Polage® is an art form invented by Austine Wood-Comarow in 1967. This colorful artwork is created with no pigment of any kind. Just as a prism breaks white light into the pure colors of the spectrum, Austine’s materials — cellulose and polarizing filter — break up  light make up her palette. Without a lightbox or a polarizing viewer, a Polage® might look as it does at left — areas of color, but mostly gray, like etched glass.

But dramatic changes appear when you view the piece through a polarizing filter or place it in a special motorized lightbox. Instantly, the Polage® comes to life. All the colors of the rainbow make up each intricate image. It morphs gently, the colors’ change giving you a continuous flow of imagery.

Polage® is painting with light, but the method of making these works of art is more like sculpture. Each piece is painstakingly hand-built, capturing light and structuring its changes into images that relate to and complement one another.

This multidimensional aspect of Austine Wood Comarow’s work brings a third dimension of meaning into the work in time, rather than in space. Museums all over the world have commissioned and collected Austine’s Polage® artworks including: The Boston Museum of Science, La Cite des Sciences et des l’Industrie, Paris, Technorama, Switzerland, Singapore Science Center, Great Lakes Science Center, Cleveland, and Disney’s EPCOT Center in Orlando.

Cara and Erika worked closely with Austine over the years, collaborating on studio projects and working with fine polarized sunglasses companies. They are still innovating and discovering the magic of Polage, moving the medium forward and exploring the magic that this medium brings.