Fountain of Youth – object / night lamp

This piece was made for the exhibition at the Yes Gallery entitled “AgatART”. The condition of the exhibition was the use of at least one of the 4 pieces of agate provided by the gallery.

The weight of the selected piece prompted me to use it in a playful form of a small sculpture. It plays the role of a magical spring in the diorama. The interesting structure of the mineral is best noticeable after highlighting it from below. The motif of its internal drawing inspired me to find it in other objects and use them in this scene: dragonfly wings, mycelium, snail skin, leaf skeletons. A fountain (fiber optics) sprouts from the center of the agate, which transmits its glow when the lamp is turned on.

The composition snails + agate is a separate structure that can be lifted and viewed from all sides – and played with like with a figurine. After turning on the light in the base and placing the “light” ideally in the center of the bulb, the real charm of the whole structure is revealed, which is designed as filigree especially for this purpouse. The additional charm of the work appears in complete darkness, because the mushrooms and the bottom of the snails spontaneously glow blue (after contact with sunlight).

I’d like to add on the side, that I am proud of the entire mechanism of the light. It was specially built by me for this project. The idea of a fiber optic fountain was so tempting to me that I traveled around local electronics stores, discussing with customers and sellers how to build the mechanism I needed (because I didn’t know anything about electronics myself yet). Equipped with the indicated elements (diode, battery, switch, resistor) and a technical drawing, I made this lamp by myself. Earlier, friendly manager of a cell phone repair point soldered such a light pattern for me and I made my chimera based on it. And the optical fibers were provided by a randomly met customer of an electronics store, who just owned a few from the former project. As time was running out, I was ready to go to the other end of town at night to get them from him, so my idea could come to life.

In this story slugs drink the water from the spring of youth. Thanks to the magic liquid they finally become beautiful and have wings like dragonflies and butterflies. Their silver bodies are decorated with gold flakes, garnets, cubic zirconias, labradorite, they have garnets and amazonites in their antennas. They even have a slime trail made of silver chains.

Materials: 925 silver, dragonfly and butterfly wings, 24k gold flakes, zircons, labradorite, garnets, amazonites, optical fibers, fluorescent substance.

Base: skeleton leaves, LED light + batteries, switch

Weight: 61.8g + stand 157g

Dimensions: 8 cm x 8 cm, height 10 cm,

Total dimensions with a stand: about 19 cm x 19 cm, height: about 13 cm