It’s not the end of the year yet, but I decided it was a good time to aim for resolving some unfinished projects. (Okay, realistically this will probably continue into the new year!) I will be making a series of posts to document how I’m tackling some of the sculptures in my Voynich Manuscript series that have been left unfinished for various reasons, and hopefully it will help me to stay on track and cross a few of these off my list.

Over the past year I’ve had many different sculpture projects going on, in various stages of completion. And although I have more brand new ideas that I’d like to begin, I will be able to focus on them better if I can finish some of the ones I’ve already started.

Since I often make sculptures in multiple separate parts, I am considering “finished” to mean the final assembly of all parts, as though it was ready for display. And since I also make some sculptures that light up and have electrical components, I’m considering them finished if all of this aspect is also resolved, with as few complications as possible.

One project that I’ve been thinking about how to finish for some time is my Lightning in a Star sculpture. For the purposes of getting photos and videos of its lightning effect, it is finished and working, but there are a few issues to solve before it’s display-ready.

-How to protect the fragile electrode on the back? If this ever breaks or cracks, the krypton gas sealed inside the star will leak out and it will no longer light. So keeping the electrode protected is critical to consider in the final design.

-Safety: When it comes to electrical safety it is once again critical to keep the electrode and wire connection out of reach, so there is no chance of anyone touching that and getting an electric shock! The surface of the star is meant to be touch-interactive (with NO chance of electric shock involved; the borosilicate glass acts as an insulator). Much like a plasma globe, the moving lightning within the glass will attract to one’s hand. So it’s all the more important to make sure that is the only part of the sculpture that can be reached.

-If it’s displayed on the wall, how is it securely supported? There are many options, but some of them can be in conflict with the design of the sculpture. I want something that compliments it and doesn’t distract.

-Plasma light needs a high voltage, high frequency transformer. Depending on the type, this can range from about the size of a large brick to a small pack of gum. Either way, it’s not the most attractive part of the sculpture, and usually the goal is to make it not too noticeable. How and where does the plasma power supply fit into the display?

I tested the star with several types of power supply. The larger one (PVM400) is very adjustable, which can give a range of different light effects to the star, but ideally I’d like to see if I can use something smaller like this Tech-22. It’s not adjustable-just an on/off switch- but it seems to work well to make active, fast-moving lightning.

This was a quick test of the star running on the small Tech22:

Something else to consider is ambient light in a room: Ideally the lightning effect inside these stars is best viewed in darkness, but that’s not always possible in a display setting. So to make this sculpture more versatile in terms of where it can be displayed, I am designing a wall-mounted shadowbox display. Figuring out a good design for this will be useful not only for this sculpture, but for other lighted ones as well. This will help to accentuate the glowing effect of the plasma, even if the entire room is not in total darkness. Also it will make the glass sculpture more secure for transportation, which is always a plus!

To mount the star inside the box, so that it’s sticking out from the wall, I’m going to make a fixture out of a PVC pipe fitting and silicone adhesive. This will protect the electrode and also securely support the star at the same time. My idea is that if the glass part ever needed to be removed, it could be unscrewed just like a lightbulb. The inside of the box and the fixture will be painted with a very matte black paint so that it will disappear into the background in a low light setting. I’ve mostly planned out how I will build the box, so that will be part of the next post.

In the meantime here are a few photos of the planning stages:

There’s one more thing… since this “lightning star” is part of my Voynich Manuscript series, I want it to incorporate some of the other elements of the manuscript illustration that originally inspired it.

I can’t incorporate everything in just one sculpture, but for my shadowbox design, I want to include some small element of the manuscript’s unreadable text, as well as a suggestion of some of the wavy lines next to the star. After playing with various different ideas, I settled on a design of a 2 ftx 2ft shadowbox with some wavy lines that would fill in the empty space. (I debated making these out of solid glass, but decided that as long as I am making a shadowbox, I want everything in it to light.) After making a drawing to-scale, I realized that three wavy lines would be plenty to balance out the extra space (as opposed to the many in the original drawing…and also, I am actually trying to finish this sometime this year…).

I was unexpectedly inspired by another piece of lighted artwork I saw that has glowing letters inside a lighted tube of glass— do you see where I am going with this?

Unfinished Sculpture Business pt. 1: Shadowbox Design