The Guild of Glass Engravers is inviting applications from UK and overseas students for ‘Making Your Mark’, an Instagram-based exhibition with two prizes.
Making Your Mark aims to showcase the range of engraved glass works being created today, highlighting technical achievements and creative flair.
The Guild of Glass Engravers states, “We want to remind people why engraved glass is a much-loved craft and inspire people to collect, view, discuss and make engraved glass objects.”
The Guild is looking for works made by current students that have been made by hand, utilising craft processes. However this can include digital technology if used as a craft tool, not a means to an end. These works will ordinarily be either ‘one-offs’ or limited editions.
This is an opportunity to present experimental and finished works and to provide inspiration, as well as contributing to the discussions around contemporary glass engraving.
All students enrolled in a course of more than 15 hours tuition per week term time will automatically be entered for the prize, as long as their work meets the following criteria: submitted work must include surface decoration on any piece of glass, using either diamond point or handscriber, drill, sandblast, acid etch or wheel engraving. Graal techniques are admissible.
There is no age limit for applicants and they do not have to be studying glass to apply.
Two winners will be selected for the David Peace Prize, endowed by a bequest from the estate of founding member of the Guild, the late Dr David Peace MBE, and a bursary from his family.
David Peace was noted for his lettering on glass and believed in encouraging young talent in glass – not only in the field of lettering, but also figurative and abstract artists.
The first prize will be £500, and the second prize £200. Both prizes include free student membership of The Guild of Glass Engravers for one year.
Selection will be made via submitted images of work. Applications should be made by the deadline of 21 May 2021.
Carol Milne uses lost wax glass casting to create intricate, knitted art that celebrates the process of making. Here she speaks to Glass Network digital’s editor, Linda Banks, about her career to date and the thinking behind her work.
What led you to start working with glass? I thought it would be fun to cut myself… Just kidding!
After college, I moved to Seattle, Washington, USA. One day, I was driving between Seattle and Vancouver in Canada, and saw a sign on the side of the highway for an open house at Pilchuck Glass School. (This was back in the days when their open house was a drop-in event for the general public). I had recently discovered Dale Chihuly, and had heard of Pilchuck, so I decided to stop in. WOW. The place and the material enchanted me.
Even though I’d seen flameworkers in Venice, I’d never thought of glass as a material I could actually work with. Back then, I couldn’t afford classes at Pilchuck. I didn’t know glass was something you could study in college, so I went off to pursue a master’s degree in sculpture (never completed), where I did some mostly unsuccessful experiments in glass on my own. It wasn’t until years later that I seriously began my studies in glass (at Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle).
Carol Milne combines her loves of knitting and glass in this piece, called Harikari.
What glass techniques have you used in your career and why do you have a preference for cast glass today? Stained glass was my ‘gateway drug’. I used it to make traditional panels, but I also combined it with concrete for flat and 3D mosaic sculpture, and I cast iron around pieces of glass in experimental sculpture.
When I studied at Pratt, I was especially drawn to hot glass. I started with hot casting glass, ladling molten glass out of a furnace into bentonite sand and, later, resin-bonded sand moulds. Resin-bonded sand gives a more 3D result, but the moulds themselves give off smelly, if not downright toxic, fumes when hot glass is poured in, and as they cool in the annealer. Since I was using a public facility, that meant I had to switch directions.
Although I hated giving up hot glass, I started kiln casting because I knew it was something I could do at home. I got hooked because every day I open a mould is like Christmas – always a surprise, and never quite what you had been expecting.
Carol Milne opening Cocoon. Photo: Steve Isaacson.
Can you tell us something about how you developed your special glass working methods for your signature ‘knitted glass’? Do you draw your designs out or dive straight in with the materials? The major problem with cast glass is its WEIGHT. I have been a knitter since I was 10, and the sprue wax I was using for bronze casting reminded me of yarn. I wanted to knit with it, and cast it in glass – for the fun of it – with the added bonus that my cast glass sculpture could be lighter. It did take a lot of trial and error to get it to work, because glass doesn’t want to do what I want it to do.
Drawing has never been my forte. I studied with David Reekie at the Penland School of Crafts, and was in awe of his ability to draw and translate his drawings into glass. Mostly, I just work and play with materials. Sometimes I have an idea of where I am going, but often I surprise myself. The important thing is to keep at it, even when inspiration is in short supply.
