The Weight of Light

The Weight of Light is a 30 cm x 30 cm mixed media artwork featuring clusters of tourmaline in quartz, green calcite, as well as smoky quartz and clear wuartz points.
It grew out of a sensation of feeling both heavy and light at the same time, which I often dream and feel in life.  Heavy and dense, as if made of stone, yet somehow weightless, floating and free. 
The Weight of Light reflects this. At the base, rough and heavy, earthy tones and textures hold clusters of tourmaline in quartz, green calcite, and smoky quartz, stones that ground, clarify, and release. As your eye moves upward, the surface softens. The colours fade from deep earthy reds and coppers to paler hues, and there are tactile shifts suggesting movement and change. At the very top, the textures calm. Fine lines edged with soft metallic gold curve like waves or passing breezes. The colours shift into pale turquoise, misty blue, and soft white, giving a sense of openness, as if the air expands and light begins to pour in.
During my latest trip to my stone supplier, I picked up some more tourmaline-in-quartz, which are perfect for this piece. In nature, tourmaline can form within quartz. As the quartz begins to crystallise, the tourmaline grows inside it, their structures becoming entangled and inseparable. The grounding energy of tourmaline, protective and dense, is held within the clear, amplifying energy of quartz, luminous and light. Together they coexist in a fascinating and striking balance.
We often think of heaviness as burden and lightness as freedom, but maybe they belong to each other - that tender lightness and that necessary weight, forever entangled like stone and light, like tourmaline in quartz.