As strange as it might seem, a tennis mishap was the catalyst that diverted Sandy’s artistic expression medium from acrylic painting to fused glass. Sandy painted for over 30 years, originally in oils, switching to pastels and acrylics in 1999. When we moved from the Boston area to Maui in 2004, Sandy continued her pastel and acrylic paintings, deriving her subject matter from the Hawaiian landscape, seascape, and flora. Then, the “mishap” happened!
On September 13, 2007 at 5:40 PM (the time and actual date are burned into Sandy’s memory), while playing doubles as part of a group tennis lesson, Sandy stepped back on to a loose ball that was on the court, causing her to fall and severely break her left wrist. She needed surgery, requiring titanium plates and a half dozen screws to re-attach the broken bones. This, coupled with several months of rehab essentially brought her creative flow to a stand-still. And, when she did return to painting, she just didn’t feel the enthusiasm she felt earlier. You know how “…interruptus” can put a real damper on the “creative flow”.
I was very concerned for her, knowing how important creating art was to her. I remembered that she had expressed an interest in glass, so I bought her a stained glass kit, hoping to jump start, or re-start, her creative engine. Well, stained glass didn’t quite do it for her. She took a class on it and a friend of her physical therapist was so kind to spend some time teaching her as well. But, she just found the art form “too restrictive and confining”. She just couldn’t find the passion there.
She then transitioned to mosaics, feeling that it was freer than stained glass work and potentially more satisfying. Holy mackerel…it was a Pandora’s Box!! The excitement and passion for artistic expression re-emerged like an erupting volcano. She started mosaicing (am I inventing a verb??) anything that didn’t move…lucky for me. Although, she did joke about mosaicing me in my sleep! (I assume it was a joke since she didn’t…but I wonder sometimes where she would have started.) She mosaiced with glass pieces, tile pieces, sea shells, pebbles, …. Our house has many mosaic pieces that she has done…mirror frames, flower pots, table tops, entry table, hanging pieces…she went “hog wild”! The attached photos show a few.
Sandy’s good friend, Luanne, is a glass bead artist. She belongs to the Maui Glass Artist Association (MGAA) and invited Sandy as her guest to a bimonthly MGAA meeting. She introduced Sandy to the group as a “Mosaic Artist”. Sandy was quite intrigued hearing about the work of the various MGAA artists. Dennis Chamberlain, a glass artist for many years, was president of MGAA at that time and also taught glass fusing techniques. Sandy took a few of his classes and was definitely “hooked”. She loved doing mosaics… but she really REALLY loved LOVED (and still does) doing fused glass. We had an opportunity to buy a used kiln from one of the other glass artist, and grabbed it. Sandy quickly translated her skill and talent for doing mosaics into mosaic-based glass designs. The rest “is history” as they say.
There are many clichés that apply to Sandy’s experience…breaking her wrist through rediscovering and morphing her artistic expression…like:
– Around every dark cloud there’s a silver lining
– One door closes and two doors open
– Everything happens for the best
Can you think of some others??
Aloha
Bob