Glass totem art

Totem on the rim of The Crooked River Canyon

How this series came about

Susie Zeitner makes glass art - colorfully intricate designs, usually mounted on a steel beam - like the totems seen here. Inspired by some of the landscape scenes in my IG gallery, she asked if I would place her totems in landscape scenes, to highlight her stunning art.

These artifacts stand in bold contrast to the scenaery behind them, yet they fit in. Perhaps it's because the various colors match & contrast or perhaps because the flowing natural lines of nature enhance the striking lines of the totems.

Method

Susie melts the glass into beautifully artful patterns of her design, sometimes using entire glass pieces, other times using glass powder which she makes herself. The glass is mounted on some sort of steel beam, yielding a stunning and substantial artifact! Each combination of steel beam, design pattern and glass colors is completely unique.

Blue glass totem art on a butte overlooking North Sister

On a butte overlooking the wilderness below North Sister

Rust and blue glass totem art on the rim of The Crooked River Canyon

Literally on the edge of The Crooked River Canyon

Placement

Since they're fabricated out of steel and glass, these totems can be quite heavy. This makes it difficult to fine tune the positioning, often right next to the vertical drop of a canyon wall. The saving grace is that the weight, leaves the totem pretty resistant to any breeze, which is not something I want to deal with right at the edge of the canyon

Where

One of the great things about Oregon and the many wild, open lands here, is the ability to Jeep across those public lands. To capture this scene, I Jeeped right up to the top of this butte; a gnarly, twisting dirt track (it was nothing more than a track, not a road), with a steep droppoff on the one side.

Glass totem art staged above the Crooked River Canyon

This is my own totem, a bright colorful piece which stands in stark contrast above The Crooked River Canyon

ZGlassAct

Her studio, ZGlassAct, (don’t you love that play on words?) was featured in a full page spread in the Bend Lifestyle Magazine, driven by one of these images.

Find ZGlassAct:

On BLM lands above The Crooked River Canyon