Chipeta-Mai ~ A Kasia and Kyle Collaboration

Chipeta-Mai 

a stained glass mosaic sculpture for indoor/outdoor display

48in x 24in x 24in

 2018 

by Kasia Polkowska and Kyle Cunniff 

Permanently Installed at the Mystic Valley Sculpture Park

Click this link to see images from Great Sand Dunes National Park Photoshoot: http://www.kasiamosaics.com/2018/04/chipeta-mai-handcrafted-glass.html 

 

Chipeta-Mai was displayed as part of two Public Art Installations, in Colorado Springs where she won a Juror's Award and in Longmont.

 

Artist Statement for the Sculpture: Chipeta-Mai is a cross-cultural matryoshka doll. Historically, the first Matryoshka Doll was made in Russia and has since become a symbol in Eastern European Culture where Kasia was born. This doll was sculpted by hand by Kyle who worked to inspire the nostalgia one often feels when laying eyes on the form of a nesting doll. The doll is adorned in a bright, colorful, hand cut stained glass mosaic pattern created by Kasia. To give her a sense of place, she was named to honor the people who's ancestral land we inhabit, focusing on Colorado where the artist team lives. Chipeta was a famous Ute woman known for diplomacy while Mai (Navajo for bright flower) was added to the end of her name for the flower she bears on her belly as many traditional matryoshkas do. The warm southwestern colors of the doll further reflect the state where she was realized. The bright orange that wraps around her belly mirrors the sedimentary beds of deep-red and pink sandstone seen jutting out of the soil along the front range of Colorado. Her headscarf was inspired by the bright blue sky that's so often filled with sunshine and hangs high above the mountains. This doll is a modern artifact emulating the artists' interest in the landscape they inhabit as well as the people that roamed that land long before them.