did not add anything, and three resin trees made the scene too cluttered. I have also had difficulty choosing from several “spirit” face candidates; I even toyed with using more than one, but no!
The final piece will have only two of four possible resin trees, and I have settled on using one smaller “spirit” face. I have replaced the damaged background (twice!) so I don’t need any clouds, but I may use an arched tinted bit of resin that rather evokes a rainbow.
Now I am anchoring the pieces and I should be ready to pour resin later today!
The implementation has been very tricky. I have the lighting and the structure mostly resolved now. I still need to pour a coat of resin, add a few delicate pieces, and to anchor the lights. The lights will be resolved last, from access at the back. The gradient background is archival inkjet printed on paper, so is very delicate. It is so easy to scratch it or otherwise damage it; it must be installed very carefully. And I changed my mind about the color, switching from a green to blue, to the pink sky. I have struggled with light bleeding through the edges, keeping the acrylic & paper flat, etc. So I have replaced this paper several times. I removed the paper & medium it from the acrylic each time, because I will not discard or buy new unless I must!
OK, I do NOT think of the fat winged baby as an Angel at all; this is clearly a “putto” or cherub, associated with Venus the goddess of love, and there is/was nothing angelic about her! And as you can see, this little “cherub” can be quite demonice!
These temporary arrangements feature the first two casts of Mrs. Beetle. I finally made a mold from my very fragile alabaster original carving, shown in the bottom row. Unfortunately the casts are minus the “toes” and bottom 3/16″ of the original, which I submerged in a pool of resin, to protect and stabilize the delicate & flawed alabaster!
Two of three available fat baby birds: these are durable cement casts of my hand carved limestone fat baby bird. I will be keeping the original, my very first stone carving, but decided to make a mold from it. I don’t plan to make more than ten of these, if that many.
