"My Joy" Self Portrait

This piece was done for a show I am part of in August, with three other women friends who are also artists in different mediums. We each brought a concept/theme to the group, and we each interpreted it in our own medium. (Mine is Wood Marquetry/woodworking, theirs are Glass, Stitchery, and Charcoal) This theme was “Shadows”, from a visit we took to the Ellsworth Kelly Chapel here at the Blanton Museum, where we discovered that the large colored glass panes at the entrance caused our shadows on the back wall to cast color like a prism! (The second photo shows my actual shadow in the chapel) I kept my image (from a photo taken 25 years ago) in all natural veneers (34 species), using dyed veneers for the shadows. The background is made up of 3/16" veneer hexagons, which gave me the ability to visually mix colors, as a Pointillist painting does. Some of the pieces were extremely teeny, as you can see in the third photo. I made a Walnut frame, finished with a hand rubbed Ebony wax.