photo credit David Glasofer, Image Up Studios

Here's one of the images from my photo shoot last week with David Glasofer of Image Up Studios.  I love the way it turned out with the light reflecting off the butterfly's black body and the subtle colors in the wings.  Glass is tricky to shoot because the light both transmits through it if it's transparent and reflects off it.  Without David's skills, tricks and equipment, getting a good picture is really challenging.  This series of 4 butterflies was created with a multi-step process-- each one was fired in the kiln four times at temperatures up to 1500 degrees.  I used a product called fiber paper and a technique called kiln carving (which I mentioned in a blog post on March 4).  Initially I explored the technique by creating simple shapes and then realized it would be possible to turn those shapes into letters and those letters into words.  I made butterflies with the words faith, hope, love and joy.  I'm sharing the "Faith" butterfly today as Easter is this weekend and also because a number of my friends just put their kids on a plane, heading to France for a school trip.  As parents, we know there's a lot of faith needed each time we let our little butterflies go to spread their wings and fly.