Dragonfly Storm

This shape of this vase has been carefully selected to illustrate dragonflies (or damselflies) swarming. Although we usually experience these insects in small numbers, dragonflies congregate, often in large numbers, to harvest, when there exists a glut of food, often mosquitoes. The four flattened sides of this tall twisted tapering vase offers sufficient canvas to present the scene without the distorting effect which a curved rounded surface would have caused. The railroad-track effect of the taper creates a perspective we are so accustomed to we cannot ignore it. We perceive the distance in space between the nearer dragonflies at the wider base and those at the thinner top by the difference in the density of the swarm. An undulating series of near-parallel lines beneath the dragonflies compliments the positioning of the insects, and contributes to the illusion of the forward movement of the swarm. The dragonflies are rendered such that although their shapes in flight are clear, their details are not. This creates the illusion that the wings in flight are blurred despite their retaining their individual at-rest shapes.

-Description by Christopher Baker