I just spent a week in Hawaii teaching and doing demos at the University of Hawaii on Oahu. What a beautiful place. I cant even begin to describe the beauty, the feeling in the air, the ocean and the amazing people that I met. I am sure a lot of you have already been to the Hawaiian Islands, but this was my first time. I was hosted by my friend Kait Rhoads who is teaching at the University for a semester and changing lives by the minute. I spent a lot of time in the studio but even more time out side. From hiking mountains to swimming oceans to giving tourists reccomendations on places to eat I had a full week. Sunsets, rainbows, sushi, tonkatsu, udon, musube and kimchee! Not to mention getting leid three times!
So here are some photographs from around Oahu. I tried to find texture and focus on the micro compositions and surfaces.
Favorites: Rainbow Eucalyptus and Iron Wood bark! Holy shit!
A year in the making, I have just completed the installation of my largest group of wall mounted sculptures to date. The piece consists of five large blown shapes each approximately 16 inches across and floating off the wall about 3 inches. The clients have a beautiful modern home in West Seattle over looking the Puget sound and the Olympic mountains. The decor is minimal and stylish in Blacks and Grey’s with a beautiful warm wood floor. They left the commission wide open to me which was a challenge and a great opportunity. The architecture and over all feeling in the house drove me to create a group of pieces that had a quite sophistication. The pieces are black, white and grey and have a subtle surface carving on the face. The objects appear dense and opaque but reflect light on their surface that undulates like that of petrified wood. Most of the time the space is filled with natural light from the west facing window wall and today had a soft glow as we installed the pieces.
It feels good to have this project completed just in time for my birthday (tomorrow) and just as the cold sets in here in Seattle. Thanks a million to Steve and Dianne Loeb for this opportunity and Margery Aronson, Jack Mackey and Tim Purtill and Pat Kraft for all of their help and support along the way.
And guess what! My work is one of them, so you better go get you some.
Check out this new article in Seattle Metropolitan Magazine’s November issue. My work “Grain Bowl” is featured in a shopping guide on page 86. The issue has not come out on line yet, but when it does check it out here or follow @SeattleMet on twitter. Thanks to Vetri Gallery for putting the work out there and congrats to my local cohorts Hugh Willa and power team Jeremy Newman and Allison Ciancibelli for making great work! And remember…. If the magazine tells you to buy it, you probably should.
With SOFA Chicago right around the corner, there is certainly a buzz among the locals (glass artists that is) about the show in Chicago on Nov 4th. Around this time everybody is busy getting work photographed, packed up and shipped off to the windy city for the biggest Sculptural Objects and Functional Art show in the country. Everybody likes to speculate on the climate of the show and how powerful sales will be this year. Well from what I have heard, so far… so good. I have been graced with some pre-show sales (In Urbanism, at left) and lots of positive feedback about the new work!
With that in mind I wanted to tell you about this great new blog that a friend of mine; Grace Meils has been writing about Seattle glass. Grace has had a much respected voice in the community for a long time and has worked for many arts organizations including Pratt Fine Art Center, Pilchuck Glass School and the Traver Gallery for which she is currently a gallery director.
The blog is called Glass Town USA and its provided a much need fresh perspective into the eclectic glass community here in Seattle. So check it out often!
Oh yeah and …… This is going on right outside the Bemis building.
I took these pictures from the front door. The Alaskan Way Viaduct, build in the 1950′s has met its match. Most thought us thought it would be a giant earthquake that would take the elevated highway down, but the bulldozers got there first. April actually made a piece about it once. It was called ” An afternoon with Ethan”
Were gonna miss it (I think).
There is something about its dirtiness, its concrete legs and the view, OMG the view driving down that highway on a sunny summer day (one of three we usually have) was amazing. Seeing the Olympic Mountains towering over Puget Sound to the west and the Seattle skyline to the east just made you feel like everything you were going places (which you were because you had to be driving to see that view). Bye Bye Viaduct, your future friend the deep bore tunnel will most certainly not have as much street cred as you did. We will miss you.
I just returned last night from a whirlwind trip to Phoenix, Arizona where I gave a presentation to the Arizona Glass Alliance. They invited me to come and show them my work, my process and my journey as artist. I was greeting with the warmest reception, which had little to do with the 105′ heat and had everything to do with the kindness of the people in the alliance. It was a great honor to meet people who are truly interested and excited by what I do. I want to give a special shout to Fred and Sharon Schomer and Dennis and Joanne Burech for sharing their great collections and hosting me in their beautiful homes. And can’t forget the Alliance its self; composed of both patrons and artists alike. I am grateful for groups like this, especially in these strange economic times. Any extra support for the arts is greatly appreciated.
