Inspired by Sigmar Polke: Uranium Glass Collection

Sorting and packing continues here at FinderMaker manor, and I've just unearthed some more items that were inspired by a recently deceased and very influential artist.

Many years ago I was flipping through a coffee table book featuring interior photographs of several famous artist's homes, and something I saw in a photograph of German artist Sigmar Polke's home caught my attention. It was a tray loaded with oddly-colored glass objects that a caption identified as belonging to Polke's collection of "canary glass".

I did some research on canary glass, and found that it is a term sometimes used to describe glassware that has been pigmented with depleted uranium oxide; other commonly used terms include "uranium glass" and "vaseline glass". The uranium pigment, though mostly depleted of it's radioactivity, remains somewhat radioactive, and reacts with ultraviolet light in such a way that it has a barely perceptible luminous quality in normal light, and positively glows a bright yellow-green under a strong u.v. or "black" light.

Sigmar Polke was something of a modern day alchemist, incorporating unusual materials (fruit and vegetable juices, silver oxide and other reactive chemicals, crushed meteorites...), into his paintings, and even did a photographic series in which sensitized plates were exposed to the emissions of radioactive minerals. I became quite fascinated by that collection of strange radioactive glass, and soon began to notice pieces at estate sales and antique stores. If a piece was cheap enough, I bought it, and eventually amassed a decent collection of the stuff. Sadly, my collection suffered a great blow when, in preparation for our move from Oakland to Los Angeles, part of my uranium glass display case came loose and allowed about a third of my collection to spill out onto the floor and shatter.

Here are some pieces from the collection that have been wrapped up and stored away for several years. I will wrap them back up now, and perhaps they will be stored away for several more.



Sigmar Polke passed away on June 10th at the age of 69. Thank you for sparking my interest in that glowing green glass, Mr. Polke.

If anyone happens to know anything about that book, i'd love to know the title and author so I can look it up-- I haven't been able to locate it.

Inspired by Louise Bourgeois

Getting ready to move is really stressful; I've done it alot over the past several years and I can't say it gets any easier over time. Occasionally I'm pleasantly surprised while I'm sorting through stuff and packing; finding this stack of screenprints I did in 2002 was one of those pleasant surprises.

I really like Louise Bourgeois' artwork, and find her large-scale installations (the "Cells") to be especially compelling. Her passing on May 31st at the age of 98 was a great loss to the art world, but my what a wonderful and inspiring body of work she created during her lifetime! 12 years ago or thereabouts I came across an image of this watercolor she had done depicting various clippers she found around her home and studio:



I was immediately inspired to try my own version using images of surgical instruments taken from a turn-of-the-century surgical supply catalog. I did several hand-drawn and colored versions before I had access to screenprinting equipment; I was excited to finally do a run of screenprints based on one of my favorite layouts during a screenprinting course at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. These are 3-color prints: 2 shades of red, and black, printed on a cream colored acid-free paper.





I always just called them my "Tribute to Louise Bourgeois" --not a very original title, and certainly not a worthy tribute to such a grand artist, but these images occupied my mind and time considerably for a period, and I'm glad to have been given the opportunity to revisit and share them. Thank you, Louise Bourgeois!!!

Medicine Bags!

I recently acquired two super soft, buttery buckskin hides and have been having a grand time sewing medicine bags! I do sew them on a machine, but since every piece of each bag is cut by hand from the hide, they end up taking a good bit of time to make from start to finish. I have 15 so far; these are meant to be worn around the neck, and I have been assembling a nice cache of beads, metal cones, horsehair and the like to add to each bag along with a strip of intricate beadwork that will be stitched directly onto the face of each bag!

Eventually these will go into my FinderMaker shop, along with mushroom shelves and all sorts of other curious objects and handmade treasures! I believe I will have to put this project on hold very soon though, as I am preparing for a big move at the end of August. We are trying to decide between New York City (we lived there before, in Manhattan, but would be in Brooklyn this time around) or Santa Fe (a new adventure, though I did spend some of my childhood in Albuquerque). The seemingly unavoidable threat of bedbugs is making the NY area seem like a rather frightening option, but Santa Fe is quite distant, and I am tiring of stressful cross-country moves. Those concerns aside, both places have much to offer, and I am looking forward to the changes that are in store! I would certainly welcome any opinions or insight on either option from my dear beloved readers!