Capture the Nothingness
glass, dry wood
2019,11
5*5*h9 in
The Conservation of Mass.
When wood burns, the remaining mass of soot, ashes and gases is
equal to the original mass of the charcoal and the oxygen when it first reacted. Therefore the mass of the product equals the mass
of the reactant. Mass and matter are not able to be created or destroyed, but can change forms to other substances like liquids, gasses, solids.
glass fragments, picture taken by macro lens.
What else is missing?
I began the process while standing in the hot shop-the studio where we work with hot glass.
I looked at the used wooden block, which has been burned away from heat over the years. Applying this idea to the law of conservation of mass, where are the lost parts? The “smoke” and “ashes” came into my mind. I thought of the air burning the combustion process, of the burnt wood block shaping the molten glass. A sacrificial act of wood being consumed slowly in order to give another substance an ideal form. I began using glass as a container, dripping molten glass on a piece of dry wood, in an attempt to capture the burned wood, ashes and smoke.
