Glass That Shatters Its Surroundings

Here’s what’s called a multi-faceted octahedron crystal. A fan of Cubism, I like the way this crystal shatters boring surroundings, breaking them up into an unlimited number of angular shapes.

Sculptural Refraction

Venturing out on sunny days, I expect to shoot things like reflections in the windows of sky-rise commercial buildings downtown or abstractions seen on the surface of the nearby river. But, at a garage sale recently, in the midst of a jungle of goods, this tiny refraction through crystal caught my eye because I thought it looked sculptural. 

"Painterly"

“Painterly”

This 1927 oil painting, “Wee Annie Lavelle”, by Robert Henri caught my eye at the local Hunter Museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee. From a distance the right hand side of her face looked detailed. A close look reveals surprisingly large brush strokes. For me, this process has always seemed magical. 

While I was a student at Art Center College in the early 1970’s, our instructors Lorser Feitelson and Harry Carmean used the word “painterly” to describe the use of large brush strokes to enhance the illusion of detail as seen from a distance.