Your Glass is Crass

Seasonal activities have kept me busy as a one fingered feather plucker before Thanksgiving, so I've been a bit lax in recanting the rest of the Italy trip. I'm about to start a few art projects now though and am faced with a dilemna. Maybe some of you can help me out with it.

The subject which I'm doing a mosaic of has very intense purples (violet cobalt manganese oxide pigments), but the only commercially available glass I can find with the color intensity of the object I'm trying to represent would be cobalt blue. So I've been hitting the color theory books and websites, trying to figure out placement or backgrounds that would make intense cobalt blue seem more like a shade of rich purple in context.

Here is an example Roman model boat of a cobalt blue glass in the British Museum from the first century. It's blue, but kind of purple as that glass often is. I like to think that 1900 years ago, someone served gravy from this.

While wading through all of the color theory information, I've come across some examples of how the human mind processes color and shape. Some of these examples involve motion, but many are just how the colors and shapes are processed.

For example, check out lilac chaser on Michael Bach's site.
This guy has collected several other visual phenomenon examples that are fascinating to me.

I'm leaning towards giving the cobalt blue a background of its inverse color in green. Given an unsaturated background of green, because of the way eyes process color with their red and green cones and rods, it should trick the mind into attributing more saturated red in the object done in cobalt blue (which is what I want, to play up the violet elements of the cobalt blue).

What do you guys think?

Another thing that I discovered while pouring over glass chemistry was a complete surprise. Back in the 20th century, they used to make glass with uranium dioxide in it (completely radioactive). This sounds like a horrible cancer causing express train to legal liability, right? Well it turns out that glass is a great radiation shield, so this radioactive glass is not the deadly killer I first suspected it might be.

Shining an ultraviolet light (as above) on glass made like this causes it to flouresce in a manner that even Monty Burns would be proud of. I've now taken to carrying an ultraviolet light with me everywhere to check for *ahem* flourescence.

Carving the Christmas Lamb (Taglio il Agnello di Natale)

This weekend, I thought it would be nice to carve a marble relief of a sheep, since a parent of some neighborhood friends really likes sheep. By like, I mean this lady completely loves sheep to an obsessive and freakish level with sheep images all around her house (not the kind of obsessive and freakish love that people who are making fun of citizens of Arkansas reference).














The carving still needs a bit of clean-up, particularly around the hindquarters, but it looks like it will be ready in time to be a Christmas gift. I was thinking of including a note with it like 'Bah-aahhaaahhh Humbug' or maybe '...ohhh this was a white *elephant* party'.

Speaking of sacrificial lambs, I feel sorry for all the Nebraska college football fans whose team was completely dominated the entire game by the University of Texas team this weekend. It wasn't even close as the kicker made a 46 yard field goal to ensure a healthy 8.3% point total lead to win the game. Nebraska had 12 points.

Hot Piece of Glass

Not much new going on around here except work and being nominated for the highly distinguished Drysdale Award for the dullest blog over at Grant Miller Media so vote for me if you aren't too excited and drawn to my blog.

In unrelated news, I'm committing an excellent book to memory, 'The Arts of Antioch: Art Historical and Scientific Approaches to Roman Mosaics and a Catalogue of the Worcester Art Museum Antioch Collection'. This book delves deeply into the chemical makeup of the ancient pieces of the mosaics found in Antioch, or modern Antakya, Turkey.

I might just get a friend with a kiln to cook up some of the recipies that this book has (especially after spending about 800 euro on art glass last month). More importantly though, being able to control every aspect of the glass creation is what I find as the most appealing. Here is the furnace at the Orsoni factory in Venice which I saw in October.


















Finding this place in Canneregio was particularly difficult for me because 1) my GPS had the wrong address to begin with, 2) I had to go under the Sottopassageo Vedai, which was basically like a literal hole in the wall down an alleyway, 3) I didn't see any kind of sign other than the little bronze plaque by the doorbell (I blame this problem on US advertising where the signs are all at least human sized for every place of business), 4) I had had a half liter of red wine prior to starting out.

Most people don't know that many ancient Roman mosaics contain quite a bit of opaque colored glass. Usually wind dirt and erosion makes it look kind of like stone. Also, they put so much calcium and lime in some of the colors, it really does look more like a stone-based glass paste than the highly reflective mirrored glass of the Hubble telescope.


As a quick refresher, glass is made by heating up silica (sand), soda as a 'flux' which lowers the required temperature to melt the sand (sodium based, not soda like a coca cola), and lime. Sometimes other elements like calcium, copper sulfates, lead oxide, and stibnite were added to make the glass more opaque or to get certain colors.


The other variable in obtaining the colors is the controlled time that it takes for the glass to cool, or 'annealing'. For reds and oranges, the internal crystals have to grow just right. Several hundred years ago, only certain specialty shops had the knowledge to make red and orange glass. Lawrence Becker who is a co-author on the book above, conjectures that some of the pale blue and green glasses were actually failed attempts at producing finer and more expensive red glasses.


One of these glasses used by the Romans was the 'Natron' based glass, so named because of the place where the soda stone was found in Egypt (Wadi Natron). Did you realize that on the periodic table of elements, sodium is 'Na' because of this? I thought so.

You also have the low magnesium / high potassium glass, or LMHK, which they've traced the source of the soda in this one back to certain plant ash.

For your amusement here is a video of someone pouring a small amount of glass.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be pouring a wine glass for tonight.

Venezia 2009 - Part I

Arriving at San Marco Airport after 13 hours of flying from Dallas with a connection through Frankfurt, we collected the luggage and made our way outside to the middle of a perfect sunny day.

You know that feeling where you've been somewhere before and you know where to go? Well, I was experiencing that because I had been to Venice and this airport two years earlier. Finding the way to the water transport, I made the easy decision to take a water taxi.

You see, last time here I had taken a water bus, which is great if you have lots of time to kill. But with me carrying mom's luggage, I didn't want the hassle. As a warning on the water taxis, people cram in like sardines and it is easy to miss a stop, especially if you are carting around four pieces of luggage.

The water taxi had us to the White Lion on the Grand Canale within 7 minutes. I wish I had remembered to bring my water skis because it was an incredibly fast ride. I also wish I had the foresight to call ahead and have the owner meet us at the canal entry. Most of the buildings in Venice have a door directly on the water side and a door on the 'dry' side. I think it's supposed to be more fancy if you arrive at the water side. Oh well, next time. As you see below, it wasn't a super fancy entryway on the canal side... At least there were no visible four legged carriers of the black plague or anything.

A few doors down from my hotel was the Ca d'Oro, which had a considerably more elaborate canal entry court. It was slightly more expensive to book this ancient museum palace, so I went with rustic charm instead.

Before we were completely out of the water taxi, an annoying man walked up and asked the driver how much to go to St. Mark's square. The driver responded '95 euro', and the man stormed off indignantly because he thought he could get a cheaper rate since the water taxi was already there.

Rounding the corner to the hotel, I noticed right away that the building was ancient. This was great because I enjoy carrying heavy bags up several flights of stairs. No, really.

The White Lion was ideally situated on the Grand Canale, with my balcony having views of the Rialto market and the Bridge. In other words, a perfect place for 1) purchasing a bread, fresh tomatoes, cheese and a bottle of wine and 2) consuming the aforementioned goods while soaking in the incredible architecture and history and chuckling at the occasional tourist floating by in a gondola. This location coupled with a prime location on Strada Nuova ensured a fun stay.

After checking in, I still wasn't tired because I was in Venice! So I went walking through the characteristic back streets until I was good and lost.

I play a game in Venice called 'find the bridges with no handrails'. This time I only found two, here is one...

Leaving the Lake Area (Quando Lasciato il Lago Como)

The day we left Como and started the trek to Florence was best described as 'absolutely perfect' weather. You know, that kind of crisp clear autumn morning that demands even the laziest person to go out for a walk just to enjoy it. So I locked up the Bellagio villa, rolled down windows, then drove up the hill to the Eastside 589 highway.

Well, highway is not exactly the best way to describe it. In some sections, I might have been able to touch both sides of the road at the same time. But that didn't matter, we were enjoying this perfect morning with no traffic or stressful situations. So, I picked up the pace and drove a bit faster.

Then, a car approaching on the other side of the road that looked like a police car waved me over to the 'side' of the road authoritatively (there wasn't much room since I was driving next to a mountain cliff). Was I speeding? I was wondering how much I'd have to pay. My imagination quickly ran with enormous sums and I couldn't help but wonder if it would have been better to have just taken the train.

After a minute the car that waved me down didn't turn around, so I decided to chance it and just start driving again. I cover less than a kilometer and then two cars dart past and both are pointing at my right side of the road next to the cliff wall frantically. Huh? Falling rocks? Danger? They were pretty convincing, so I reason that maybe I should just stop and wait for a few minutes.

I couldn't really see around the curve because of the mountain, so I stopped and waited.

Not twenty seconds later, about three bicycle riders *zoom* by. And then about twenty more, quickly followed by what had to have been hundreds of cyclists. Not just the 'wannabe' amatuers who try to emulate Lance Armstrong that I see around where I live, but honest to gosh professional atheletes in a real race.

