Cooled magma mesmerizes

While on a working holiday in Hawaii, Glen Foster, local photographer and fine furniture maker, became fascinated with the lava fields of Mount Kilauea. Foster was drawn to the unique forms of the cooled lava, and he set up his camera and tripod and took a series of photographs of the formations of what was once liquid within the earth but had emerged and hardened. There was a narrative within the photos he had returned with.

Over the next decade, Foster, who lives in Wakefield and has a home studio, applied various photoshop techniques to bring out the patterns and colours to, in a sense, illuminate the lava. As a commercial printer he was able to enlarge the photos to the size of a tablecloth. Then he decided to exhibit them.

Seven of the enlargements are now on exhibit until March 5 at the 100 Mile Arts Network gallery in Wakefield. The show is entitled ‘Plutonic Outbursts’, a reference to plutons, which are bodies of intrusive igneous rock that crystallize from magma slowly cooling.

I dropped into Foster’s vernissage on Feb. 14 and toured the photos. Seven large, naturally abstract photographs ringed the white-walled room. But on closer eyeballing, the surface complexity of the lava revealed itself.

The title of the photographs – ‘Born of Rock’, ‘Emanating Ropes’, ‘New Era Begins’, ‘Her Story Ruptured’, ‘Vaulting Upwards’, ‘Revisited Brokenness’ and ‘Out of the Confines’, when strung together, form a poem in themselves. When I asked Foster about the titles, he said, “I’m fond of geological poetry, and they all come from them.”

When I asked Foster if he is a full-time artist, he said, “I was a research biologist until I was 34 and then I stepped away from it and pursued my art.” In effect, his sidelines became his frontlines: piano playing and teaching, woodworking and furniture making, as well as art photography, custom printing and photographing art for other artists. And this diverse portfolio has sustained him for over three decades now.

For the past 15 years Foster has been president of the Chelsea Wakefield Studio Tour, a year-round, part-time job in itself, involving the kaleidoscope of tasks required to attract over 3,000 potential art purchasers in the Hills. Funding chasing is an occupational necessity for the majority of artists in the Hills, including Foster, and stable funding is the Holy Grail.

Footnote. On Feb. 16, the volcano, Mount Kilauea, whose lava flows Foster captured for this exhibit, erupted again. “Well,” Foster said, “I will have to arrange to go back to explore more.” Hot stuff.

‘Plutonic Outbursts’ is on at the 100 Mile Arts Network until March 5. The gallery is located at #205, 721 Ch. Riverside, Wakefield. The gallery is open Thursdays and Fridays from 1 to 6 p.m. and on Saturdays from 12 to 4 p.m.