Kate Whitefield Studio

UNDER/OVER WATER

2011-03-12T20:55:00.000-08:00

Value Study

Early Development: First segment drawing of the ice crystal

laden shrub at the edge of the front yard fish pond.

Further development of the image suggests oval and

circular design possibilities. When the upper panel is

fabricated in Dalles de Verre, the shrub will measure 7 ft.

tall. The total panel will extend to 16 ft. tall.

These oval and circular concept drawings, derived

from the original sketch, keep the lowest values at the

heart of the shrub and graduate to higher values at the

outer edges.

The value plan is here reversed in these last two drawings
by holding the highest values at the heart of the design
and graduating to the lower color values at the outer edges.

The embedded, strong geometric armature, the powerful

and ancient geometry of the Squaring of the Circle,

bridges the white-hot spiritual fire at the center to

physical intensity and passion at the outer edge.

This design, when realized in Dalles de Verre,

will measure 6 ft. in diameter.

These designs are awaiting a commission.

GAIA'S PALETTE

2010-11-19T23:03:00.000-08:00

Gaia's Pallette

Removing the latex release on the backside of the panel.

Close-up of silica grit and glass. I will vacuum off

all excess grit when the epoxy is cured and the glass

will be totally exposed.

Adding black silica grit before the freshly poured

epoxy hardens. The grit subdues the sheenof the bare

epoxy surface and produces a matte finish. This will

allow for a maximum effect of the vibrant colors.

If, however, the panel is to"live" in the landscape,

then it's advisable to omit the application of the grit.

The grit will accumulate dust, grime and bird

droppings, making it difficult to clean.

Upper Panel (35" X 27")

Latex release is poured between the cut and faceted glass.

The release agent prevents the final epoxy pour from

bonding to the fiber-board and cartoon substrates

as well as from flowing under the slab glass.

Lower Panel (37" X 27")
Glass is resting directly on the building plastic and design cartoon.

At this intermediate stage, I have secured the wood dams to a fiber-board underlayment and placed the dalles de verre (slab glass), cut with a masonry wet saw, over the design cartoon. I've placed a protective layer of building plastic over the design cartoon in preparation for the next step of pouring an intermediate layer (about 1/16" thick) of latex release agent. The photo is taken before the pouring of the latex release.

The design and the colors are taken directly from Mother Nature and are the result of looking and sensing closely over many fall seasons. The intensity of the dalles de verre (slab glass) medium is my way of imitating and honoring the magnificent colors, shapes and relationships She presents to us year after year.

I enjoy this intermediate stage as the crisp freshly cut slab glass begins to show the strength of the original concept. The faceting of the glass and pouring the epoxy will draw out new intensities and proximity tensions between the glass pieces.

Detail

Spontaneous, informal symmetries appear as if by magic.

Summer Celebration

2010-09-21T12:44:00.000-07:00

Preliminary color sketch and value study

The Dalles de Verre (Slab Glass) is cut, faceted and positioned. The perimeter steel reinforcing is placed. The latex release agent is poured. It will cure in several days. The panel is then ready for the thermoset epoxy pour.

The epoxy pour completed, the wood dam is removed. Steel reinforcing is exposed along with eyelet hooks embedded into the epoxy. No texture grit is applied to the viewing side, as the panel will "live" outdoors. (If grit is applied, it will accumulate wind-driven dirt and bird droppings. It is very difficult to clean!)

The panel is turned over and the latex release agent is removed. (The release agent performs three functions: a) It holds the slab glass's position during the epoxy pour b) It prevents the epoxy from flowing under the glass and c) It prevents the epoxy from bonding with the substrate surface, below the glass.)

The finished panel with morning sunlight!

In late morning the glass and color become even more lively

Progress Photos: Day Lily Lamp

2010-08-21T21:14:00.000-07:00

Working in Leaded glass offers a new set of color opportunities. Here are some progress photos of the Day Lily lamp, as of 8/19/2010

Some variagated glass I'm using

Using a rudimentary light table for variagated glass
is a useful way to transfer the pattern for cutting

Kate with 30 sec. light table

Plan View of lamp. Each glass panel

will be 7" wide X 11.33" high

(Golden Mean proportion)

The total frame height is 15 1/2" tall.

