Seeing Light | Site-specific, Collaborative Installation @ Hickory Museum of Art

Please note this Seeing Light installation — along with the accompanying exhibition, How Creativity Happens — were uninstalled at the beginning of 2020.

Why is this important? It was an amazing creative opportunity through much of 2019 for Carmella Jarvi to collaborate with five other artists, the Hickory Museum of Art, the Corning Foundation (and Corning Optical Communications folks) on both an exhibition about How Creativity Happens as well as a site-specific installation they created.

For years, Jarvi has secretly dreamed about incorporating moving light with her glass. Working with lead artists, Sally Fanjoy and James Labrenz (Fanjoy Labrenz) gave her the opportunity to be part of a collaborative, site-specific installation, called Seeing Light, that brought her one step closer to her dream.

Below is a short video the artist shot of Seeing Light. It shows the Corning glass fibers cascading and crisscrossing, as well as the video projection through these fibers onto the architecture. Each artist had their “section” of the projected video which focused on their particular aesthetic/area of interest.

For Jarvi’s, Fanjoy Labrenz shot her glass/other glass pieces with water & light running through them. (Sorry about video quality. Unfortunately, professional video of installation was not made before it came down.)

Use this link to see more about/time-lapse video of the installation process.

Above is a Jarvi test shot she made with glass, water, and light. She experimented with these elements before working with Fanjoy Labrenz shooting professional footage of a similar setup. (In 2020, this is a direction the artist is exploring through her Creative Renewal Fellowship from the Arts & Science Council.)