Open studios

This past week I redesigned my studio space to appear similar to a gallery space. This was an interesting excersize in taking the time and care to install my own work. In my space I showed only glass work, which felt like a big step for me. 

My space included 9 pieces. Three of which we're sculptural, and six were two dimensionally hung pieces of glass work. 

I titled the work so far Transformations and describe them as primarily experimental pieces where I am exploring color, various warm glass and kiln formed glass techniques, as well as combining sandblasting on glass, and previously learned ways of applying color to printmaking plates. Through the process of creating these pieces I have begun to develop meaningful relationship with the kiln, and the practice of letting go of some of the precise outcome of the pieces after they are in the heat of the kiln.  

Here are some images of the finished studio space...

Here are titles and photos of the 9 pieces 

Included:

Liquid with its sand and oil:

Fragments with red:

Fragmented water:

Enamel and Brush One:

Enamel and brush two: 

Twelve with their softened edges:

Two liquid vessels balanced:

One liquid vessel balanced:

Three and four liquid vessels:

While a lot of these pieces are experimental, I feel as though I am growing in my skill development into glasswork, and I am already working on creating new molds to slump the glass into. Some of them representative of the human figure. Working with suggestions of the figure may enable me to more effectively portray my intentions written on my previous artist statement... 

Some of which are to:

•explore the apparent physicality of the body verse the spiritual existence of self within the body

And 

•how glass can serve as a way to show the fragility of our physicality and the transparency between physical and spiritual

Current Artist Statement



I am interested in exploring the tension between the apparent physicality of the body and the spiritual qualities that pervade the human condition. Currently, I am utilizing the properties of glass, and creating both fused, slumped, and sandblasted glass objects as a way to examine the fragility, and transparency of the body. I am enthralled by the lack of control I have over any specific piece after subjecting it to the heat of the kiln, and find a relationship between this process and the transformative and developmental aspects of human life. To me, the heat of the kiln provides a similar service to the natural or supernatural, and unexpected forces that affect the changes and direction of our lives. 

After initiating research on fusing glass, I discovered that I could also make clay molds in order to slump glass into forms. 

I have created molds made from my elbow, wrist, knuckles, and fingers, which will be fired and ready to use later this week. 

In the mean time, to begin playing with slumping glass, I utilized preexisting clay vessels and created five glass objects in the kiln. 

Some of these objects fractured in interesting ways, and I created two sculptural pieces using all fragments.

I balanced the fragments in order to compose a composition that respects the fragility of the medium, and to emphasize the colorful reflections and shadows cast by the light that shines through the objects.

One Liquid Vessel balanced 

Two Liquid Vessels balanced

I then placed two of the smaller slumped pieces into ready made glass vessels, hoping to accentuate the liquid qualities of the medium. 

Liquid Vessels #3 and #4

Later this evening I will complete

Oil, Liquid, and Sand

a piece where I will apply both sandblasting and oil color onto a piece of piece of glass. During this process, I hope to explore the ways in which I can use another natural process (the erosion of the glass with sand) in order to create enough texture for oil color to catch into the surface of the glass. 

 I have found my way in to working with glass as my current way of object making. 

This particular path began with etching and sand blasting glass, which I found very influenced by the way I have learned to see due to creating block prints. In order to etch the glass you must first cover it with a resist, for this I have been using contact paper, and then I cut into the contact paper with a very small swivel exacto blade. Then, I either cover the exposed portions with etching cream, or I sand blast the exposed areas which both erode the exposed glass, creating visible marks when finished. 

*I will insert photo soon*

The etching cream process is similar to the acid and resist process I have used in creating intaglio plates, and the process of cutting into resist contact paper requires a similar way of looking I have developed through block printing. 

*Insert photo*

From etching glass, I have moved into fusing glass, which brought color back into my work. 

In order to fuse the glass, I have been taking small glass fragments, and applying metal enamel pigments to them, essentially painting with the pigments onto the glass, and then leaving the rest up to the heat within the glass kiln. 

