Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA
Permanent Collection Exhibition
25” diameter hot worked glass incorporating soda technique
Developed during two artist residencies at the Museum of Glass in 2008 and 2009 as one of 15 pieces, Iris Rondel, part of the Rondel Series, was the culmination of an extensive focus on light, perception and the workings of the eye. Formed to project iris-like images on the wall, the clear glass rondel acts as a mediating format in which light passes through the surface and is both reflected and refracted off the planned interventions and irregularities in the piece’s interior.
Rondels, small hand-blown glass circles, were developed for sanctuaries in the mid-15th Century. These pieces of thin colored or stained glass utilized natural light’s ability to transmit and transform interior spaces. In doing so, it aided in “transporting” the church worshipers to a spiritual realm, another reality.
