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I is for Iridized Glass

yellow sunflower mandala: a glass mosaic by Margaret Almon
yellow sunflower mandala: a glass mosaic by Margaret Almon

 

I is for iridized glass, and its shimmering rainbow effect.  A thin metallic layer is bonded to the glass when a metallic salt solution is applied and then heated.  Dichroic glass, which means “two color” is sometimes confused with iridized glass, but it is a coating that allows the glass to toggle back and forth between only 2 colors. The pale yellow glass, second row from the outer edge in this mandala, is iridized, and you can see the subtle purplish sheen of the rainbow coloration.  Tiffany patented a version of iridescent glass called “Favrile” which was applied to his blown glass artworks. Here is an excerpt from Mark Doty’s apt poem, titled Favrile:

Glassmakers,
at century’s end,
compounded metallic lusters

 

in reference
to natural sheens (dragonfly
and beetle wings,

 

marbled light on kerosene)
and invented names
as coolly lustrous

 

as their products’
scarab-gleam: Quetzal,
Aurene, Favrile.

 

Suggesting,
respectively, the glaze
of feathers,

 

that sun-shot fog
of which halos
are composed. . .

 

Healing Mandalas: Our Bodies as Conduits of Light

Hands Mandala by Margaret Almon
Hands Mandala from Judith Cornell’s Mandala Exercises, by Margaret Almon.

In my early 30’s, I was at a spiritual retreat, where I was gravitating toward anything to do with making art, and took a workshop with Suzanne Halstead(artist and offerer of creative retreats).  She led us in making healing mandalas, using Judith Cornell’s book, Mandala:  Luminous Symbols of Healing, tracing our hands on black paper, using white pencil crayons, covering the spectrum of intensity from a thick layer of white, to barely brushing the stillness of the black paper.

I wasn’t certain of what I knew.  I was a wanderer, with the imprint of depression and an anxious heart.  I had turned 30, imagining that I would have a book of poetry published by that age, but that didn’t come to be.  I felt anything I accomplished after age 30 was too late, not prodigious enough.  There is pressure that comes with milestone ages, and with the fear of being perpetually reminded of all that you are not.  But sitting there with the sheet of paper, and the pencil in my hand, I knew light and dark.  I knew my hands, as I traced them, and I loved what I could do with them.

Judith Cornell’s book is a guide to seeing our bodies as conduits of light.  I love that image.  At my confirmation, when I was 14, I was given a Bible verse from Matthew 5:16:

Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.

Healing Radiating Mandala
Healing Radiating Mandala for Damona by Margaret Almon.

At this workshop, I was introduced to the creating of mandalas as a form of healing prayer, keeping the person in your heart as you draw, imagining the love as molecules of light, traveling through your hand and into molecules of light flowing onto the paper.  I was having a hard time with prayer, with all the words in my head, with my arguments God, and to find another way to pray was a relief.

Healing Lily Mandala
Healing Lily Mandala for S. by Margaret Almon.

In the following year, I  made a mandala for someone who was having brain surgery, for someone who was having radiation for breast cancer, and someone whose heart was breaking.  These were people I cared about, people who were suffering, and I felt there was nothing I could do, and yet, I could give them this gift from my heart and hands.

This was the beginning of my mosaic mandalas, in the elemental light and dark, in prayer as art, and art as prayer.

In the mandala below, I wanted to share my heart with my friend, to offer something from my hands, something beyond my fears and inadequacy:  grace.

 

Margaret Almon and Healing Mandala
Margaret Almon and Healing Mandala(circa 2003).

Scrappy Mandala Grouted

I promised a post-grout photo of this scrappy mandala.  I love how the "raven" colored grout blends so well with the slate.  I was wondering why the photo came out orangey in the upper left section of the mosaic, and realized that the red stained glass was reflecting the plants outside our window, as I take my photos on our old wide windowsill.  If you look closely you can see bits of green reflected.  Photographing mosaics is always a challenge.  A mosaic is like chameleon!  Depending on what the light is like, the translucency of the tesserae, the angle.  It's magical setting up at a craft show and turning on all the halogen lights.  I've had people say they could've sworn the mandalas were lit from within.  

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Related Page:

Mandalas

Every Last Scrap

Morning Glory Mandala: Mosaic Flower

Morning Glory Mosaic Mandala by Margaret Almon.
Morning Glory Mosaic Mandala by Margaret Almon.

Morning Glories have an other-worldly blue glow, and true to their name, they burst forward in the morning and are gone by noon, leaving a compact trumpet form. New ones bloom the next day. I see this as a tribute to persistence, in spite of transiency. Let us look for the glories of the moment, the startling beauty that arises in the morning, when we are yet sleepy, and bring ourselves into awakening.

 

Morning Glories by Shannon Carson.
Morning Glories by Shannon Carson.

The closed blooms are like crepe paper. A mandala can be used in meditation or prayer, as a focal point for staying in the present. Have you ever been transfixed by a beautiful flower, or a joyous task like making art, or holding someone you love, and time falls away? My mind is always going, closing down the present into a narrow twist of crepe paper. The more I fight the noise, the more loud it becomes. I am grateful for the times when I let the noise be there, but can still be here, rather than the future or the past.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Catching the Eye

Spiral Mandala by Margaret Almon
Spiral Mandala by Margaret Almon for Quantum Theology.

Stratoz’s  post about the image of bees being drawn toward flowers by scent made me think of how color can draw the human eye.  One of the first explorations I made in the visual arts, after years of being an artist of words, was taking a workshop on color with artist Nita Leland. When I am in the studio, colors send a vibration through me, like the harmony of being in choir, and being surrounded by voices.  Two colors that I love together are royal blue and gold.  These are very close to being complementary–in color theory pairs of colors which have an affinity to each other are violet and yellow, orange and blue, red and green. The mandala below had an especially compelling pull on my eye, and on Quantum Theology woman as well.  I was honored that she purchased it for her prayer space.  Art can be a relationship between the maker and the viewer, sweet as honey.

Related: Color Wheel Love