Mussel Cluster

Artist: Pam Haunschild

Format: Mixed media on paper mounted on board, black float frame

Dimensions: 16" x 16" x 2"

Description:

Most people walk past a cluster of mussels without a second glance — dark, ordinary shapes clinging to a rock. Pam Haunschild asks you to look again. Rendered here with careful, almost jewel-like precision, each shell reveals the iridescent purples, blues, and soft pinks usually hidden in plain sight, scattered loosely across a textured, sandy ground that anchors all that unexpected color in something real and familiar. "Just trying to show the beauty of iridescent mussels in their rocky, sandy environment," Haunschild says — and the painting makes the case simply, by paying the kind of close attention most of us don't think to give. It's a quiet reminder that the ordinary edges of the shoreline are often the most overlooked.