Chainwheel Mandalas: A Meditation on Transportation
By Mïa Vollkommer
When I was approached to do this piece, my first concern was to preserve the spirit of my primary medium – jewelry – within the context of a much larger piece. The second concern was to choose a theme or subject that I felt passionate about so that I was not just creating the work for the sake of making “something big”.
When I moved to Salt Lake City in January of 2013, I was really shocked by the air quality issue known as the inversion. As a person who has often relied on her bicycle as her primary means of transportation (including currently), I feel that as a population we should cycle when the weather allows, which will then help to fight against the crippling pollution we suffer in the winter.
And so the bicycle became both my subject matter, and the perfect means to express the spirit of my jewelry in a larger wok.
The jewelry I make consists of circular wire wrapped frames, within which tiny glass seed beads are stitched to fill in the space. In my sculpture I was able to use the circular forms of bicycle chainwheels as my frames, within which I created peyote stitch “mandalas” to catch the light and entice the viewer with their unique texture. The rest of the space of the sculpture frame consists of bicycle rims, and nestled sets of tubing that bring to mind bicycle tires (and also planetary orbits, the paths of molecules, etc.)
As an artist this piece was an amazing challenge from which I learned a great deal. I could not have completed the work without the help of the Salt Lake Bicycle Collective, Joe Norman of Joe Norman Sculpture, and especially Jason Markey.
Celebration of the Hand was started by The Temporary Museum of Permanent Change and Craft Lake City in the Summer of 2012 as a way to highlight and showcase the work of local artisans participating in the Craft Lake City DIY Festival. The Celebration of the Hand pieces are installed into steel Plakats, which are adjacent to the sidewalks on the North and South sides of Broadway (300 South) between 200 West and 200 East.
The exhibit is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and is free to the public.
This project is supported in part by the Utah Arts & Museums, with funding from the State of Utah and the National Endowment for the Arts.