We’re excited! We’ve just had our work featured in the May issue of Signs of the Times magazine. You can see the page online by clicking here.
Senior Associate Editor Steve Aust did a very nice piece – with photos -- on our Donor Recognition Wall in the Marriott Library at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
Signs of the Times, which has been publishing since 1906, aims to educate and inspire graphics and signage professionals worldwide. We're honored to be in their pages!
The aspect of my work that touches my heart most deeply is being part of what I call a culture of honoring. We are brought on board when a client wants to deeply thank and honor its donors for their generous support. But for many years now, our studio has innovated Donor Walls that go beyond a mere “accountant’s list” of the names of big, medium and smaller donors.
We understand that the entire community that contributes to an institution’s success needs to be honored. That why we weave into our artwork the institution’s identity -- you might say we "crystalize " the heart, mind and spirit of the organization -- along with the donors’ names.
Detail from the Donor Wall at the University of Utah Hospital
Fred’s swiveling brackets have to embrace an extra challenge because we use programmed LEDs to illuminate our Art Glass Walls. The hinges and other hardware that attach to the crystal panels must allow room for the LED wiring to run through them without impeding their function.
He is the owner and founder of Exceptional Wood Products in Geyserville, CA. His firm does high-level, award-winning, contemporary and historic architectural woodwork, including stairs, molding, columns, wainscoting, cornices, door surrounds and cabinetry. Charly also designs and builds our custom shipping crates for the thousands of square feet of crystal panels we ship nationwide.
Joe and Charly at the installation for Community Hospital of Monterey Peninsula.
Installing the wood brackets on a Donor Wall at Marriott Library at the University of Utah
Charly and Tim in Monterey
Donor Wall at the University of VirginiaLastly, I want to honor Bob Davidson, who took on one of our first, largest and most complex installations: the University of Virginia School of Medicine. A talented artist, art professor, architect and contractor, Bob guided, engineered, ran and collaboratively supported all the initial growth at our Studio. He built our sandblasting booths, the racks that hold our huge panels of glass, our glass-moving trolley, and even our second-story mezzanine. Without Bob’s loving and generous support, his amazing creativity and his problem solving skills, our Studio would not be here today!
I thank you ALL for your talent and your heart. This loyal "band of brothers" has taught me everything I know about installation, enabling me to speak authoritatively to our clients. They have supported and admired the workmanship and art of our endeavor. And they have adventured with me through late-night airports big and small since we first expanded to creating truly large-scale Donor Walls 18 years ago. You are the best!
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Whether we are doing bas-relief carving to create the alabaster look of birds in flight or chisel-carving true V-cut letterforms (a
monument-style technique once only possible in stone), the work is all
done by directing narrow streams of air-propelled particles (originally,
sand was used) to the back or front of thick sheets of crystal and
glass.
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By
altering the speed of the air, the size of the nozzle, the angle at
which the nozzle is held, and how long the stream of “sand” is directed
at a given area, a marvelous range of different effects can be created.
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Christina Wallach Amri began her career over 35 years ago in Paris, where she apprenticed with a fourth-generation family of glass artisans. Among other projects, she worked on restoring the famous stained glass windows of Chartres cathedral.
When Christina returned to the U.S. and founded Wallach Glass Studio (now Amri studio), she began developing techniques for etching and carving glass to resemble the timeless and elegant stone monuments she saw in Europe. She also brought her experience and studies as an art major at U.C. Berkeley into the sandblasting cabinet and began truly sculpting in glass. Now we are the deepest bas-relief glass carvers in the U.S., sometimes working on panels as thick as a full inch.
We
restore the fine details in a highly skillful, artistic and technical
process we’ve developed that takes up to 20 hours per photo. When the
resulting image is then carved into crystal or glass, each tiny dot is
scooped out by a blast of “sand,” creating a tiny bowl shape. When the
sandblasted image is edge-lit by LEDs, the little bowls collect the
light as it travels through the crystal (which acts as a fiber optic)
and the image looks dramatically three-dimensional.
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Thanks to the proprietary techniques we’ve developed for creating our signature chisel-cut, three-dimensional lettering and highly detailed photo portraits, our Art Glass panels -- whether they are Donor Recognition, Tributes or Corporate Signage -- brilliantly catch the light and read crisply at quite a distance with either ambient lighting, spot lighting and/or edge-mounted LEDs.
It has been a fruitful year for us at Amri Studio, and we wanted to take a moment to share some of its visual highlights with you before we close for our annual holiday vacation, Dec. 24 through Jan. 3.
From St. Mary's Hospital Heritage Wall
These projects are so recent, they are not yet on our website. In fact, one of them was just installed last week. Please read on for a sneak preview . . .
We created a 20-foot long Art Glass Mural and Donor Wall alongside a custom Donor Tribute dedicated to J Willard and Alice Marriott at the ultramodern Marriott Research Library at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
We had the honor of attending the opening of the new building, which was dedicated by former First Lady Laura Bush.
At Boston Children's Hospital we created an inspiring and playful Donor Wall, which included a custom-programmed Interactive Crystal Plaque placed at child height to entertain young patients.
Two dark 100-foot hallways were transformed by an Art Glass Donor Wall and separate Heritage Wall, tracing the stirring history and heartfelt values of St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado.
Cascading roses and a rosary of pearls morph into a dotted line showing the route of a 19th century sea voyage, then into railroad tracks marking a journey crossing the Wild West, and are finally transformed into the beads on a teething ring held by a baby in a nurse's arms. These were the key elements in the largest installation we have ever done.
Wishing you all the happiest and safest holiday season. We are looking forward to some exciting projects in 2010!
As we look back on the many projects we have been privileged to create this year, I think the words that best describe them are "acts of light." I also think this is the perfect way to describe what generous donors do when they make gifts to their favorite institutions: They are truly committing "acts of light" that affect everyone they touch....
Donor Tribute and Room Plaques, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Personal Tribute to Heather Pick, Nationwide Children's Hospital
Art Glass, Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York
Art Glass, Mathews Chapel at Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago
Donor Wall and Interactive Art Glass, Children's Hospital Boston
Donor Wall and Donor Tribute, Marriott Library, University of Utah
Heritage Wall, St Mary's Hospital, Grand Junction, CO
Donor Wall, St Mary's Hospital, Grand Junction, CO
