There is something of the spiritual about glass and even though it is expensive for myself to get access to the specialist kiln equipment needed to fire it, I am drawn back to it like a moth to a flame. I have recently been revisiting glass painting and looking at how some of my existing drawn images could be translated and redeveloped using traditional glass painting techniques. I have in past blog posts looked at some of these in detail here and here, but there is always something new to learn and this was again the case.
One of the areas of my work that I am always looking at improving is that of expressive mark making. Therefore one of the things I took into the workshop was an existing image where I had tried to visualise an interoceptual awareness of an acid reflux attack, an event that caused both heartburn and stomach sickness. The visualisation, made using inks and watercolour on paper, didn't work well enough, it was too confused and although an image was arriving it wasnt quite there yet, but the translation of the feeling tone, that of the burning sensation in the throat, that was coming from an acidic stomach, was I felt at least coming into view.
Acid reflux: ink and watercolour
In the original image I had tried to express the relationship between the stomach sickness and the heartburn by juxtaposing blue and orange complementaries, the orange flowing out of the blue of an imagined twisted intestine. The expressive quality of the application was an attempt to suggest the emotional nature of an event that also woke me up and had me gasping for breath.
I worked very closely from the original, as it was made on the same day as the event I was trying to communicate and I didn't want to lose that immediacy. However this time the various drawn textures had to be thought through much more in depth, each one the result of trial and error and the application of various amounts of lavender oil and pre-treatment of the glass surface. For instance oil rubbed into the glass beforehand enabled a very different texture to be achieved in comparison to the glass that had not been pre-oiled. I used brushes, a dip in pen, porcupine quills, a palette knife, fingers and crumpled paper pushed into the paint. Sometimes being very precise and at other times just letting the textures arrive as I played with possibilities. The final image was far more intense than the one I was working from and the elimination of colour allowed for a much clearer realisation, alongside the fact that I had made the image slightly narrower, that put more emphasis on the vertical travel of the sensation.
Acid reflux: Fired painted glass
Unfortunately I managed to break the glass as soon as I got home but even that was in some way a helpful event, as it reminded me that both the initial experience and my feeling about the breakage were in some way linked. The experience I was trying to visualise was one whereby my body was feeling broken inside. I was now 'fixed' and in a position to remember the experience without any associated trauma. Perhaps a repair of the glass would echo this.
The break
Repaired glass
Another drawing I took with me to the workshop was one whereby I had tried to visualise one of the stories told to me by a migrant to Leeds who had travelled across the Mediterranean in a small boat. He had, he told me, a guardian angel in the form of a rabbit and he would look over the side of the boat to see if the rabbit was still following him, often catching glimpses of his guardian in the swell surrounding the boat. I had tried to represent this moment several times, never quite getting it right. This time I rearranged the image as a vertical, using the ability of lavender oil as a pigment carrier to suggest a liquid environment. The man's finger points to an eye in a wave form, enough suggestion I felt to then trigger an identification of the form with a rabbit's head. Because I had to keep the ink flowing in order to render the image as a whole, it felt as if it was more in keeping with the subject matter.
Man at sea spots his guardian rabbit amongst the surrounding swell: Fired painted glass
The flowing line needed to make the 'Man at sea' image was an approach to drawing I also felt I needed for one of my interoceptual portraits, in this case of a man who used to be a runner, but who now because of hip problems, can only walk with the aid of a stick. He has put on weight since his running days, but still sees the runner within himself, even if he is the only one left who can see himself as he formally was. The constraints of glass has helped simplify the image.
Digital print
Painting on glass
The two versions above are before and after firing, there is a shadow of the pen drawing, cast onto the white paper underneath the image, at some point it needs inserting into a light-box or window frame. This was a very different image to the next two, both done in response to internal feelings, the one was a response to bad earache and the other a general feeling of malaise.
Interoceptual portraits: Fired Painted Glass
Each time I revisit glass as a medium to work in, I learn new things about it. I hadn't realised I could keep a flowing line moving at the pace I needed, thinking that I would not find an equivalent to my pen and ink drawings made on paper. Because the glass is so smooth the line runs even faster and you can control the speed by laying down a very thin wash of lavender oil which gives a slight hold to the nib as it passes over the surface, the final images are a better resolution of the idea than the earlier drawings, in particular because of the central concept, that you can 'see' the inner man that still exists inside a now much older and time ravaged body.
In the case of the interoceptual portraits, it was also the use of a brown alongside the black that I was interested in. It made the images feel 'dirty' and more of the earth and I thought that this grounded what were images of invisible feelings, giving them the gravitas of a perceived reality. I was also looking for a language that had to do with the insides feeling warmer than the outside air and the frustration of not having any physical control over interoceptual sensations, hence no arms or legs.
Easing the pain
I finally returned to an image that I had begun, but not quite managed to resolve. It was a visualisation of a story told to me by one of the patients I had been working with. During the night his spinal injury would become very painful and being an inventive person, he discovered that his bed was jointed and that it could be adjusted by himself by using the power buttons alongside it. He had found an angle for the bed to be at, that when he lay over it, it helped relieve his pain. He was though getting into trouble from nurses for playing with his bed settings during the night and making adjustments that hadn't been ratified by medical staff. My problem had been that I used fused glass frit to develop the image but I had lost the man in the feeling tone. I managed to bring him back by eventually simply drawing a looping line in black oil based paint and having it fired, so that it was integrated into the coloured frit surface.
Once again I have to thank Jo-Ann of Hannah Stained Glass for all her help and support.
See also: