I recently had the opportunity to show a piece of work at a night-time illuminated art event-- Luminata at Green Lake in Seattle sponsored by the Fremont Arts Council. My pieces do well in natural light. Glacier Cathedral shown below with natural light coming from behind seemed like the best choice for the event.
I have seen signs made of acrylic effectively illuminated
from below with LED lights. I wanted to try that with this piece.
The vertical pieces of Glacier Cathedral fit into slots cut into a 1” base of acrylic glass. The acrylic base rests on an additional base of steel that is bolted onto the acrylic. With longer bolts and several washers, the acrylic and steel bases could be separated by enough space to accommodate the LED light strips.
I found out days before the event that electricity would not
be made available to the art pieces. So plan B was install a battery pack with
a remote control, both of which I had previously tested. Suddenly the LED lights
went out and the wire was extremely hot. I consulted with friends and my brother
whose ideas were helpful, but did not result in lighted lights. It was then that
I decided I was over my head in my expertise, so
abandoned the idea of LED lights.
Instead I back lit the piece with several battery powered spotlights. A super easy solution. Here the piece at home and at the event.
The failure turned out to be a grand success, but one I could have accomplished in hours rather than days. Perhaps I need to temper my desire to learn new things and rely on others with expertise to handle some parts of the fabrication.
3 comments:
Thank you for sharing all the trials, failures and successes. It is always a laborious process to figure out what will work and some times the solution is so obvious and yet we don't have enough knowledge to know it. i struggle with this all the time. The piece is beautiful and I don't think I realize dhow big it is until now! Congrats.
Thank you Barbara.
Yes, thank you for sharing. Although you are right, everything turned out fine and the piece is beautiful. And lessons for all. Priscilla S
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