After the pieces have been in the glass kiln, up to a temperature of around 1600 degrees, the glass which is a liquid, melts together with both the enamels, and the other pieces of glass, to create a fused piece.

*insert photo*

Each piece, takes roughly a full twenty four hours to complete. Including working on "painting" each piece, heating it in the kiln for around 4 hours, and then the cooling off phase over night. 

The most enthralling part of this process for me, is the lack of control I have over the outcome of each piece after I subject them to the heat within the kiln. No matter the amount of time I spend perfecting the distribution of color or the creation of lines within the glass and application of the enamels, the heat of the kiln and the melting process will greatly change what I initially intended each piece to look like. 

I find a meaningful relationship between the heat of the kiln and the uncontrollable aspects of life that affect our everyday experience.  I can relate the overall process of creating each piece to the ways in which we as humans attempt to manipulate A (being anything in our lives or environment) in order to create B (being a desired outcome of our actions). Something I have found to be rather apparent, is that no matter what we do (A), in order to create (B) as a result, there are always natural and uncontrollable factors that can cause our desired outcome to be drastically different than we intended. 

In this way I see the transformation that takes place within the glass kiln, and the heat itself, as a metaphor for the natural and spiritual powers that affect what we actually experience of the physical level. 

I am thrown into asking questions of:

how much is actually within our power?

how much is outside of our power?

do we ever have absolute control of everything?

how much is physical, how much is spiritual?

what is the  difference?

I am learning a lot about my own process as a creative, as an artist, as someone who engages in object making. 

There have been many points in the last few years where I have been very critical of the ways that I branch off in many different directions in my work. I have been very critical of how during my process, I critique my own work for lack of cohesion, lack of focus, lack, lack, lack...

and I am learning to look at it differently. 


I am an explorative, multi-media artist, who allows conceptual ideas to flow into my work, and who allows the presence and inertia of inspiration, to vastly expand, through various mediums, through various aesthetics, past, over, and under, flipping it all upside down, contradicting myself, supporting myself, questioning myself, until I reach a certain point...

Where all of the intensity, the mix-matched patterns, and points of stress crack, and what I am left with... 

is unknown as of now. 

This is the exciting part. I have come to realize that one of the most valuable parts of my own process, is that I consistently surprise myself, I am constantly unsettled, unsatisfied, and reaching for more. Reaching for more, leads to a point where fragments weave themselves together to produce a new way of looking at some aspect of meaning which I find interesting. 

I am an explorative, multi-media artist, who is enthralled with engaging in new ways of working. In the past few years, I have moved from and into

painting:
to installation work
to
printmaking:
to collage:
interspersed with spoken word
to
currently have moved into 
glasswork.

I have found that any medium I work in, or have worked in just flows into and out of the next. 

Healthy conclusion, I think.

Next,

One aspect of my work that has been utterly consistent throughout it all, is well... the obvious.

It's created by me...

but on a deeper level,

My inspiration has always come from a place of exploring a tension between the apparently physical world around us, and the world beyond or within. the metaphysical. the world beyond the apparent physical which for me includes: the body as a tool for a soul to experience, metaphorical relationships between physical process and spiritual growth; from physical growth and transformations within a person and environmentally (from the most acute and intimate experiences to the vastly external, eternal, and universal happenings). 

"tension between the apparently physical world around us and the world beyond or within" = I believe that anything that happens in the physical world that we see, that is reflected within our mind, and in our eyes, is reflective of spiritual development, ie. when my parents divorced when I was five years old it is because as a soul and being I was meant to understand that even though parents may communicate through different languages and different value systems, essentially all truly are trying to express what they feel are the best ways to go about nurturing and enabling a child to develop in the best ways possible in within particular circumstances. well... thats's one of the many examples. 


Anyway,

I am a multi-media artist who engages in a process of object making, rooted in exploring the tension between the physicality and spirituality of human experience. I am interested in the world within, beyond, or in-between. transparency. looking at it all with an transparent eye.