Splash, 2015
Glass & Mixed Media, 7ft x 10ft
AIMIA Canadian Art Collection, Toronto Stock Exchange Building, Toronto, Ontario
Created for an installation that analyzed the Canadian artistic identity, "Splash" was designed to inspire creativity, innovation, and critical engagement in a corporate workspace. The piece is founded in a meaning of “embracing the moment,” visualizing the contrast between present and reproduced (photographic) experiences of an event in time. A reproduction can never capture the full sensory experience of an event, as the photos running through the piece indicate: they are divorced from the origin’s unique meaning in space and time. The work thus operates on lived engagement, encouraging interaction through the individual and collective textures, as well as “close” looking qualities of the work. In this installation the audience is encouraged to “look into" the detail of the whale's splash as a lived experience and pass by a photographic memory of the same experience. As a result, the work transcends the traditional divide between art and its subject, highlighting the visual consumerism of nature tourism.
By Beholding, We Belong, 2021-2022
Leaded Glass in Oak Frame , 107ft²
Erindale United Church, Mississauga, Ontario
An entrance transom, “"By Beholding, We Belong was designed to create a sense of blessing through engagement with the natural world. The sunlight streaming through the window captures its design, moving the vibrant colours, symbols, and lines into the interior of the Church, its meaning changing with different times and seasons. In this sense, the window’s temporality is reflected in the audience’s multi-sensory engagement with it: the piece sets the spiritual meaning of the space through reliance on acts of entering and exiting, thereby extending its meaning beyond the physical boundaries of the church. The window instills a sense of reflection amongst parishioners, offering the opportunity to consider their personal and divine relationship to the immediate natural environment. This inseparability of humanity and nature is presented in the artwork to construct a sense of natural belonging.
Untitled, 2014
Leaded Glass in Zinc and Aluminum, 38 ft²
Centre for Spiritual Reflection, EW Bickle Centre, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario
The Bickle Centre is a hospital for long-term rehabilitation, wherein the built space of the site is intrinsically linked to the mental and physical processes of healing. This window was designed for the site’s Centre for Spiritual Reflection and, as such, is intended to create and foster a sense of peaceful contemplation. This contemplative quality is founded in the work’s accessibility to people of all spiritual traditions: abstract in form, the design’s meanings are reliant on its interpretative diversity. Since its installation, these interpretations have included butterflies and cocoons, freedom of movement, cascading water, calming liveliness, and an escape from pain. This accessibility is also made manifest in the window’s ability to accommodate different physical abilities. The contrast between the leaded and clear glass provides a contemplative space for sitting viewers (left panels) and standing audiences (right panels) alike, through which the gradual downward movement of the leaded glass creates a sense of framed privacy.
Stonefield Silos, 2021
Leaded Glass in Zinc and Aluminum Frame, 10.1 ft²
Stonefields Gatehouse, Eden Mills, Ontario
Stonefield Silos was commissioned for a private art collection in Eden Mills, for which I was given full artistic freedom in designing and constructing the project. In keeping with my architectural and environmental approach to glass art, the design reflects its immediate spatial context of exiting unused silos and fields of native wildflowers and grasses on the property. The native plants represented in the window are an abstraction of those in the surrounding fields, using a combination of glass and Swarovski crystals to create a sense of movement through changing light patterns. Installed in the gatehouse entrance to the estate, the window places the audience amoungst the foreground (bottom) wildflower field, looking upwards into the vast empty chasm of the manmade silo. Through this perspective, I celebrate the idea of “potential” in the space (as empty or filled), as well as it’s temporality in shared natural and agricultural history.
Wally’s Place, 2019
Leaded Glass in dd, 28 ft²
Wally’s Place, Guelph, Ontario
This window was created for Wally’s Place, a group home for people with special needs in Guelph. The building of the home was a community effort and, in thanks for their involvement, the idea of “community” was my starting point in designing the doorway. The design for the glass was done in collaboration with one of the residents at Wally’s Place. The piece evokes a sense of the globe through its’ rounded shape and constructed perspective, creating the illusion of a sphere in the flat space. The interior hallway light shines into the exterior entrance, creating a sense of welcome to viewers on either side of the door depending on the changing daily light. This welcoming quality is also emphasized through the vibrant and warm colours of the window, a feature that both reflects the aesthetic wishes of the residents and the cultural diversity of the community. The frame of the doorway was inspired by the art nouveau “Glassmaker’s House” in the Ixelles Pond district of Brussels (designed by Gruner Sterner, a Viennese stained glass craftsman).