Working from the center outward works best
when leading the panel!

This is the fun part
as the design comes alive.

Checking the newly cut wood frame before
securing.

Panels ready for soldering and caulking.

Mahogany frame ready for transparent stain.

Completed lamp. I need to make chain
suspension adjustments for level presentation.

My initial
image of the lamp

is almost there!

(Final photos to have lower wattage bulb.)

Montana Ash - Leaded Glass

2010-01-25T22:35:00.000-08:00

These two panels frame an exposed masonry fireplace.

They are only a few feet away from the original ash tree.

The panels and the light work their magic in various seasons and times of the day. Here the panel is backlit at dusk. They are currently located in a residence in Helena, Montana.

Cattail Panel - Leaded Glass

2010-01-22T16:03:00.000-08:00

Immersing ones self in the spell of a long Montana winter happens when coming to the present moment and noticing the amazing animation (sometimes frozen, suspended animation!) in the landscape. The design came during a long walk along a frozen puddle filled, gravel country road.

The panel is 32" by 20 inches and resides in West Yellowstone, Montana

Leaf Lamp - Leaded Glass

2010-01-22T15:44:00.000-08:00

The design elements were taken from a larger sketch of wild foliage growing along a small Colorado mountain creek. The panel segments literally arrayed themselves in the final design.

The lamp is 38" in diameter, weighs 40 lbs. and is now located in Boulder, Colorado.

Stream Bed Lamp - Leaded Glass

2010-01-22T15:16:00.000-08:00

The lamp's design began on a walk down a sun-baked, dried out stream bed. Patterns in the baked clay, interspersed with the occasional fallen leaf and stone were outrageously beautiful. The finished lamp is 36" in diameter and weighs 35 pounds.

The lamp now resides in Grand Junction, Colorado

Integrating Masons' Tools with theTara Brooch.

2009-11-02T19:06:00.000-08:00

The Tara Brooch was found in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland in August of 1850. Historians usually date this artifact to around 700 AD, however there is evidence that its origin is much older. Orthodox archeology identifies is as a garment clasp. However Peter Dawkins' recent study of its underlying design geometry (See Pi in the Sky by Michael Poynder) has revealed that it is an orienting tool, referencing multiple celestial events as viewed from the Earth. The makers of the brooch employed a simplified, concise geometry in order to orient buildings to significant celestial events. The brooch reveals a sophisticated pre-Christian, neolithic culture in the British Isles, that enabled the integration of many complex celestial and global references into their annual event calendars and sacred structures.

At every stage of the design of these masonic panels, I have intuitively felt that the marriage of an historic geometry and ancient tools is appropriate. What better than to link the ancient masons' hand tools with the equally ancient celestial "survey" instrument that assisted in positioning the building!

The Tara Brooch is a geometric calculator utilizing a simplified concise geometry. It references equinox sunset and sunrise in the northern British Isles, the celestial equator, the pole star, a sun-centered solar system, the radius of the moon in relation to the radius of the earth, the pyramid angle of 51.42 deg., the division of the circle into one-sevenths and much more.

Ancient Geometry underlying the Tara Brooch
[d'apres Peter Dawkins in Pi in the Sky by M. Poynder]

Masons' Trowel integrated with Ancient Geometry

Masons' Square and Compass, Hammer and Plumb intigrated with Ancient Geometry

Playing with the geometric armature of the Tara Brooch provides an unexpected richness.

