Macklowe Gallery
February 17, 2009
A piece by Amalric Walter, the pate de verre artist who probably most closely matches modern pate de verre styles. Notice the gorgeous translucency? (courtesy of the Macklowe Gallery)
So if you’re thinking of buying your sweetie a nice piece of glass for Valentine’s Day, or you’re looking for a little pate de verre education/inspiration from the original masters, check out the Macklowe Gallery on Madison Avenue in Manhattan.
And note to anybody who IS thinking of buying Art Nouveau-period pate de verre for somebody besides me today…what the heck are you doing with HER/HIM? You and I need to talk.
Modern French pate de verre technique was developed by a series of artists during the Art Nouveau period, starting with Henri Cros, an engineer, watercolorist and sculptor. He sought to recreate ancient glassmaking techniques and thus cement France’s lead in the decorative arts, and he very much succeeded.
Cros’ work was straight from the mold, with little coldworking, but it inspired at least a dozen very talented artists to develop more refined techniques. Some of the really great glasswork done in the Art Nouveau period, from people like Dammouse, Argy-Rousseau, Lalique and my favorite, Victor Amalric Walter, were a direct result of Cros’ first experiments. And what they did pretty much fed most of the great PdV coming from today’s artists. (“Including,” she said modestly, “me.”)
The Macklowe deals primarily in Art Nouveau and has a nice, accessible collection of pate de verre from that period. It’s not as spectacular as the stuff you can see in museums (or private collections that I’ve been lucky enough to view), but it’s a good cross-section of that period and well worth seeing.
If you visit the gallery you can sometimes talk the very suave attendant into letting you examine a few pieces more closely, i.e., pick them up, by modestly proclaiming your own expertise and interest in PdV. The guard will edge closer as you do this, and the attendant will panic as you hold the piece up to the light over the floor which really should have a THICK carpet to prevent people from having heart attacks all over the place. (Ask me how I know this)
The other place to see really great pate de verre, by the way, is the Corning Museum. CMOG focuses on just about anything BUT pate de verre, so you have to work at finding it and I can guarantee you won’t get to touch it, but the stuff they have is lovely. And heck, the whole daggone museum (and town) is a monument to glass in all its forms so any glassist worth his salt should already have been there half a dozen times anyway.
Unfortunately, the CMOG website has what’s just about the crummiest search I’ve seen in awhile. Do a global search for pate de verre and you’ll come up with exactly zip, and even the collections search comes up with a grand total of seven pieces. I’ve counted more than that in one CMOG display case. Of course, what DOES come up is exquisite–there’s a Cros bas-relief in there that’s inspired most of my current work.
Still, the Macklowe site doesn’t make you work so hard. Give it a look. (And note to Mr. Suave at the Macklowe: As soon as I rob a bank I’ll be back, this time to buy.)
Tubal ligation
February 16, 2009
Today I went cold turkey: I turned off the TV.
Literally. I unhooked the Dish Network receivers and stuck ‘em in boxes along with the remotes, cables, the whole shebang. UPS will come and get them in the morning.
We’ll see how long I survive.
Semanticaries
February 15, 2009
Ever hear the one about the kids who were asked to find the prettiest name for a girl and came up with “Syphilis?”
NPR did something similar last Friday and I bloody near died on the freeway trying to laugh and control the car at the same time. All Things Considered interviewed singer/songwriter Andrew Bird, who makes music out of “archaic” words. Some of his songs are really pretty.
What got me, though, was the discussion on how Bird chooses the words he uses. Apparently he doesn’t want to be distracted by actual meanings so simply focuses on the sounds that words like “dermestid” and “coprophagia” make. “So if they kind of get under my own skin, then I know I have to use it. I guess I’m attracted to more archaic words because they can be imbued with more meaning, because their definition is elusive.”
Uhm…not all THAT elusive, or at least I didn’t have any trouble recognizing any of the several words he’s turned into songs. The dermestid beetle, for example, is a pest in food stores around the world, except when it’s used by Mother Nature and taxidermists to clean decaying flesh off animal bones. And coprophagia is a practice that gives a whole new (and unsavory) meaning to the term “potty mouth.”
