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Drowning the Infinite Soul
Multicolored laser cut acrylic
November 2023
"Drowning the Infinite Soul" is a symbolic depiction of a passage from Moby Dick in which a character named Pip goes overboard from his whaling ship, and is left floating in the open ocean for the better part of a day. While alone on the water, Pip is struck by divine insanity as the sea “drown[s] the infinite of his soul.” The starry tambourine in the piece represents Pip’s soul, calling back to a passage in which his tambourine playing “turned the round horizon into one star-belled tambourine.” The tambourine’s fabric ribbons allude to Pip having seen God’s foot upon the loom. The albatross carrying the tambourine—Pip’s soul—down to the depths of the sea references sailor lore, in which the seabirds are thought to carry the souls of the dead.
In addition to being a standalone piece, I also used "Drowning the Infinite Soul" to experiment with and compare two different methods of constructing faux stained glass pieces with laser cut plexiglass.
The first method was to inlay opaque black linework with colored plexiglass, which was also how the Native Plant Triptych was constructed. The second, shown here, was to sandwich the color layer between two layers of linework on either side to create a more three-dimensional piece.
I concluded that the inlay method was more fragile, but better for smaller projects where detail might get covered by a three-dimensional linework layer. The sandwich method uses much more material, but is also significantly sturdier.
In addition to being a standalone piece, I also used "Drowning the Infinite Soul" to experiment with and compare two different methods of constructing faux stained glass pieces with laser cut plexiglass.
The first method was to inlay opaque black linework with colored plexiglass, which was also how the Native Plant Triptych was constructed. The second, shown here, was to sandwich the color layer between two layers of linework on either side to create a more three-dimensional piece.
I concluded that the inlay method was more fragile, but better for smaller projects where detail might get covered by a three-dimensional linework layer. The sandwich method uses much more material, but is also significantly sturdier.
Original linework.
Pre-fabrication color mockup.
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