Patagonia Impressions

2019

Cynthia Fisher

Charlemont, MA, USA

35 x 27 inches

stained glass, handmade pottery fragments, ceramic shards, vitreous glass, smalti, pebbles, shells

not for sale

I went on a three and a half week bicycle trip on the Carretera Austral, or Southern Highway in Patagonia, Chile in January of 2019. It was the trip of a lifetime and Patagonia Impressions, 2019 is a reflection of my experience. I chose to design this in a semi abstract direction as I wanted to include a few recognizable elements: the 2 condors at the top, our route – the stones that wind path-like through the mosaic, the bicycle wheel, which can also be interpreted as a compass. The little bit we saw of Argentina was a sparse landscape all golden and yellow which accounts for the right side of the mosaic. The colors of this part of Chilean Patagonia are dominated by a unique turquoise/teal of some of the lakes and rivers that comprise the landscape. This mosaic is quite textural, with the texture extending to the border of the mosaic with pebbles imbedded into thin-set, a nod to the omnipresent rough road of our adventure.