I finally had the presence of mind to raise my camera and take a picture of the spectacle on that Lake Como cliffside on an otherwise perfect morning. Eventually, the number of cyclists dropped and finally the support cars and ambulance drove by, followed by a little red caboose.

In retrospect, I'm really glad that I pulled to the side of the road. I'm not sure the windshield wipers could have handled it otherwise.

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Quando lasciato il Lago, uomini in auto puntano a ciglio della strada. Perché? Non capito... Era una gara di bicicletta! Nessuno è lesi :)

Sirmione - Ancient Lake Fun, Part II

While driving from Venice to Lake Como, I had to make a long lunchtime stop at a unique spot in all the world. Sirmione is a geological oddity, a very narrow strip of land jutting about two miles out into the ancient Lake Garda.


It's kind of strange to walk for so far in one direction and see water on both sides. Last time that happened, I was on a cruise ship treadmill.


It was rumored to be the location of a villa of Catullus, a close friend of the family of Gaius Julius Caesar, but it was probably a different Roman dignitary who lived here in those days.

It makes military sense that the original villa builders would pick this spot because it is supremely defensible. Well, except from attacks of a flying or swimming enemy. The ancient Romans wouldn't have stood a chance against a nuclear submarine, right?

Here I am standing in the main 'foyer' of the villa. Behind me, as you might guess, is the lake. Apologies for my shoddy state in the photo, but I'd just been driving in Italian traffic half the day when this was taken.



















Below, you can see the 'marble beach' view out the 'front door' of 'the' villa... I'll bet they had some great parties out there, even though it would be tough to use a jet ski loaded down with a case of beer because it's so shallow.















The size and scale of the Roman villas makes my house seem so small...































They also had a neat little museum with a diverse collection of implements, mosaics, frescos and such.

















I promised some glass and smalti images a few posts back. Here is some off my 'stash' of mixed colors and an Orsoni sample board showing the standard pallette with a pretty large range of value and hue.















And here is the actual result (from my class) of that mosaic from the 6th century. I accidently put up a photo last time of just my empty easel with just the image I was copying in mosaic. Strangely, no one called me on it.

Ancient Lake Fun Part I (Divertimento di Lago Antiche)

Driving through rush hour traffic is never fun in any city, but in Milan it can really grind to a halt. We had left Venice earlier that morning by rent car and had lost a bit of time with a fun stop at Lake Garda's ancient city of Sirmione that I'll elaborate on later.

The lady I was renting the villa from in Bellagio was expecting us at 5:00pm, but a helicopter would be the only option which could have made that happen. Luckily, I didn't have to sit in the Milan traffic for the full 360 degrees of the loop around the city, after only a few miles of a parking lot, I saw a workable exit to the north.

Trying to read the road signs in Italian on a big highway system you've never been on with many impatient drivers zipping around is not exactly the relaxing part of the vacation. The trusty GPS guided us to the correct road north for Bellagio after a few wrong turn missteps in the city of Como itself. Up the mountains we went on the narrow twisty east side 589. Suddenly, the lake came into view off to the left (and way down there). Flashbacks to driving in Santorini Greece came to mind, but this was much easier by comparison.

Lake Como (Larius to the Romans) has long been a resort. Pliny the Younger had written about stays in a villa here for hunting and fishing around 2000 years ago, but mine was going to have running wat... nope he had that, a sewer sys... nope he had that, um, electricity! Which was going to be very handy soon since it was beginning to get dark as I was driving on up around the twisty mountain roads.

I gave the owner Francesca a call when in town. She dropped everything and drove up the awesome hill where the villa is located to let us in and give information about the rooms and the area. I knew it was going to be a nice place, but I was surprised at exactly how nice it all was.
My mom loved the view and the balcony, and there was an olive orchard and an infinity edge pool which were part of the property. There was even a nice little cobblestone parking area behind an automatic iron gate.














Speaking of fancy pools, for the record, even as nice as my pool is, I'd gladly trade my house for this villa any day of the week because there are just no views like this in Texas. Francesca is a great business woman, she and her sister run a shop in town and the nice villa in the pristine location was handed down in their family. She had restored it to a very high standard. Although I don't use the term lightly, it was 'chock full' of amenities.

The town of Bellagio is small and pleasant, well except for the 1960's style band bleating out old rock and roll in Italian at one of the hotels. It is by necessity a compact center of town and everything is pretty much within a few minutes walk.

If you go, I recommend stopping at Villa Melzi and by all means, take the boats around and explore. If you want to spend obscene amounts on shopping, I'd recommend taking the boat over to Mennagio and catching a bus to Switzerland.
Or if you just want to relax, you can do like I did and have a few bottles of wine in your own villa while looking over the same awesome lake Pliny did 2000 years ago.

I think I'll be back here soon.