I discovered Sarah Hall Studio‘s solar panel art glass, and found the meshing of color, light, glass and energy thrilling. Sarah Hall is a Canadian glass artist, and was commissioned by Holy Family Cathedral of Saskatoon to create stained glass windows that take advantage of the city’s average of 2381 hours of sunshine annually, more hours of sunshine than any other city in Canada. The Lux Gloria windows are embedded with more than 1000 solar panels.
Sarah Hall, Lux Nova, solar lit glass at Regent College
I also discovered that a book I already own, The Color of Light: Commissioning Stained Glass for A Church, was written by Sarah Hall. I bought the book because liturgical and sacred art glass are realms I am drawn to with my own glass art, and Hall discusses important questions for churches to pose in the commissioning process and gives artists an understanding of the process as well.
Sarah Hall is quoted in the article Windows a Striking Feature of New Cathedral, as being happy for the possibility of strong color on the outside of a building, even at night, because of the internal light source, and the joy of being able to collect energy for the building’s electricity needs is gratifying as well. Let there be light!
Bertha Lum, 1925 Branche of Oranges – Japonisme comes to America
Bertha Lum(1869-1954) caught my eye on Pinterest, because of the rich orange tones of her woodblock prints. She attended the Art Institute of Chicago as a young woman, and when she married at age 34, persuaded her husband to go to Japan on their honeymoon, in search of printmaking supplies. I can’t help but be drawn to a woman who builds a honeymoon around art techniques.
Bertha Lum, The Fox Woman(1916)
I’ve included several links to various biographical sketches of Bertha Lum, which are like pieces of a puzzle, each important but kept separate. Details like returning to Japan a second time to apprentice with Japanese printmakers, being the only westerner to exhibit art at Tokyo’s Annual art exhibition in 1912, divorcing in 1917 and moving to California and making a living from art to losing most of her blocks in the earthquake of 1923 in Japan, to living in China for 2 years with her 2 daughters while learning Chinese printmaking, and finally the fact that her son-in-law Antonio Riva, was executed by the Communist government in China in 1951, and she moved to Italy to be with her daughter, and died there in 1954.
Producers Jason Reitman (L) and Margaret Yen, winners of the Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For Motion for “Juno” pose in the press room during the 51st Annual Grammy Awards held at the Staples Center on February 8, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
I never knew there was such a thing as a Music Supervisor until I searched for a Margaret whose last name started with Y, and found Margaret Yen. Music Supervisors pull together musicians, composers, arrangers, songwriters, performers and basically anyone else who is associated with music on film, tv, advertising and videogames, and helps set the tone of the work, combining sound and vision. Margaret Yen won a Grammy for her Music Supervision of Juno, and is quoted by Ruth Gerson in an article as saying that one of the perks of her job is being able to license music that would otherwise go unheard. You’ve most likely heard the effects of Margaret Yen, but just didn’t know it!
I met Michelle Francl-Donnay, writer of Quantum Theology, in 2008, when she came to one of our craft shows. She was my first “from blog to real life” encounter. Michelle found Stratoz’s blog, because she too was going to Wernersville Jesuit Center for a silent retreat, and they began commenting on each other’s blogs. She wanted to meet us, and ended up smitten with my Spiral Mandala, and purchased it for her prayer space. Thanks to Michelle, Stratoz’s work has traveled to Japan and Rome. She is a delightful combination of Ignatian spirituality, thoughtful writing, and Professor of Chemistry. Be sure to check her out at Quantum Theology!
Grout is the mysterious element of making mosaics. Grout can unite the pieces or make them stand apart. The word Grout may come from the Old English “gruta” meaning coarse meal, a kind of porridge. Grout fills in the spaces, as if a sustaining porridge, yet has no adhesive quality in and of itself. Grout obscures the surface when applied, but then helps reveal the ultimate beauty of the glass. Grout is why I spend so much time in hardware stores. Grout is the fuel of my friend Joanne, The Grout Monster, who loves to grout as a healing process of playing in the mud. Joanne is in the middle of her 2012 Poet Laureate of Montgomery County program, and for the month of April, National Poetry Month, I give a shout out to Joanne Leva, Grout Monster and poet extraordinaire.
Margaret Lee Runbeck(1905-1956) was the author of 16 books, but her presence on the internet is one sentence at a time. Pages of her quotes come up on Google, but very little actual biographical information. I did discover that Margaret Lee Runbeck recorded a “This I believe” piece for Edward R. Murrow’s radio show(a tradition carried on by NPR), describing her trip to India in the 1950’s, to teach literacy by writing small novels for those who had just learned to read.