Four-fold circular array of Tara Brooch Geometry

Six-fold circular array of Tara Brooch Geometry

Seven-fold extension of Tara Brooch Geometry

Masonic Tools - Symbols Of Transformation

2009-11-02T03:15:00.000-08:00

The designs below are inspired by bronze castings inlaid in a travertine marble floor at a masonic temple in Trenton, New Jersey. I am attracted to them for the richness of their physical and symbolic history. The tools are at once ancient, having been used in their current form for thousands of years, and current as they are very much in use on today's construction sites. They serve as the link betwen the hand of the mason and the physical form of the simple tradesman's dwelling as well the form and volumes of the edifice housing timeless religious and civic ceremony. Over the centuries these tools have enabled the construction of buildings that reference sacred proportions, terrestrial landmarks and celestial events enabling buidlings that are a link to the greater universe.

At a personal level, the Order of Freemasonry incorporates these tools as symbols of guiding principals as we seek to build our spiritual lives referencing the universal values of love and compassion. In the designs below I have combined an ancient orienting geometric armature that references terrestrial and celestial landmarks, derived from the Tara Brooch, with the actual image of the tools themselves. I feel it is fitting that the age-old mason's tools be joined with this equally ancient and powerful orienting geometry.

The trowel spreads the bonding agent of mortar from one piece of masonry to another. It is considered a symbol of the spreading of the mortar of universal love that bonds one person to another.

The hammer or gavel is used to break off the corners of rough stone to fit it for the builder's use. The hammer is a symbol of divesting our consciences of the impurities of life, thereby preparing our bodies as living stones for a spiritual building.

As the plumb or level tool confirms the right alignment of the building stone to our planet's gravfitational force, the plumb is also a symbol of the individual's right alignment with values of compassion and love.

The compass and square symbolize God as the architect of the universe. Together they represent the convergence of matter and spirit.

The panels as designed, incorporate the golden mean proportion of 1:1.618. The height of each panel is uniformly 44 3/4 inches.

Early Morning Leaves

2009-10-28T03:33:00.000-07:00

The panel is designed as a portal, bridging the spiritual and the material. The generative power of the embedded geometry, overlapping circles, and the radiating energy fields of the leaves combine to create a transition space, a portal, where the spiritual world can bridge the material world. The Vesica Piscis, overlapping circles, represents any unity in the midst of becoming dual and symbolically joins together heaven and earth, above and below, creator and creation.

Early Morning Leaves - Secrets at Dawn

2009-10-27T20:05:00.000-07:00

These leaves contain a powerful presence. It took some weeks of getting to know them, just before dawn, before I began to draw them and their radiating energy fields. The leaves, the small tree, presented a very complex picture of consciousness.

This full-blown consciousness is literally bursting to make itself known. I have celebrated its individuality and anticipated its growth by placing it in a powerful and generative geometric context.

The geometric armature supports the emergence
of this newly revealed nature consciousness
by means of three general processes.

The Generative Process,

symbolized by the square root of 2:

The diagonal, dividing the root square in half, serves as “an expression of the assimilative, generating, transformative function which is root”. The root is a symbol for the law of sacrifice in nature, for like a mother, its efforts are not for its own benefit but to uplift the plant in its movement toward the light.

The Formative Process,
symbolized by the square root of 3:

The Vesica Piscis appears as overlapping circles, literally, a bladder [vesica] which when filled with air would be in the form of a fish [piscis]. They represent any unity in the midst of becoming dual and symbolically join together heaven and earth, above and below, creator and creation.

The Regenerative Process,
symbolized by the square root of 5 and its related function of PHI, the golden Proportion:

This is the proportion which opens the way for the family of relationships called the Golden Mean or 1:1.618. The Golden Proportion generates a set of symbols which were used by the Platonic philosophers as a support for the ideal of divine or universal love.

[Text taken from Robert Lawlor; Sacred Geometry, Philosophy and Practice]

"The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the door sill

Where the two worlds touch.

The Door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep."

-RUMI

Winter Transition on Thoreau Street (Right Side)

2009-10-27T03:23:00.000-07:00

This half of the winter panel design contains the celebratory conifers. This panel and the following one will be viewed on the landscape side by side, slightly overlapping and supported by a masonry surround. These slab-glass (dalles de verre) panels will be placed on the landscape. The total width of the two panels will be 30 feet.

