When I was visiting with childhood friends, Mary and Milam, in my home state of Alabama, I mentioned I mentioned a photographic collage technique using mica. Milam, Mary’s husband, said that he had lots of mica on his property, and then he left the room while Mary and I reminisced. After a while he returned with a huge chunk of mica which he handed to me as a gift.
Back in Florida, the mica sat on a shelf in my studio and continued to call out for its purpose. The creativity gods finally turned on a light, and I saw my way to painting this Mica Mountain, gluing the small, transparent, glass-like flakes to the mountain walls of the painting. I had a gallery wrapped canvas, which doesn’t require a frame, but lends itself to a very contemporary look. In a second “light bulb” moment, I chose to paint the mountain in a smaller rectangle than that of the canvas, allowing surrounding edges to be painted as a faux frame, and I think I rather like it.
