Irish Arts Blog

Creation myths : The world egg

A Creation Myth is a supernatural mytho-religous story that describes the beginnings of life and the universe. It is invariably but not always a deliberate act of creation by a supreme entity.

Many accounts of creation share broadly similar themes.These often begin with a magical emptiness, wherein there occurs the fractionation of the elements of the world from a primordial chaos; the separation of the mother and father gods or the splitting of a Cosmic egg and the emergence of land and creatures from an infinite and timeless ocean.

My interest lies in the commonality of many of these myths, although these beliefs and stories may not be a literal account of actual events, they can be seen to express ideas that are perceived by people and cultures to be truths at a deeper or more symbolic level.

With this new body of work I am to focus on the notion of the cosmic or world egg, the container of life, in a sense a metaphysical microcosm of our planet. The earth itself resembles an egg with a crust (shell), magma (egg white) and core (yolk). 

The splitting of this egg symbolises the creation, from it emerges either a primordial being or creator, or the elements to make the universe, the notion of the egg, floating in the primordial waters containing the world also alludes to the great flood or deluge and the ‘Ark.’

This work is about symbolism and meaning on a subtle level. The objects are intended to touch apon something just under the surface of or awareness.

My intention is to represent this ‘event’ and to use the ‘shell’ surface as a vehicle for generating imagery associated with these myths.

Yeah i know its Easter-purely coincidence though !

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Portals

by Michael Ray

Portals are interdimensional openings, doorways,  bridges, interfaces between different environments, places of transition.

The nature of our reality is that we exist in a multi layered electro-magnetic grid system.  When one moves through portals - either with the body - or the mind - one may move from grid to grid.

Portals link to the spiraling energies of time and space.    These energies allow our consciousness to spiral from one grid reality to another.Whether it be through dreams, meditation, creative play or substance we can travel through portals to somewhere else 

Physical portals, are found in power places, such as the Great Pyramid, Stonehenge, the Mayan Pyramids, Machu Picchu, and other sacred sites.

In space - the universe - we have portals called black holes.

Seeing is believing so they say , and through seeing can also come understanding, i am working on the notion that from intrigue and surprise comes an opportunity to understand more, by looking without we can also see within.

My portals offer a window or doorway to somewhere else, where would you like to go?

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Caning it

by Michael Ray

Although others are probably gearing up for last minute craft fairs, i find myself unbelievably free to ponder the madness that descends at this time of year. Having taken on and just finished a large commission unrelated to christmas I made the decision not to do any more work for galleries or the public. So I find myself with time to play creatively, I am drawn at the moment to holes- not real ones but apparent ones. With the opportunities afforded to me by college facilities i have been making 'canes' -rolled molten glass encased in colour several times then pulled into long circular sticks.I'm chopping these up into discs whch are then melted into sheets, leaving me with a pattern of coloured tunnels or holes which when bent, distort to produce an interesting optical effect. I'm not quite sure what i will do with these but i like the sense of movement they generate, if nothing else they are another element to add to the tool box.

Next on the list is to try and create linear skeletal structures with which i can 'hang' coloured coverings onto or under within the glass surface.

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Glassist Blogs

Fused Glass piece from Cynthia Morgan

I was looking at the stats for Siopa Eile this morning and noticed that Cynthia Morgan's blog had included Siopa Eile in a list of glassist blogs. Ok, I know Siopa Eile is not about Glass Art, but I guess I have Michael Rays photos to thank for that. Cynthia's list is an excellent one though and I've been thinking for a while.... that it would be great to have a list of the top artisan bloggers in the world. There are hundreds of them out there but no central place where you can access them.
So I've decided to start a list. I would encourage all the artists contributing, to try and seek out blogs that  they really like. Let me know and I will add them to the list.

Just picking a few highlights from Cynthia's list now.

Kilnformed Amber and Vanilla 'drop' vessels by scottish glassist AJSimmons on her blog Corsock Glass

One of the pieces of a quilt designed by 26 different glass artists from 6 different countries. Great idea.

Note Cynthia is a long term blogger and gets several hundred visitors to her blog each day and she too argues strongly in favour of artisan blogging.