I was thrilled to be part of Artlink’s annual Art D’Core Gala in Phoenix this year. Each Artlink Artist Council member invites another artist to collaborate with them on a piece that is exhibited at the gala. Magda Gluszek invited me to be her partner, and I happily accepted. We came together as collaborators with a mutual love of and concern for the natural world.

In talking about our desire for change, we were drawn to questions about the idea of acceptance. Using the metaphors of the body and breath, we ask if the notion of acceptance as acquiescence is accurate. The figure’s dhanurasana (yoga bow pose) represents the challenge and cyclical nature of acceptance, pushing the body open to what is, to new perspectives. Represented by the silk panel, the breath is an exchange inward and outward, releasing toxic thought and emotion, allowing for renewed energy and a fresh insight into the present moment.

The image above shows the lumen print I made to represent breath. I tested 8 fabrics, choosing this silk for its translucent quality, and made 25 lumens that we narrowed down to a top-three before selecting this final one. We both liked the fluidity of the image. It was made on 15-year-old Ilford Multigrade Cooltone gelatin silver paper in contact with cyanotype, soap water, kosher salt, and salvaged pieces of packing material. After exposure to the UV rays of the Sun, the resulting 8 x 10 inch lumen was washed, dried, scanned, enlarged digitally, and then printed with pigmented inks on Habotai silk. It’s one of the largest pieces I’ve ever done, measuring 3 feet by 4 feet.

I’m threading the monofilament through a corner of the silk panel in preparation for hanging. Photo Credit: Magda Gluszek

I can’t say enough good things about Magda. As a person and artist, she is talented, giving and insightful. The collaboration was long-distance so we used Zoom, email and the USPS to come together. In fact, we didn’t meet in person until the day we installed the piece at the venue, but it felt like we’d known each other for a long time. I learned so much about figurative ceramic sculpture from Magda. She spent many weeks molding the clay piece by piece, cutting her into six separate parts for hollowing out, incorporating the flanges that would allow the parts to be put back together, the scoring and slipping that connected the parts seamlessly at install time. She incorporated many meaningful details into the body of the sculpture: the braided hair, fingernail and toenails, teeth inside the mouth, and the beautifully painted eyes that echoed the color in the silk panel.

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Acceptance: a Collaboration of Sculpture and Photography