I See Wisteria

We were introduced to artisan Liza Heider last year when she shared images of her installation “Honeylicious” from last year’s Friends and Family Summer Campout. Sponsored by the California Foundation for the Advancement of the Electronic Arts (CFAEA), the campout is an annual culture collective of dance, music and art held in Saratoga Springs, CA.

For this year’s Summer Campout, Liza combined her adoration for the flower Wisteria with her fondness for chandeliers and created “I See Wisteria,” a circular installation that featured thousands of small pieces of Rosco e-colour+ color filters. Coming up with the design for the circular chandelier was not easy, and Liza struggled with this part the most. Liza wanted something delicate yet durable. Her DIY attempts using plastic tubing failed, so Liza reached out to a welder in Oakland to make a 4.5 foot diameter circle out of two steel rings.

Liza dedicated over 150 hours, from start-to-finish, as she worked on the installation for two months in her San Francisco home. The finished piece consisted of a 4.5 foot diameter circle that was constructed out of two steel rings with vividly colorful leaves and flowers dangling from it. The leaves and flowers were made using roughly 7,000 small pieces of Rosco e-colour+ color & diffusion filters that were sewn together into strands of various lengths using monofilament.

Liza used the following Rosco E-Colour+ Filters for this project:

• e-colour+ #121 – Leaf Green
• e-colour+ #244 – Plus Green
• e-colour+ #480 – Atlantic Frost
• e-colour+ #502 – ½ New Colour Blue
• e-colour+ #503 – ¼ New Colour Blue
• e-colour+ #703 – Cold Lavender
• e-colour+ #731 – Dirty Ice
• And of course, e-colour+ #5404 – Wisteria

The strands of squares were then draped onto a stand and shaped into rounded shapes. About 50 wisteria leaves were made by tracing an image of a Wisteria leaf onto the green-colored gels, and then hand-cut to the shape. The gel strands were then made into 30 flowers by tying the strands of the remaining colors to clear plastic rings. In order to work on the project, Liza kept the chandelier suspended on C-stands. Liza filled the ring with a clear monofilament dreamcatcher weave and begun to attach the flowers and leaves inside the ring.

Once Liza arrived at the Saratoga Springs location, she began assembling the ring and completing its final touches. Liza tied a sage green cord on four sides of the ring for hanging then added branches painted in two shades of metallic. Lastly, what’s a chandelier without some bling? Liza dispersed crystals throughout the chandelier, various lengths of raindrop-style glass pieces, and one 5-inch long Swarovski crystal on the top of the ring. Liza attached the chandelier to a steel crossbar that was suspended between two trees, then added chairs and an accent table in front to finish out the piece.

During the day, the chandelier flowers, crystals and leaves were illuminated like stained glass by the ambient sunlight. At night, I See Wisteria was illuminated by rice lights that were strung throughout the branches around the perimeter and with a flood lamp covered with - what else? e-colour #5404 Wisteria!

Visit www.fnf.org for more information on CFAEA. To see more of Liza’s work, including her photography portfolio, please visit www.lizaheider.com.

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