United States
Marilyn Cook
“Celestial Celebration”
This challenge was perfect timing for me as I wanted to learn about using oranges which are so very finicky. I have had some pretty nasty reactions when using oranges, from muddy colors to severe reactions. So when I researching celebrations, I thought about the vernal equinox that occurs every spring around March 21 when the sun is over the equator and when our days are equal length with our nights. Then I thought about Stonehenge which is built specifically for the various sun events throughout the year and I found a photo that was taken of the vernal equinox with the spring rising of the sun that exactly lined up with a pinnacle rock in between the two large stones at Stonehenge. It just reminded me of a beautiful celebration of spring and also a celebration of the sun.
So I thought I would merge together my curiosity about trying to work with oranges with doing a 3x4 copper plate of the sunrise at Stonehenge during the Spring equinox. I used a lot of gold foil in this, probably more gold than I wanted, but I have found that the oranges work perfectly with the gold and that it’s really the only way to do oranges in the future. I have tried with flux and it just wasn’t the same brilliant colors.
I have been only working with enamels a couple of years and thanks to online classes with Merry Lee Rae, and Sandra McEwen who have wonderful classes online and a few in person classes with Ricky Frank, I have fallen in love with the medium.
