What’s In the Water: After Deep-Sea Mining
2026
6″ x 6″
Smalti, stained-glass, repurposed circuit boards, 24k white gold smalti
$375 RESERVED
Michigan’s Great Lakes were imprinted on me as a child, and my affinity for big water never left. As an experienced paddleboarder and novice surfer, I am drawn to waves for their power and expanse. This relationship with water drives my mosaic glass work.
I hand cut, facet, and layer glass to capture the texture, depth, translucence and iridescence of water. Each wave is a portrait of water as companion rather than landscape. My inspirations range from surf photography and my own photography to scientific research on threats facing our aquatic environments. That research shapes pieces like those in the “What’s in the Water?” series, which was first motivated by UC Santa Barbara studies on deep ocean industrial waste disposal. This specific work incorporates bits of repurposed circuit boards with the glass to represent the prospect of deep-sea mining for minerals on the ocean floor. My art reflects both my reverence for water habitats and my concern for their survival, and ours.
Ruth Tyszka