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POETICAL MODESTY. The product of ten weeks of intense fabrication, discovery and delight, POETICAL MODESTY introduces my first in-depth exploration of fused glass imagery. This glass image follows in the footsteps of 19th-century ambrotypes, wherein photographic emulsion was painted onto glass and then exposed, generating a negative image that only became readable when backed with a black material. The viewer turns an elaborate crank, inspired by a 17th-century Persian astrolabe, bringing the piece to life. Around the gossamer image of a young masked Victorian woman with bound bouquet a Jules Verne-esque machine clacks and whirls, raising and lowering her into and out of an ornate velvet stage. POETICAL MODESTY is an orphaned relative of the early optical and parlor diversions found in homes before the advent of electricity and radio. The complete lack of precise angles in the structure toys with the symmetry of the design, and the result is a rattling, slightly stuttering, utterly human device. |
