The Bearable Lightness of Being
Light is everywhere. It illuminates and nourishes the world around us, traveling over wide desert canyons, through narrow forest mazes, and is reflected where the water meets the sky. It is a necessary component of growth, for fauna and flora alike. Light, essentially, is life. It is not surprising, then, that so many artists learn how to capture and manipulate such a valuable resource for use in their work.
Masters and Commanders
As a fused glass artist, Pilisa Rainbow Lady has spent her career mastering the art of light manipulation – how it can be transformed to affect colors, shapes, and textures in an ever-shifting dance. It is one of the elements that brings an ethereal quality to her work. Largely transparent pieces like “Green Man” use light to slowly reveal hidden structures, designs, and faces; whereas pieces like her Raindrop Bowls use opaqueness to enhance a wonderful vibrancy. The same is true of her practical art. Her light sconces, such as “Abstract Waves,” use the power of artificial light to project dazzling patterns into living spaces, and her buffet sets illuminate even the simple act of eating. Pilisa truly pays tribute to the ubiquity of light.
Stained glass artist Holly Stedman uses her nearly forty years of experience to also capture the power of light in ways both practical and artistic. Her pieces use a mix of glasses of various transparencies to create stunning patterns, both figurative, such as in the meticulously traditional “Small Wonder,” and abstract, such as in the modern and textured “Monstera Deliciosa.” The highlighting of individual aspects of those patterns waxes and wanes with the shifting of the day’s light, making them ever-changing works of great mastery.
See the Light
Be sure to see the amazing work of Pilisa, Holly, and all our represented artists at the opening reception of “Harnessing the Light,” Friday, February 1st from 5-8pm at Kuivato, a Creative Gateways Gallery in the Tlaquepaque Arts and Crafts Village!