Through all the seasons, their celebratory upper branches reach up and out, and convey enjoyment of every moment. They are wonderful companions. The radiant horizon in the panel center, the elevated energy of the lower center and left provide food for the soul in the middle of the season of snow and ice.

Winter Transition on Thoreau Street - Details

2009-10-23T03:20:00.000-07:00

Winter Panel (Left)

Winter Panel (Right)

Landscape Study

Both panels, each a tribute to Gaia during this mid-winter occasion, will live together on the landscape, in a masonry surround above a reflecting pool. The colored glass, the light and the reflecting pool are placed to receive and reflect the early mornng Winter Solstice sunlight and playfully celebrate this seasonal event. Cultures and nature consciousness around the globe celebrate this significant time of rebirth and express gratitude for the beginning of another cycle of fertility and growth.

Mid-winter weather offers color-filled therapy to all of us. The colors almost physically touch us as the sun moves across the sky. From the larger designed panel of Winter Transition on Thoreau St. I plan to construct these as my next dalles de verre sample panels.

Winter Transition on Thoreau Street (Left Side)

2009-10-19T21:07:00.000-07:00

Winter Solstice morning light during the morning of December 21 will confirm that this band of trees have placed their lives in our safekeeping. Their energy levels are barely pulsing. Almost invisible background colors wrap them in sleep-inducing rich, somber quilts.Winter for them is truly an act of trust. They trust we will treat them with respect and not injure them during their winter sleep.

Fall Transition on Thoreau Street - Details

2009-10-19T21:04:00.001-07:00

Fall Transition on Thoreau Street:. Slab Glass Design Sketch

Sample Panel

It is quite a committment to design and build these larger panels without a few smaller trial detail panels. Here is one that I have fabricated. It is taken from the larger Fall Transition design. Magic begins when light passes through glass!

Sample Panel

As I develop these larger panels (each at 12 ft. in diameter) , all will be located in the landscape, with supportive masonry surrounds.

Fall Transition on Thoreau Street

2009-10-19T21:02:00.001-07:00

One of my most deeply felt and satisfying designs draws on the presence of a stand of trees at the edge of my commuter train platform. Photographing them over the years in all seasons, watching them energetically grow and thrive, or become temporarily ill and recover to full energy, has led me to consider them as a second family. I have become aware of their "calendar" which is in fact, the calendar of most of the natural world. Their lives are intimately tied to the Earth's position in relation to the sun that governs light and temperature, and, I confidently add, to the amount of human admiration and helpful attention they experience. I have designed three seasonal panels, (with the fourth in progress) representing fall, winter, spring and summer. My plan is to erect these four panels in the landscape, oriented to receive the first morning and last evening light at solstice and equinox times of the solar year. What more intimate way to acknowledge their life and energy! This is similar to celebrating a beloved friend's birthday! This natural celebrtion cycle easily extends our awareness to the natural "liturgies" and cycles of our solar system.

Fall Crystals - Under/Over Water

2009-10-16T03:10:00.000-07:00

In the front yard of my home lived an amazing shrub that looked down over a shallow fish pond, home to four large golden carp. Every fall at the onset of frosty mornings, the shrub's outer leaves would shine with tiny ice crystals creating a halo. This was a magical event! I recorded the beautiful contribution this shrub made to my mornings by designing a sidelight to my residence's front entry door.

Chalice Window (3)

2009-10-15T03:10:00.001-07:00

This panel has made it out of the design stage. The actual panel

is so much more filled with life than the design sketch!

Chalice Window (2)

2009-10-15T02:47:00.000-07:00

The second Chalice Window panel design emphasizes more clearly the natural geometry found in the growth patterns of the shrubbery. I have strengthened the geometry through the use of color and have included an overlay of the geometry emphasized in the design. The geometric overlay represents the step by step operation of the squaring of the circle, an ancient, integrative geometry. It represents the circle (the infinite) communicating with human intuition (the pentagon) through the laws of harmony and reason (the square) . [Lawlor] The chalice itself offers a refreshing nectar, a gift, from the natural world around us.

