Casting glass into fiber paper

In the last post, “Hold Steady” is a work that used cast glass in the bottom of the piece.  I took photos when I was doing the glass for that piece and thought I’d share the step by step process with you here.

Since I knew I’d have to heat up the whole kiln to do the one piece of glass for “Hold Steady” I thought I might as well make use of the heat in the glass kiln and do some other pieces with some scrap fiber paper that I found and glass around the studio.

I usually have some kind of drawing or image I am working from. I draw the image first on the fiber paper with a pen, and then cut it out with an exacto knife. Some times I may also trace an image onto the paper.

Here the fiber paper has been cut out in two layers and then placed on the kiln shelf. I often do a positive and a negative since I can use both parts of the paper, and that way I get two different versions of the image in glass.

Here's the fiber paper for the one that was used for "Hold Steady." The whole idea of making more started with me looking at the scraps from the piece and making the little bouquet on the right.

I fire two sheet of glass seperately in an earlier firing, and also have to fire the fiber paper once a head of time once it is in place in order to get the glue out of it (other wise it will fog up the glass).

Here the glass now has been melted into the molds. At this point then the fiber paper is cleaned out and the pieces washed. You can see on the left here the slightly green long piece of glass that was used in the bottom of "Hold Steady." What will come of these other pieces? We'll see.

 

The Advantages of NOT Having a Digital Camera

Photo feeding frenzy at the Mona Lisa; Photograph: Lydie France/EPA

When traveling to Europe with students some time I am simply amazed at how they will voraciously snap pictures in art museums.  Yes, it is wonderful that they can take pictures in the gallery and have images to remember their trip by, but as an artist I have to wonder if taking pictures of others work actually serves as a disadvantage to ones skill.

As of late in reading the biography of Rubens, Thomas Cole, and George Caleb Bingham, I’m struck at how they learned much of their skill by coping other artists work.  They did not have a camera, and so would record the compositions they found effective or of interest.  Peter Paul Rubens did it prolifically as he traveled and then would integrate what he learned from sculptors and other painters into his compositions especially his early ones.  George Caleb Bingham like many artists in the 1800′s had access to engravings of famous works so would dilagently copy them.

A Nude Youth Turning To The Left, Peter Paul Rubens after Michelangelo © British Museum, London (Thankfully he didn't have a camera at the time.)

These artists then built their skills as draftsmen and artists by learning more and more to see and translate visual information into a tangible form.  Training their hands to “see.”  It seems my art students would be better off with their sketch book in a gallery rather than a camera.  It takes more time, but you would learn much more by disciplining yourself to draw a piece you like in the gallery rather than photographing it.  And I do think there is a big difference between working from a photo than working from the actual work of art in a museum.

Van Gogh is another artist that was known for copying work of others and translating them to make them his own.  While at the asylum at St. Remy he would often get etchings that were copies of paintings of artists he liked (Millet, Delecroix, etc..) and make his own versions of them. As the images were black and white, his “translations” are amazing integrations of what he admired about the composition and his own passionate painterly skills.

So next time your in a gallery I challange you to bring your sketchbook and not your camera.  Get to work!

Eugène Delacroix's The Good Samaritan (1849) oil on canvas

Vincent Van Gogh; The Good Samaritan (after Delacroix) Oil on Canvas; 1890 Kroller-Mueller Museum. Notice that the image is in reverse, this this is because Van Gogh was looking at an engraving that was a reverse image of the original painting. Pretty interesting eh?

 

Being a Working Artist

Here artist Dan Callis paints outside his Seal Beach studio in an outdoor extension he created to his studio.

I had the privilege over the past month to spend time in the studios of artists Nancy Scarry, Dan Callis and Jeff Falk.  These artists aren’t selling their work for tens of thousands of dollars -yet, but all of them should be, and impressed me with their diligence as artists.  All three have been making art consistently for over twenty years.  They are the work-a-day creators who notoriously plug away making art because it is simply what they do and who they are.

Here are some things I noticed about them as to what it is to be an artist:

Nancy Scarry's studio, full of materials and inspiration.

•  Consistently make work no matter what.  It doesn’t matter if you have an art show you are creating work for or not.  Create images simply because that is what you do.

•  Create an aesthetic environment around you (your home, garden, studio) that inspires you.

•  Keep your eyes peeled out there as to what is going on in the art world. Go to art shows, look at artists work on the internet, and simply never stop looking at what other artists are doing.

•  Create opportunities to get your work out to the public and seen.  Network, build relationships, and nurture the relationships that you have.

•  Stay connected to other artists.

•  No matter how long you have been making art never be afraid to try new materials, a new technique, or expand your style.

•  You may have a day job to pay the bills, but your vocation at heart is simply: Artist.

Nancy Scarry, an artist who simply creates sculpture with a tenatious consistancy.

 

The Extraordinary Ordinary

I often tell my students that if you use anything creatively in mass or with extreme repetition it can help create an intriguing work of art:
•    One toothbrush not so interesting, two thousand, pretty curious.
•    One safety pin: ordinary; a jacket made entirely of them: extraordinary.

Visiting Astoria Oregon this past Friday, the “Astoria Coffee Company” was a splendid place to hang out and sketch, have a good conversation or to have a pastry  (http://www.astoriacoffeehouse.com/).  Not only did they serve Stumptown Coffee (what many would argue is the best coffee in Oregon), they also had some fun quirky decor including a wide range of globes, and walls two shades of green that my friend Lisa remarked “…would never be seen together.”

What I enjoyed was that the Astoria Coffee Company had two works of an artist who had taken the “bubble” elements of levels and created some very fun sculptural works for the walls (Dear artist I’m sorry I don’t know your name, the work was not labeled! Tell me it and I’d be happy to credit you!).

The work to me was a testimony that once again, anything in volume in the hands of someone with some technical know-how and a good eye for composition, can create a nice work of art.  Granted for many of my students where the, “technical know-how” and the “composition skills” come in is all the work indeed….