By Peg McRoy Glover
Artist and Plainfield resident, Amy McInerny, has experienced a great deal of pain in her adult life. A victim of domestic abuse, she thought many times that she might never recover, even though she had removed herself from the situation.
Then just as she was beginning to rebuild her self-esteem and life, a stalker made his presence known. Upon returning from work one evening, she found a “love” letter from the man who had been secretly following her. He knew her schedule even down to when she would walk her dog.
Traumatized and not feeling safe in her own home again, Amy made a decision.
“Everything in my life was shattered. I dedicated myself to continuing down the healing path and to use my art to express what I was going through. I refused to remain a victim. Art became part of my therapy,” McInerny said.
Although she grew up exploring other art mediums, sculpting has always been her major art passion.
“Two years ago, I submitted a heart sculpture to the Reflected Light visual art show, curated by Brian Russelburg and staged every year in Hendricks County. It was titled ‘Let Love Heal.’ I made roses coming out of the heart symbolizing love light. I used actual rose thorns within the sculpture symbolizing the negatives that can break your heart,” McInerny said.
When she was creating “Let Love Heal,” another idea kept popping into her head, but she wasn’t sure to how to bring it to fruition.
“I wanted to make a glass sculpture in the shape of a woman that looked like it had been shattered and put back together. I had never worked with glass and wasn’t sure how to do it.”
After experimenting with shattered glass from everyday items such as picture frames, it occurred to her that if she could obtain a discarded car windshield then she would have enough material to create the sculpture. A visit to a local auto body repair shop yielded results after she explained what she wanted to do. The company gave her a windshield.
Then an unanticipated problem arose. She couldn’t break the windshield no matter how hard she tried. An artist friend suggested she use tin snips. It worked.
Using a manikin female torso covered in mesh, she began to piece together her sculpture with the shattered glass. The flatness of the glass shards and the curve of the manikin required that she create the front and the back separately.
“When I was fitting the front and back together, I decided to insert a lit beating heart within the torso. I did this by creating a circle of glass and inserted two string lights with an on/off mode similar to a heartbeat.” The result is fascinating and so very relatable.