Chalice Window

2009-10-14T03:21:00.000-07:00

One of my train platform friends who greeted me mornings, year after year in the fall. A powerful presence!

Glass cutting cartoon with geometry overlay.

I celebrated this presence with a series of three commemorative window panels. The first panel named "The Burning Bush" is shown below. In this design have joined the medieval geometric construct, the squaring of the circle, with the image of the shrubbery. The circle represents un-manifest spirit-space and the square represents the manifest, comprehensible world. “When a near-equality is drawn between the circle and the square, the infinite is able to express its dimensions or qualities through the finite.” [Lawlor]

Discovering Slab Glass (Dalles de Verre)

2009-10-13T03:05:00.000-07:00

Some years back when I was living in Montana, I had started a small stained glass studio (Bear Canyon Studios) in a shop I had renovated next to my home. I designed and built leaded glass panels, and was selling them to residents of Bozeman, Helena and to some farmer/ranchers in the area. I also caried out repairs to some existing leaded glass windows in various churches in the area. A friend of mine told me about a new glass studio just begun in Philipsburg, an old silver mining ghost town. Phillipsburg is up in the mountains around Helena and is fairly remote. The studio was started by a Roman Catholic priest, who was better suited to designing and fabricating glass panels, than to more social priestly duties. The Church had asked him to design and build stained glass panels for many of the Roman Churches in Montana. And build them he did! I drove up into the mountains one Saturday, to Philipsburg, to visit his studio. He worked exclusively with slab glass (dalles de verre) bound in a two-part thermoset epoxy polymer matrix. He faceted the glass pieces around the edges to give the light extra intensity as it passed through the glass. After a very enlightening afternoon in his studio (he had purchased the old town hall, for literally two or three dollars, renovated it) he suggested that I stop on my way back to Bozeman, to see a panel he had recently installed in a small chapel in Three Forks (or Trident as it is sometimes called). I found the chapel alongside the road and walked into an unlocked, tiny vestibule. As the door swung shut behind me, I realized there were no lights in the vestibule. I was in the dark except for the light coming through my friend's newly installed panel. The panel was about 6 ft. by 5 ft. and comprised of a fairly tight palette of lively, vibrating blues. These varying blues, literally "bouncing around" within the field added immensely to its energy. The total effect was stunning! It felt to me that I was actually being physically touched by the color! I had never had that intense an experience with stained glass before. My body immediately understood how light and color could actually have a physical effect! This was and is a life-changing experience. I was hooked!! Since then I have designed and built slab glass panels, with the expectation of re-experiencing that wonderful first moment when I literally FELT the color. And the expectation has been realized, time and again.

Schjeldahl's stained glass article (New Yorker-5/12/08)

2009-10-12T17:22:00.000-07:00

I appreciated his article "Many Colored Glass". His work was beautifully researched giving me a more intimate feeling of the stained glass artists G. Richter and S. Polke and their context. There is a value in presenting the detailed context of the social motivations and artists's background and glass technician's skill. I believe this is historically interesting but I feel there is an aspect of the window and artist he reviewed that I found missing.

In the Cologne Cathedrale, G. Richter lays the groundwork for a powerful, transcendental, physical and by extension, spiritual experience. He has brought together colored light, geometry and intent. The geometries of the window border frames, themselves developed from geometry expressing transcendental ratios, provide a programmable framework that is intrinsically energized. And when combined with both words and music of a liturgy (energized further by the geometry and chant), have the potential to form a veritable "broadcasting station" disseminating a subliminal, liturgical message.

It is unfortunate that the colored glass chosen by G. Richter is unfocussed and scattered across the color spectrum. A focussed, unified color scheme, or at least a tighter palette could have worked much more powerfully in concert with the energized geometries of the window borders. It is a relief that there are no liturgically themed graphics (no ever-present Christians-At-War). I wish Schjeldahl's article had included comments on the value of including a focussed color scheme. The resulting window is burlesque in the sense of possessing a strong and articulated frame, but extremely weak subject matter. The transformative medium of light, color and geometry is capable of so much more!