The Kelp and the Mermaid

Serendipitously, one segment of my several years of Marine Biology study involved ninety-seven dives in Monterey Bay kelp forests. I saw no mermaids, but I encountered some fantastic sea life while experiencing kelp forests firsthand. The colors in the kelp forest were beautiful, predominantly greens and blues, with some purple, in an environment with variable ambient light at seafloor depth. Prevailing light varied depending on factors such as overcast vs sunlit skies, or the thickness of the kelp canopy, and with floating debris in the water. Occasional turbulence stirred that debris around, as unpredictable sea life performed daily routines, lingering sometimes, sometimes curious, and typically, most likely, just looking for food until distracted. 

Vedder’s chalk drawing depicts a clear single tone ethereal light blue background, perhaps typical of seas in shallow tropical environs, perhaps just what he had on hand but I know that coloring is unlikely what is to be found in a kelp forest at the seafloor. Our mermaid is clearly in a kelp forest, and I reconciled what I know from my experience, of glass and kelp, interpreting Vedders colors as, pragmatic, initial, but not really  intended as literal, or actual  suggestion. Tiffany would have selected the glass… and  I wish I could know what Tiffany actually did in his execution of the window, but the window no longer exists. Tiffany was a painter and he heavily emphasized the use of glass for lifelike color rendering of his subjects, in his windows. He minimized the use of paint in favor of glass to depict lifelike color in the landscapes and floral themes for which he was famous. 

“The Mermaid with Fish” was a ghostlike mermaid window made by Tiffany, and it was one of his favorites, and he kept it in his personal collection. It is now viewable in the Field Museum.  It is composed of opaque, or opalescent colors, deep blues and greens, and a yellow fish. Thus, my rendering of Vedders drawing adheres to water and true sea colors as best I could. 

There are up to four layers of glass where there is painting, on the hands, arms, and face. One layer there is painted, one provides opacity, and the other imparts a skin-like texture, with a watery layer atop. Two layers of glass cover pretty much all else. The top watery  layer was fired with frits on a dimpled mold to produce a watery look with some occasional floating debris and shading. 

I used seashells for her necklaces, including the one she wears, and I incorporated well over a hundred sea shells in the windows. At least 120 are wrapped in braided copper in the necklace in her hand, alone. 

Much of the structural channel is layered with heavy braided copper. That was done partially to provide added strength but aesthetically as well to suggest a sea net grid, akin to what I’d done earlier in Dave’s fishnet dome. The rest of the came is reinforced with a copper wire colonial profile on the face of a lead channel.

I framed the glass in Pennsylvania Bluestone. The frames are absurdly heavy, but they are for looking at. Not moving. The color and texture is intended to finish and complement the colors and materials in the glass and metal work, such that the materials comprise the art. The idea was certainly not to move them around. 

Elihu Vedder used his daughter, Anita Herriman Vedder, for a model, not just for his mermaid but for other works, such as the Cumean Sibyl, of which I have, quite coincidentally, possessed a print for forty years. I took liberty to alter his mermaid, and the image in mine is of my daughter. It is her face and body. Anita was a larger girl with a strong jutting jaw.