No martinis for me
September 29, 2008
Well, that just shows what *I* know.
The Bombay Sapphire martini glass prizes were awarded and, as usual, the judges and I are about 10,000 miles apart. (and no, I didn’t enter)
Maro Vandoru: Fragmented Light
September 27, 2008
Headed down to the Newspace garage sale this morning–they cleaned out a storage room full of darkroom and lighting equipment–and just missed the hordes fighting over the last of the lighting equipment that I really, really wanted to buy.
Drat. I did pick up a couple of old processing trays at a sinful price; they’ll make dandy water trays for hand-padding my pate de verre. But mostly, I was disappointed to miss all the good stuff…so I wandered into the gallery and discovered I hadn’t missed the REALLY good stuff at all: Maro Vandoru’s Fragmented Light show definitely put the trip in the plus column.
Kilncarving with Thinfire
September 26, 2008
I’m posting this one as a response to some folks on warmglass asking about kilncarving, so please bear with me. I’ve experimented with the level of detail possible in a kilncarving, and been pretty pleased with the results. At some point I’ll go back and mess with this some more, see what I can do. (And apologies for the crummy photos–I haven’t quite figured out how to photograph the results; they’re a lot more gorgeous in person)
Electrosuckling
September 25, 2008
“I see you have the electric teat,” said the old dude in the corner.
“Beg pardon?” I asked politely, not quite believing what I’d just heard.
“You know, one of those I-things hanging off your ear,” he gestured, “Everywhere I go you’re all chewing on those things for dear life. If you had to take it out you’d probably curl up and die.”
I refrained from pointing out that most mammals of my acquaintance rarely suckle their young from an earlobe, but I saw his point. And really, since getting Gigi, my new iPhone 3G, I’m struck with how dependent I’m becoming on her.
Studius covetus
September 25, 2008
I suffer from studio envy.
Visited Chuck Franklin’s 13,000-square-foot studio in glassland last night and immediately added it to my studio envy list. I think that makes six glassland studios that I’d like to live in some day:
- Doug Randall’s new studio-slash-home that is as beautiful as it is functional
- Bullseye Glass’ R&D center (especially the great big honking kilns and coldworking area)
- Savoy Studio’s kinda baroque manufacturing-cum-design-cum-production setup
- Jeremy Lepisto and Mel George’s wonderful workshop with the bell-kilns-on-rails system
- Linda Ethier’s tidily organized storefront casting studio
And now Chuck’s. I was there last night as an Oregon Glass Guild field trip, with about 30 other OGG members.
If you’ve been in a McCormick and Schmick’s seafood restaurant (good food, BTW), you’ve probably seen Chuck’s stained glass. It’s some of the more technically difficult stained glass around, spectacular for the scale if nothing else, and I saw quite a bit of work last night that made me rethink my position on stained glass (i.e., it’s not quite as ho-hum as I’ve thought).
Chuck’s team does some fusing work and some of the most incredible sandblasted glass I’ve ever seen, but primarily they’re doing stained glass in the Tiffany and Frank Lloyd Wright tradition. Chuck showed us hundreds of examples of light fixtures, skylights, domed roofs, fireplaces, partitions, etc., etc., etc. We about oooohed ourselves half to death.
This is NOT airbrushed, painted, fused, printed or any of those things. It’s sandblasted, from Joe, one of Chuck’s employees. His ability to achieve smooth gradients and complete greyscale shading is absolutely amazing.
But I kept coming back to Chuck’s studio. Two stories full of specialized rooms for assembling, blasting, soldering, cutting, laying out, storage, fusing, etc., etc. Plenty of elbow room to spread out and work. Lovely light. Great cupboards especially made for glass. Great parking. Tools to die for. Plenty of wall space to hang up plans.
I considered my little studio at home, roughly 2 percent the size of Chuck’s, and thought about diving into a serious pout. Then I thought about money and decided to be content.
Still, it’s fun to imagine one of these guys adopting me and letting me move in, put a cot in the corner…
Kimiake Higuchi: Pate de Verre
September 24, 2008
Kimiake Higuchi: Pate de Verre
Hardcover, 67 pages, $40
2007, Mitsukoshi Ltd.
Available at the Corning Museum of Glass
Underneath the Tagliapietra video, in the Corning box, was a slim volume on the work of Kimiake Higuchi. It looks self-published (and at $40 isn’t what I’d call cheap), but don’t let that stop you: It’s a beautiful book and a nice retrospective of her work.
If you know modern pate de verre you know Ms. Higuchi; she makes beautiful, hyperrealistic nature scenes of crushed glass and her color work is something to behold.
Video: Lino Tagliapietra, Glass Master at Work
September 23, 2008
So I’m screaming down a deadline, oughta be downstairs in the studio finishing color corrections and reinvestment on the latest pate de verre sculpture, and instead I’m glued to the boob tube. The package from Corning arrived today, and Lino Tagliapietra’s video was right on top.
The problem with many glass artist videos is that they spend too much time selling the sizzle and not enough making it. The editor tends to favor spectacular over informative when making his cuts, giving you the impression that glassmaking is mostly gloryholes, torches and maybe musclemen swinging 30 pounds of molten glass on the end of a punty.
Faraut class wrap-up
September 22, 2008
Wow.
That’s a horrible opener by any kind of a writer, but in this case is applied to the class I took in clay portraiture from Phillipe Faraut and entirely accurate. What I mostly learned is that I’ve got a lot to learn, but hey–that’s the first step. 
Faraut applies rational analysis of musculoskeletal structure to portraiture, and in a remarkably few swipes creates some pretty amazing likenesses. He’s also a generous instructor, more interested in teaching students how to think about the face than just about making a reasonable facsimile.
Faraut day 2
September 21, 2008
Ain’t nuthin’ like taking a class from a great portrait sculptor to teach you how much you DON’T know about sculpting. I’m taking a wonderful class from Phillipe Faraut and Day 2 has left me considerably humbled and kinda rumpled in spirit.
Yesterday (here’s a report) we did a series of 3D “sketches” in clay, discovering gender and racial differences. We started with making a small bust of a man, moving the clay around to turn him into a woman, Africanizing the woman and finally making an Asian man, in the space of a couple of hours.
Sculpting with Philippe Faraut
September 19, 2008
Happy nirvanic sigh ’cause I get three whole days of art without guilt.
In other words, I’m taking another studio class and so instead of stealing time for my art, I’m actually SUPPOSED to be doing it. Moreover, I’m supposed to be doing it in a really topnotch class.
Portrait sculptor Philippe Faraut is teaching a single class in glassland, and my friend Maria and I both got in (barely). It’s a three-day course in 3D portraiture using waterbased clay, exactly what this would-be sculptor needs.
Faraut is the author of several highly respected books and videos on portraiture technique, some of which are excerpted on YouTube. His DVDs have taught me a lot, and after the first day of class I can pretty confidently say that I’m learning a LOT more in person.