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Portal Adentro Pasar el Verano
Bloodhound
Check back soon for new mirrors!
4 Febrero 2002
(By the way...I'm sorry these are a little dark! I direct-scan the mirrors, and it seems to have something to do with the reflective surface of the mirror itself!)
( [thru] The Door into Summer)
(gift for Paul Cartter of SAZ Search and Rescue Dog Team)
I have been making a number of very small mirrors fframed in a technique of my own invention. Click the thumbnail below to go to a page all about them!
Scroll below the mirror to learn more about these and why I call them "Magic Mirrors"!
"Portal Adentro Pasar el Verano", mirror with hand-carved acrylic-painted frame of pine, @ 16"H x 12"W, c. 2001, Luna Rivera
The mirrors are a blend and a culmination because they combine all my skills learned over a lifetime - painting; sculpture; woodworking; glazing; sewing and beading and Oh! I don't know what all else...into one form. Each piece as a unit exemplifies all these and the level of craftsmanship I've attained within them. All my work has been moving for some time now toward a form best described as "mixed media", and with these mirrors I have to admit that!
The mirrors bring me full-circle because my father was a glazier (that is a person who specializes in working with glass). He worked at this trade, and this trade only, all his life. He worked not only with windows and doors - which people commonly associate with glass - he also worked in stained glass and HE MADE MIRRORS. He loved to make fancy mirrors and made lots of them. I was his only child, and I spent hours out in his shop watching him work. And he taught me how to do what he did, although he expressed with some regret that he felt I would not be able to get employment myself in this field, because I was a woman and it was (and is) a male-dominated trade. He proved correct - I later tried to get work in glass shops and the always-male owners and staff would not even allow me a trial work period to show what I could do. My father also warned me that if I worked in glass I would get lots of cuts; so I could not be timid. This proved correct as well, but of course I really am not at all a timid person!
So I have come this full circle and I am now a mirror-maker. Since I started I feel a strong call to pursue this and know that I will continue to, no doubt favoring these mirrors over some types of things I've done in the past such as painting eggs and gourds, and making carved plaques. I do know that I will continue to paint and sculpt: although even those have come to be combinations of all my skills too - my sculptures are always painted and my paintings always have highly sculptural frames, now. Gosh...they'll probably even all have bits of mirror on them from now on!
Above photos: my small mirror "Heart and Soul of a Flower", front and back views.
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My usual whiny excuse: so far I haven't documented these very well! I started making them suddenly and from the very first they sold as soon as I got them made! I make little hand or ornamental wall mirrors that start at $15 and bigger ones go anywhere up from there. The biggest I've made so far was sorta oval, @ 18" x 24", and sold for $75. But for me the sky's the limit on these and who know's what I'll do next! E-Mail me to find out what mirrors I have available right now.
Because of many questions on this subject, I need to throw this in here ... As with my other work, I simply do not accept comissions. I find that I cannot ultimately give the client what they're looking for, and have given it up as a bad job. Sorry...it's nobody's fault but mine! I hope that you can find something among my already-completed work that tickles your fancy!
I call these latest creations of mine "magic mirrors" with good reason, I think. Of course it is a nod to all those magical fantasy tales I love and particularly my favorite film, "The Tenth Kingdom", in which magic mirrors are most important. (At right is a photo of a talking magical mirror from the tale.) But I call them that also because they represent for me a sort of "magical blend"; a culmination if you will, of everything I've done up to this date, as well as bringing me full-circle within my own life experience.
Guess I've already told you much about how these are made, but here's a few more details: the frames of the mirrors are highly carved and are now mostly of pine, as I like working with it best, and a good grade of it holds small detail pretty well. I use acrylic paints on the areas that I want colored and real varnish on the wood left bare. Some mirror that I use is new, and I purchase it from glass shops, but I do try to find used mirrors to incorporate into my creations as well. The mirror is cut and mounted in the way my father taught me: too complex and dry to go into here but if anybody does want the details just e-mail me!
I back the mirror with masonite if it is large; chipboard ("cereal box" cardboard) if it is small, and then I back the entire piece with colorful heavy fabric in colors to match the colors used in the sculptural work on the front. I've been collecting fabric specially for this purpose, and am now always looking for new colorful fabrics to use. Depending on what the theme of a piece is, it might have something like beads or stones or wire or metal on it's wood frame, and these might wrap around the back, or not. And then there's the fact that any individual mirror might have something else on it or done to it that I haven't mentioned, too! Whatever works!
