
If only it was that easy. After muchas grueling horas in the studio in the intense summer heat and with the support of friends and family (thank you!!) I managed to get these mushrooms done. I joking called them my "birkram mushrooms" because of how much real live sweat went into creating them.
I initially put my proposal together in January to do the mushrooms and in May the project was approved. That's when I met with the Depies family and we talked about their vision for the project and they showed me a hilarious video of Clara Lynn laughing her head off. Clara Lynn died suddenly at age two of SIDS and her parents wanted to do a lil' something in tribute of her memory - and that is how the mushrooms came about. Clara loved the movie "Frozen" and the sparkly princesses - hence the snowflake mushroom. I thought a lot about Clara and her family as I worked on them, and I hope that the mushrooms embody some of the love and joy they shared with each other and somehow convey that feeling with the people that encounter them.
It took me until the end of June to get the mushrooms constructed and the patterns made. July was mostly cutting glass and getting pieces glued down. August was for grouting and for carefully filing each and every edge of each and every piece of glass to render them soft and supple to the touch, and for sealing and installing, which I managed to accomplish on August 19 with the help of other artists, friends and kind folks out at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts in Brookfield. Look for them at the end of the big parking lot near the tree-lined walkway and the children's play area.
Check out my "process pics" slideshow for kicks and giggles: