Uncharted. Where no hot-air balloon has gone. To a place we’ve never been before…

This little sculpture and I spent a LOT of time together. Several months to be exact. Back and forth, refining, starting over, refining again. I wanted the rich metal colors to come through in the balloon itself: copper, bronze, antique gold, all a little weathered as though it had been through clouds, and storms, and who knows! … perhaps a hurricane or two. The contrast of the weathered metal colors and the crisp white base with black marbling are striking, making the metallic detail of the tiny balloon more visible.

The balloon itself is just over an inch tall, and the basket and support chains make it a little over 2 inches, touching on the wisps that might be an ocean creature or the tendril of a windswept cloud, the froth circling an oceanic sinkhole — or if this is a space-traveling ship, it could be the Rosette Nebula in the constellation Monoceros for you astronomy types. 

A ship’s wheel, an anchor, and weights all drape the sides of the balloon basket. When shaken, the balloon and basket are caught in a fog of shimmering white iridescent dust, slowly settling to reveal the tendrils below.

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For anyone who thinks: have I seen this snowglobe before? Perhaps you are thinking of “Rough Sailing” — a steampunk’d original snowglobe which I posted a few days ago. While I worked on the two, off and on, over the same period of time, they are not the same. More like fraternal twins, perhaps. There are many differences between the two globes, notably, “Sailing” has an airship with bright antique gold metal masts drifting below the balloon, and this one, “Uncharted Skies,” has a woven metal basket and a finer gauge of bronze chain connecting the two pieces. Two similar but very different modes of travel.

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