Sparking It Up At The Mizel Museum

This is the first post of the two-part blog about working on the permanent exhibit recently installed at the Mizel Museum in Denver.

This past Spring I was invited by Scott Lyon to help paint, fabricate and install pieces of the exhibit. There are too many projects to talk about, so I'll talk about one design of Scott's that I worked on in this post, and then I'll write about painting the Jewish Calendar that I designed and worked on in my next post.

Almost two years ago my friend and fellow Denver artist, Scott Lyon, was approached by the Mizel Museum to give the museum walls and the display cases that house the artifacts a makeover.  Scott began working with the museum's curator, Georgina Kolber, on the exhibit's theme, which is a 4,000 year journey of Jewish life, culture, art and stories.  The curator talks more about this in her interview with Ryan Warner on Colorado Public Radio.  4,000 Year Road Trip: Gathering Sparks is the educational, historic and whimsical exhibit that has been brought to life by Scott and his team that I was honored to be apart of. 

 I worked on several exciting projects, however, one of the more memorable projects I worked on was the notorious "spark" emitting disco ball, which was the most terrifying piece to fabricate and install!  Scott began this project by designing and building a rocket fin shaped wooden support covered with foam and electrical bits that would be covered by a mosaic of mirror glass. The shape of this sculpture was designed in mind with the building's mid-century modern architecture and fun funky presentation of the exhibit's theme. I remember being a little intimidated by this skeletal structure, but I couldn't wait to begin covering it. This structure was heavy and awkward, it would rock back and forth, and needed to have a separate structure built to keep it upright.  Mostly there was a lot of gluing shards of glass, which one of the shards left a V-shaped scar on my wrist after I carelessly plunged my arm into one of those pointy corners... ouch!   It took several days for Scott and I to finish, working in shifts artfully cutting glass and arranging pieces to perfectly cover the structure.  After the last piece of glass was placed and the finished sculpture was cleaned we stood back in awe of it's shimmering beauty!  Now all we had to do was figure out how to hang it, which we did quite gracefully with the help of pulleys and a very tall ladder.  When you walk up to the front of the museum you can't help notice the large atomic disco ball hanging in the lime green entrance.  Guests who visit the Mizel Museum before dusk are really in for a sparkly treat!

Pictured here is Scott, the disco ball and a few bits of other exhibit pieces I put in to collage.