I have never seen so many cactuses in my life. I even saw a cellphone tower disguised as a cactus. They reminded me of the old growth trees of the northwest. Growing so slowly and towering over the landscape like guardians of the earth.
Now its back to the grind, getting ready for SOFA Chicago in early November.
Once June hit I was off and running. With the GAS conference here in Seattle this year we saw an influx of hundreds of glass makers from all over the world converge on the emerald city for a weekend, networking, lecturing, flexing and partying like rock stars. What a blast!
The week after that, I flew to the Pittsburgh Glass Center to teach a week long workshop. The class at PGC was titled “Out of the round” and it was amazing. With students from stateside and abroad it was the most challenging class I’ve taught to date due to the high skill level of the students. Instead of teaching them how to gather the glass, I was teaching them new ways to approach the entire blowing process. Sculpting the bubble was priority number one and they all got down and dirty with paddles, corks and blow punties.
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After Pittsburgh I came back to Seattle and met up with my intern Kameron Robinson. Kameron is a senior at Anderson University in Indiana.
He contacted me after I had visited his school and done some demos in the glass shop. He was interested in getting some experience in a professional artist studio. WOW! makes me feel legit. This was my second time having a summer intern and I hope to continue next summer with someone new.
Kameron turned out to be a cold working machine and a hell of a guy. his first time west of the Missouri and he was loving summer in Seattle. The month of July flew by with Kameron and I working in the shop day in day out.
Thanks Kameron, you rock !
Once August hit I was off to Maine to the Haystack Mountain School of Craft to be a teaching assistant for my good friend and great artist Kait Rhoads. It was truly an amazing experience. I slept very little and blew glass alot. It was a cane and murrini class so we were pulling on the glass until the we hours of the night. The students were amazing and my fellow TA Zach Compton from Star, N.C. was the shit!
From Haystack I went straight to Pilchuck to be the Cold shop Cordinator for the fifth session of the summer. It was amazing! Lino Tagliapietra was there and I was lucky enough to be able to do some cold working for him. was I nervouse? Na…..not at all. He’s only the best glassblower alive today. Not to mention a very generous and wonderful man. April Surgent (my studio mate) was there teaching a class with her mentor and master engraver Jiri Harcuba for the Czech Republic. I will be posting a video of Jiri engraving a portrait of April soon on my blog and my youtube channel. I always have a blast at Pilchuck and I am so glad they ask me back every summer.
So now…finally I am back in the studio full time working on my next exhibition. This fall The Traver Gallery will be representing me at SOFA Chicago. It’s kind of a big deal and I’m really excited! They are only bringing four artists and the booth will be beautiful. So if you’re in Chicago November 3rd through the 6th come check it out.
Here is a couple shots of the work I am making for SOFA:
Pushing form beyond the expected anatomy of the vessel, I use glass to investigate the emotive potential of objects. I begin each piece by creating a blown, geometric form composed of multiple layers of color and pattern. While blown glass typically reflects light and is shiny and dense in appearance, a richer, more luminous effect can be achieved by cutting into the surface after the piece has cooled. I spend the majority of my time creating patterns and textures from the simple shifts in hue, density and opacity, which are a result of the process of engraving. These engraved marks, like the stroke of a paintbrush on canvas, leave evidence of my hand and are intended to create an expressive sense of motion, rhythm, weight, and depth.
Glass is not a forgiving material. It demands an involved process and requires careful planning and manipulation. Engraving has become my voice within the medium, since it is the most direct way for me to leave my mark. My process of carving is a reductive one; I can’t add any material once it’s removed. This notion of continuously revealing layers pushes me to carefully consider each step and the choices that I make. Because of this, the process plays an important role in the development of each piece.
At the most basic level, my work is an ongoing exploration of abstraction and the expressive qualities of form, color, texture and light, yet I am also very aware of how my physical surroundings influence how these qualities manifest in each piece. I live in an urban area and work in an industrial part of Seattle. I cannot help but allow the hue of the day and the contrast between the engineered and natural landscapes permeate my sense of beauty. Translating this information into my recent work has led to imagery and form inspired by design, architecture and the visual deconstruction of my surroundings.
New Wall Panels for SOFA Chicago November 4th-6th 2011 (almost done)