The love which came back to me through this work, the opening of Indian hearts which showed me the great spiritual treasures of that civilization, gave me back something as valuable as any American help could give India. I went to give. I came back rich with what I received. . .
We have to meet our neighbors on spiritual grounds. This cannot be done by governments. Only person to person can we express love to each other. When we find our American way of doing this, we can unite the world.
I believe there is a spiritual revival going on all over the world. Because I have written two books on answered prayer, my mail brings me thousands of letters which tell that the greatest revolution happening today is going on in men’s souls. Men are finding that life is good only in so far as it feeds the soul with satisfaction and peace. We have come to this moment on our journey headfirst. I believe we are going on from here heart-first.
Runbeck believes that the United States began with men and women “who loved God enough and humanity enough to leave home in order to worship in freedom.” Usually, I bristle when I hear about “America as a Christian nation,” because I don’t feel the love, or the heart-first journey, but I resonate with finding ways to love each other, and share our treasures, both spiritual and material.
Prof. Margaret Brimble, Chair of Organic and Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Auckland, has a desire to create beautiful and difficult molecules:
Today, the creative process Margaret Brimble uses to build molecules may be compared to a game of chess: “In what we call ‘molecular chess’, we have this beautiful molecule and we have to work out how to make it. We set our strategy, but inevitably things go wrong. You move backward, you go forward, you change to get around problems. Eventually, you do have your molecule, as you capture your king in the game of chess.”(interview with Anne Bougel)
She has worked with shellfish toxins, extremely complex molecules, identifying ways to use them in fighting ovarian, renal and breast cancers, as well as treatment for hypertension, epilepsy and pain. I found her work just after reading Michelle Francl‘s fascinating article on beautiful molecules in the March 2012 issue of Nature Chemistry. She defines elegelant molecules as ones which are “. . .symmetric; unexpected; revelatory of unseen mysteries; have a touch of sabi, a patina of history; a rich set of associations that stimulates our imaginations; useful; logically simple; sometimes whimsical — and sometimes profoundly graceful.” As an artist, I resonate with this lyrical description of beauty, whether of molecules or mosaic, and love that Margaret Brimble sees beauty in the molecules she seeks.
For those who are curious, among Michelle Francl’s top 10 beautiful molecules are ethanol(the wonders of Belgian beer), insulin, and snoutane(with its wonderfully apt name.) For the rest, check out her post The Most Zen of Molecules.
Margaret Goldie(1905-1997), was a first generation teacher of the Alexander Technique(AT). She’s pictured here with F.M. Alexander, the persistent studier of himself, and of the ways we move by habit, and how these habits can cause us difficulties and pain. I started AT lessons when my back was complaining about how I was working in the studio. When I discovered Margaret Goldie’s name, I tried to find a photo, and after searching, this is the only one. Miss Goldie(as she was called), didn’t want any photos taken of her teaching, and published no books(see Miss Goldie: A Little for the Record.)
Alexander developed his technique of “good use” of the body through his relentless observations of his own movements after repeatedly losing his voice while doing public speaking. He started taking students, and these students then started various schools of AT. Miss Goldie was not one to turn her teaching into an industry. She wanted people to experience the same kind of awareness that Alexander found for himself, and that she found for herself. She left a distinct impression on her students, who often write of being both awed and scared of her. John Hunter writes of his experience with Miss Goldie:
This brings us to decision. If we have choice, then we have to make a decision. It is here that many of us get stuck. In my first or second lesson with Margaret Goldie she said, ‘Now I am going to ask you to make a decision, and it will be the first decision you’ve ever made.’ At the time I found this a very strange thing for her to say. Had I not been making decisions all my life? Had I not decided that very day to get out of bed and come and have a lesson with her? This is a very interesting question. We assume that because we end up taking one course of action rather than another that we have made a decision. But is that the case? My suspicion is that we have merely acquiesced to impulses following the path of least resistance.
This moment of freedom, before we act out of habit, is powerful. I see glimpses of it when observing myself, but there are many habits entrenched in how I move, and I get frustrated with all I need to notice, like the proverbial onion, layer after layer. I am learning it is not about “doing” Alexander, but about letting my body go into the positions of most ease. As Fiona Robb quotes Margaret Goldie(as cited in Robert Rickover’s article on Miss Goldie) : ”Any doing is an overdoing.” I like that.
