Greetings fellow humans!
Here is a video to experience the dome via video:
If you wish to read and learn about the dome, there is a brief essay at the bottom of this post.
Here are a bunch of photos (mostly) by Dom Episcopo
“Super/Natural” is a stained glass environment representing a “three-tiered cosmos”.
In 2023, I became an artist in residence at the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics. This project is the result of attending their lab meetings over the course of a year and a half and is the time it took to complete the dome.
The dome is 8 feet high at its tallest and 5’6” in diameter. The windows were designed and fabricated by me. The dome architecture was designed by me in collaboration with carpenter Patrick Murray who contributed his architectural background and engineering skill.
Thank you to Dr Anjan Chatterjee and Penn Center forNeuroaesthetics (PCfN), Claire Oliver Gallery, Patrick Murray, Konstantin Sievaplesov (studio assistant), Richard Prigg, and Glenn Carter.
I would like to express my immense gratitude to my parents, Moselio and Barbara Schaechter. My father, who served as the chairman of Microbiology at Tufts University for 23 years, awakened in me a love of science—especially through his collection of antique mushroom books, with their fantastic illustrations. My mother, former director of the League School of Boston (now the League School of Autism), nurtured my curiosity about the human mind from an early age through books and conversations. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for your inspiration and support.
One of the research themes at Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics is “the built environment and wellness”. It was there that I learned of
biophilicdesign. Biophilic principles are often used in hospitals and office buildings to create “refresh rooms” and non-secular chapels—places to lower stress and encourage feelings of serenity and peace. It comes as no surprise that reconnecting with nature is healing. Like many urban people, I myself have very rarely experienced wild spaces. I don’t own a car, and I have been city-bound most of my life. Super/Natural is a response to that condition.
Without delving too deeply into mysticism, it seems biophilic design offers an opportunity to reconcile human consciousness with the environment. It challenges the perceived divide between mind and body, person vs nature, as well as the mental distinction between "interior vs. exterior" or "self vs. not-self”, revealing it as a perceptual illusion. While this distinction has practical heuristic value, it also fosters loneliness and isolation. I suspect this disconnection enables social and ecological harm. My goal was to create something that “heals” this divide.
By situating the viewer at the center of a three-tiered cosmos, Super/Natural invites contemplation of both inner space—how we experience environments neurologically and psychologically—and outer space—how we extend ourselves into our surroundings. I aimed to inspire reflection on our interdependence with all life on Earth, encouraging an internalized sense of connection akin to viewing the "blue marble," from within rather than from the far-off perspective of outer space. We are ultimately connected to, not just observing nature.
Although I am not religious, I chose a chapel as a direct reference to spiritual architecture that uses art for reflection, awe, and transcendence. As a stained glass artist, I am acutely aware that my work is exhibited in lightboxes, not in churches and temples as is traditional. Thus, I have thought for years that I would like to make a “personal shrine” for a single viewer. This goes against the convention of thinking in the monumental terms suggested by cathedrals as well as many contemporary art venues. Western culture tends to revere the huge and sublime while undervaluing the small, intimate, and inscendent. This preference for grandeur creates physical and psychological distance between the viewer and the stained glass. I sought to collapse that separation. Moreover, stained glass in churches and public spaces is almost always designed for a collective audience. In the age of mass media, there’s a temptation to assume that reaching the largest number of people is inherently better. Super/Natural challenges that notion by offering a semi-private experience.
The imagery in Super/Natural references nature, but it is entirely derived from my imagination. It is intended to evoke the sense of nature as understood by a human mind—similar to the natural history images that influenced my childhood. They are, ultimately, about invoking nature more than depicting it. At PCfN, I learned that creativity is often tested using the 'Alternative Uses Test,' in which subjects are asked to generate as many uses as possible for a common object—like a brick—within a limited time. The test is scored across four dimensions (fluency, originality, flexibility and elaboration). The flower and bird imagery in the dome was a challenge to my imagination. How many flowers, birds and bugs could I invent before my inspiration ran dry? What would this say about the potential for the inventive capacity of drawing? I hope I have discovered that imagination is potentially infinite!
Imagination is often thought of as frivolous or a waste of time. But what could be more amazing than the extension of consciousness beyond what feels possible, beyond reality? It is my belief that expressing one’s authentic imagination is the most important, radical thing we can do as conscious beings. It is my belief the mind can conjure feelings of awe independent of external experience (and substances) and hopefully the dome will prove to be an example of that.
One final historical link that bears mentioning is that the botanical prints that inspired the work were often created by women as this was a permissible art form for them in the 17th Century. No wonder they are so amazing looking—all that artistic energy had to be funneled into this one constricting art mode!
The composition is based on the cross-cultural theme of a "three tiered cosmos". The ten panels at eye level represent the "Earthly Domain". These panels consist of images of plants and insects in a profusion of exuberant life. Below are ten panels of wallpaper representing the "Under World". The imagery includes roots, unhatched larva, buried bones, mycelium and other motifs of underground. The "Heavens", the geodesic dome itself, contains 45 triangular panels. This area depicts a murmuration of colorful birds and stars. Underfoot is a carpet of my design depicting a whirlpool, mirroring the spiral of birds above.
Techniques
I use a material called "Flash Glass”. Flash glass is a type of hand-blown glass with a paper-thin veneer of intense color on a base layer of lighter color. One reason there is a lot of color in each section of my pictures is that the flash glass is layered, typically two pieces deep, red on clear and blue on clear with the addition of black enamel and silverstain.
I cut the glass using a steel wheel cutter and a grozing or running pliers. The next step is sandblasting, a process by which one can remove the colored layer, to get patterns and tones. After sandblasting, I engrave finer details using rotary tools and create smooth tonal shifts in color with diamond hand files.
When the engraving is done, I add black enamel which fires onto glass permanently. I also use silverstain (which is yellow). I used a fuchsia transparent enamel in places as well. This is all the paint I use--all the other color is the flash glass itself. The use of red and blue glass, combined with small amounts of black, yellow, and pink enamel, produces a full-color spectrum within a single section of glass, eliminating the need for a cut line.
The wallpaper originated from two high-resolution images of previous stained glass windows I created based on pencil sketches. These images were manipulated with Photoshop software to combine them with stained glass-like transparency.
__
Here are the “Cliff Notes” supplied by Chatgpt:
Summary of Key Themes
- Biophilic design and reconnection with nature
- Healing psychological and social divides and creating connections
- Interior vs. exterior space and dissolving boundaries
- Imagination as a force for creativity and transformation
- Resistance to monumentalism in favor of intimacy
- The symbolic structure of the three-tiered cosmos
- Technical mastery of stained glass craft
- Art as a site for awe, reflection, and transcendence
These themes are interconnected, reinforcing the overarching goal of Super/Natural to invite viewers into a deeply personal, immersive experience that explores the connections between self, nature, and imagination.