Sometimes the good ol’ dictionary can be useful. Mr. Bird, meet my good friend Syphilis…
Jashawn
February 12, 2009
“It breaks my heart, the things people don’t care about,” said Jashawn. We were standing outside the storage facility where she worked, testing my new security code. (Long story here that involves my new kiln accidentally shipped out long before it has a home –and contrary to the order I placed–so it’ll now cool its heels in storage, at company expense, until I’m ready for it).
Save us, George Clooney!
February 9, 2009
Bunch of us were discussing management moments this morning and I contributed a favorite: The large-ish dot-com where I worked had had another Final Downsizing* (I rode all the way to FD No. 7 and not long after the company fizzled).
In this one, FD No. 2 or 3 as I recall, the surviving employees were sent to the company’s big central conference room for a rallying speech by the CEO. The room sported a new giant projection screen on the back wall with a podium, Patton-style, in front. As everyone sat, the CEO stepped into the spotlight.
Molding May
February 8, 2009
I don’t care what anybody says; THIS takes guts:
By way of explanation, this is one of the sculptures I’m working on right now, May, which I mentioned earlier. At the point you see it below, I’ve got about 16 hours’ worth of work into it and I’m preparing take an RTV (rubber mold) from it. This will allow me to make mistakes with the pate de verre, make duplicates or redo May as a bronze sometime in the future.
Of course, if something goes wrong in making the mold, there goes May. That’s the guts part.
Patty
February 4, 2009
Shameless plug for my cousins' car business--they build all kinds of neat little roadsters like this one. I figure that maybe if I post this picture of my favorite Kirkham car it'll show up on my doorstep one crisp Christmas Eve. Right, guys?
The mechanic leaned out of the window. “Excuse me, ma’am, but could you move your car?” she asked, “I need to get this van into the bay, and I need that space to maneuver.”
I’d only just found the parking space, the last remaining in the lot, so I grumbled as I moved out and parked on the street. She pulled the van into the garage and I pretty much forgot her until she dropped off my car.
I invited her in while I grabbed my purse. “Oh no, ma’am, I’d get the place dirty,” she said, but I don’t think you CAN get a household dirtier than Victory Brown sculpture wax, so I shooed her inside to wait. [Read more]
Never deny the art
February 3, 2009
OK, really not going to get too awfully philosophical here but over the weekend a realization was slammed home that should have been obvious and somehow was not: Once you get art into your head, one way or another, it’s gotta come out.
Between my dad’s accident, work, broken cars, kilns, cameras and computers, I haven’t had a heckuva lot of time or space for simply making art, so I’ve pretty much put it aside for now. Didn’t think twice about that decision until I noticed that I seemed to be running in place. My well of ideas, usually overflowing, had dried up. And I was turning the studio into–eeek–a storeroom.
Mind you, I can describe my next three sculptures with absolute certainty because in my head they’re already finished. Clear as crystal. Weird. (And wouldn’t it be great if I figured out a direct-to-glass neurotransmitter for this stuff? Faster. Save a lot of messing about.)
So Friday night I dug through the stacks to my last box of Hanjiki porcelain, dusted off my tools, and fired up Matthew White’s latest CD. Sculpture #1 popped out of the clay in a bit less than ten hours. (The full 10-hour sequence is in a slideshow on the home page of this blog, right side.) She appeared almost preternatually fast, and her brother and sister are crowding behind her, glaring at me to get on with it.
May, above, still needs some things but she’s just about ready for the mold. Not saying she’s the greatest art I’ve ever done but making her literally popped the cork. Suddenly my neurons are flowing again. Impossible problems are merely difficult, solutions are obvious, and ideas are coming fast and thick.
Go figure. Maybe once you commit to the art, it won’t be denied. Doesn’t matter if it’s great or drek, it’ll demand its share of your time and if you don’t comply, it chomps your brain instead.
As I said, weird. But at least I know where I’ll be spending my free time…
———————
P.S. By the way, this is part of a series of posts I’m making to describe the construction of one of my deep bas-relief portraits. If you’d like to see the whole series, click on these links:
- The inspiration for the sculpture “May”
- The constructing of May’s clay model (this post)
- The making of a silicone mold of May
- Planning May’s mold
- Making May’s mold
- Packing May’s mold
- Decanting May’s test run
- May the second (final version)
- Taking the girls for a stroll