Drops of Light

Start with what you can't ignore. When I was little, there was a shop in our neighbourhood (Blackrock, in Dublin) that sold crystals. They were leaning in to both the respectable, geological fascination with quartz and amythest, and also the new age, healing power of crystal angle.

When I would pause at the shop window to gaze at the stones, my mother would hurry me along, saying how it was all nonsense and a cynical play on vulnerable people. I couldn't stop thin It's dark now. Or at least it is for me, as I write this at 4pm on a Wednesday afternoon.

The clocks have fallen back, and we are made aware that we will be wintering for the months to come. That means putting an important part of our selves on hold for a few months, and exploring some different ways of being. The winter is a fantastic opportunity to embrace the dark, the home, the softness of the lengthening shadows and the sharpness of the sunlight that does manage to slant into our lives, crisp and sharp and unexpected.

Drops of light This time of year makes me think about the Drops Crystal ware we have been developing for the last 6 years. This way of working with crystal is about capturing light, bending light, trapping it in small and large crystal balls and adding a little twist of lemon and raspberry colour. Hidden planes of pigmented bonding agent are trapped between the lustrous crystal balls and the heavy solid blocks to which they are attached.

The technique requires a considerable amont of skill, sanding and polishing the crystal to create a flawless bond. The interplay of light through the material creates an almost mystical effect, with the spheres appearing to float within the structure. The piece embodies both the scientific and metaphysical aspects.

On one hand, it's a purely manufactured object using principles of optics and light refraction - the kind of precise, scientific manipulation of materials that the empiricists (and my mother) would appreciate. On the other hand, it creates exactly the kind of mysterious, ethereal beauty that draws people to crystals as spiritual objects.This piece serves as both a functional object (decorative art) and something that seems to hold captured light and energy within it. The way the spheres catch and transform the light creates that same sense of wonder that draws people to crystals - that feeling that you're looking at something that exists between the mundane and the magical.

It's about human meaning-making: here's an object that's entirely human-made, yet it captures that same ineffable quality people seek in natural stones - the ability to trap light, to transform it, to create something that seems to hold energy within its form.