Friday Egg: Caritas Super Exaltat Omnia

An ostrich egg, pure white and unaltered, broken open to reveal an inner life of golden light. A representation of the love a parent gives a child. The highest and deepest love to the child, as represented by the golden inner lining of the egg that protected and nurtured the child. But such love is not without consequence. The egg has to break for the child to grow. The dual states of parenthood, of love and pain.

This work can be seen at Gallery 701 at the Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Drive, in their show "Naissance" beginning November 18th and running until February 20, 2017. 

Friday Egg: "Elliptical Red/Blue"

Today's egg is an idea I have been working with this year. I have become fascinated with the interior of the eggshell and what the pores of the eggshell do with the dyes as I work my design on the outside. Usually, this beautiful scattering of colors is only seen after an egg breaks and at that point most people aren't in the mood to see how gorgeous it is inside. I want to bring this beautiful "conversation" between my work and the reaction of the eggshell to the fore without the disaster preceding the discovery, so I chose a goose egg that I was not particularly fond of and sawed about a quarter of the shell away to reveal the internal scene. And because I wanted this work to be about what was happening inside the eggshell, I decided to paint the exterior a matte black to hide my own half of the interaction and accentuate the beauty of what the eggshell had to say. In one of the photos, I took a close-up of the exterior and you can still see some of the etched outlines of my design in the black paint. One difficulty I had in photographing the work is that the dots of color are so beautifully diffuse that it is impossible to perfectly capture the image because it looks out of focus. This is definitely one that you should see in person if you can. 

Which you can! As I mentioned last week, the East Austin Studio Tour is coming up, Saturday and Sunday, November 12 - 13th, 19 - 20th from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. all four days. I'm stop #75 on the tour. For more information on the tour or to find out where my studio is, go to http://east.bigmedium.org/.

If I have enough photos of my work, I may just keep posting works that you just have to see in person to entice you to come on the tour. 

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: "Translucency"

I enjoyed every part of creating this piece. A lovely plain and simple etched egg but with a giant hole cut into the eggshell, revealing the internal play of light and shadow. The etching is the most important part of this piece, as the light is blocked more by the thicker areas of eggshell so that the pattern can emerge internally. This first photo shows a good amount of the etching and a hint of the shadows inside, but if you go a couple of photos down you can more clearly see what is visible when you look inside. It reminds of sugar Easter eggs with scenes inside. And I'm tickled that it almost looks like and actual egg, with the white surrounding the darker yolk. This was a tough one for me to photograph and I would recommend that you see it in person if you can.

Which brings me to some timely news: you will soon have the opportunity if you want to see this work in person because the East Austin Studio Tour is approaching soon, Saturday and Sunday, November 12 - 13th, 19 - 20th from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. all four days. I'm stop #75 on the tour. For more information on the tour or to find out where my studio is, go to http://east.bigmedium.org/.

I'd love to show you this and all my other new work (I have some fun 2D work that I've been playing with!), so please come on by if you can.

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: Pinwheel!

Color! Spinning patterns exploding from a central flower! All on a topsy-turvy starflower base. This goose egg was a lot of fun to make, but please don't ask me which colors I used or the order they were put on because I simply can't tell you. Every color! All the colors!

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: Blue Moonflowers

Revisiting a pattern that I love today with a more unusual colorway. These are hollyhocks done in turquoise with red outlines and black and gray stems. I started here with a goose egg dyed red. I outlined all the flowers and stems with beeswax and then washed the color back to white. Then I dyed the egg turquoise and rinsed it until it was a very light blue and waxed the inner petals. I dyed it again to a medium turquoise and waxed, a darker turquoise and waxed, and a final really dark turquoise color. Once all the blues were covered, I rinsed again and then dyed the egg black, waxed, and rinsed to gray. Once everything was waxed, I put it in a vinegar bath to etch so I could get some dimension to the design. You can't see it very well in this first photo, but in some of the close-ups you can get a better view.

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: Species of Water

Today's piece is called "Species of Water." The blues remind me of the varied shades of blue and green you see in different kinds of water: ocean, lake, ice, deep and shallow. These chicken eggshells were injected with dye and allowed to sit and think for a few days. I then cut teardrop shapes into the eggshells using a diamond wheel on my Dremel. This was definitely the hardest part and I lost about a third of the eggshells that I started with.  I then carefully arranged the eggshells in different configurations until I found the one most pleasing and attached them to the white framework. I love looking at the various colors inside of each eggshell. I find it interesting that some eggs allowed the dye to migrate through the pores to the outer shell while others kept it completely inside.

Just a note: eggshell dust is hazardous to breathe, so if you are ever tempted to cut into an eggshell with a Dremel, use a dustbox or cut outside and wear a paint project respirator with filters for vapor/paint/dust. If you smell eggshell dust then you are breathing it in and you don't want to do that.

Happy Friday!

Friday Egg: Starry Seas

Friday Egg today is similar to the one I posted a couple of weeks ago, but in a completely different colorway. I like to see how choosing different colors can completely change the feel of a piece. I call this one "Starry Seas" because the eggshell decided that the pores of the egg would show on the open water areas, where I left the wave blank rather than draw stripes. It looks to me like stars in the sky reflected in a wave. I love the effect and I am happy when an eggshell asserts itself like this.