The next work I will discuss is titled No One is Invisible. This work is about identity, dualism, and inclusivity, as well as a material exploration into the potential glass has to be a sealed and transparent container.

The largest form in the piece is heavily influenced by a diagram from the branch of physics called relativity. Relativity deals with realms of high-speeds (special relativity) and domains of strong gravity (general relativity). General Relativity looks at how the wells of gravity that celestial objects make curve space and dilate time; however, every theory in relativity is also reducible to the speeds and gravity here on Earth. It also explains how light travels through the curved spaces. Before Einstein came along and solved his world-famous equations, a man named Hermann Minkowski had already conceived of connections between space and time.* One particularly fascinating and useful idea he had was a way to diagram all of the light one person could ever see in their life. The diagram is on a graph whose axes are space and time, and it hinges on the speed of light, as well as the axiom that nothing in our universe can travel faster than light. The formal definition of the speed of light is 300,000,000 meters per second, and is depicted as ‘c’ in physics.** On the next page is a labeled and explained version of this diagram, which is known as a Minkowski light cone.

This sculpture contains a three dimensional, blown glass Minkowski light cone and a hot-sculpted by hand blown glass head. The head is a semi-self-portrait, and both the cone and head are clear because I have felt invisible like people saw through me, underestimated me, or simply did not acknowledge my skill or intellect because of my body and more specifically my gender. The entirety of the exterior sculpture is a metaphor for the body as a vessel for our energy, spirit, and/or soul which in this case is displayed as light.

The light that runs through the entire body and head of the piece is made of glass tubing which is filled with krypton gas. The gas appears as an undulating white line because the tube is sealed at a high pressure. When the tube is connected to a power source - in this instance, 12,000 Volts - the krypton atoms collide with electrons that have been accelerated by the high voltage. These collisions ‘excite’ the krypton atoms, meaning these atoms actually jump to a higher energy state. In efforts to return to the lower energy state, the atoms will let out the light we see as a way to lose energy. To me, this physical process is a metaphor about the light inside of myself; whether I feel unacknowledged or not, the energy inside of me will make its way out in one way or another. In a more universal way, I feel if we valued the light within each one of us, mores than our physical appearances, we would find it easier to connect and relate to people that are seemingly very different than us. After all, all of humankind subsists on the light of the same sun.

*Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Hermann Minkowski." Encyclopedia Britannica, March 27, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hermann-Minkowski.

** Sean M. Carroll, Lecture Notes on General Relativity, (Santa Barbara, CA: UCSB, 1997) 125, https:// sites.astro.caltech.edu/~george/ay21/readings/carroll-gr-textbook.pdf.