The installation Viper is 40 feet long. Find out more about this piece in the video link. Photo: Jasmine Isaacson.
What is your favourite tool or piece of equipment and why? I couldn’t live without my cordless power drill, or my encaustic soldering iron (which doesn’t overheat the wax), but my favourite tool is a nameless, stainless steel, concrete working tool. One end has a flat pointed triangle, the other end has a flat rectangle. Amazon calls it a Bon Tool Trowel and Square, a 1-inch Italian Ornamental Trowel. I use it mainly for wax working.
What message do you want to convey to your audience through your glass work? Art is a tricky medium for conveying messages. It is enough for me to surprise and delight my audience, and to sometimes make them look twice.
But I also think my knitted glass work encompasses three main ideas:
Life is fragile;
We are interdependent and require others to make something bigger than ourselves;
Don’t judge a book by its cover – appearances can be deceiving.
Sometimes I touch on deeper social or political issues; I do have strong opinions. But when I do, I try to get to the universal, not the specific. Art that expresses views about a specific politician is rooted in time; I aim for the timeless.
Blue me Away. Watch the videos to see more about Carol Milne’s processes.
Do you have a favourite piece you have made? Why is it your favourite? My favourite piece is usually the one I am working on, since I am much more about process than the actual finished work. That said, my piece, ‘Cozy’, is certainly resonating with me right now. It was created in 2012. It is of a seated clay figure, with her knees drawn into her chest, who is surrounded by a glass tea cosy (modelled after a tea cosy my grandmother used to have). There were certainly no thoughts of a pandemic on my mind in 2012, but now, when I look at the piece, that is all I see. Perhaps that shouldn’t be a reason for it to be a favourite right now? I am fascinated by how our circumstances affect how we interpret a work of art.
Carol Milne’s Cozy was made in 2012 but has resonance today.
Where do you show and sell your work? There aren’t many in-person shows going on right now, but my work can be found in the following galleries, most of which are open by appointment: Blue Spiral 1 Gallery, Asheville, North Carolina; Chasen Galleries, Sarasota, Florida; Culture Object, New York, New York; Kittrell Riffkind Art Glass, Dallas, Texas, and the Museum of Glass Store, Tacoma, Washington.
Do you have a career highlight? That I am still a working artist after 30 years, perhaps?
I had a solo show at the Bainbridge Island of Art in 2019. It was supposed to be up for three months, but it was so well received that it kept getting extended. The show was up for nearly nine months and three of the pieces in the exhibition were acquired by the museum.
Art is a form of communication and, without an audience, you’re just navel gazing. It was affirming to realise I have an audience. Maybe I’m not wasting my time after all!
Who or what inspires you? Surprisingly, this is a difficult question for me, and it’s all about semantics. In the art world, inspiration and influence often go hand in hand. I am inspired by the work of many artists, but I try not to be influenced by them in a direct way. Art needs to be a conversation, one that builds on what has come before it and alters it in some way. My top five artists who inspire me are: Antonio Gaudi, MC Escher, Dr Seuss, Ruth Asawa and Buckminster Fuller. Also, I draw inspiration from music, puns, crafts, and current events. And I admire many of my fellow creators.
Carol Milne’s String into Action, inspired by M C Escher’s idea of hands drawing themselves.
How has the coronavirus impacted your practice? Fortunately, my studio is at home, so my work has continued. But my teaching and travelling have disappeared. The upside is that I have had time to finish projects that were on hold. I’ve also had time to research and experiment with LED lighting and fibre optics. Learning Zoom has also helped me to reach people I wouldn’t have before.
And, for those of you who love virtual chats, I’m planning to host a virtual artist’s booth in the Glass Art Society (GAS) market during the online conference in May. I don’t see it as a selling event, but more as a way to connect with people in a small group setting. I’m not much for large gatherings, but with nearly a year of social distancing, I do miss conversations. Please stop by and introduce yourself! I’d love to meet you.
Carol Milne’s Teabird.
About the Artist Carol Milne received a degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Guelph, Canada in 1985, but realised in her senior year that she was more interested in sculpture than landscape. Her senior thesis, “Landscape as Art/Art as Landscape,” drew her into the realm of sculpture and the die was cast. She attended two years of graduate school in sculpture at the University of Iowa, and has been working as a sculptor ever since.
In 2000 Carol took her first glass class at Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle. She began kiln casting in 2002, and in 2006 became the lone pioneer in the field of knitted glass. Pushing the limits of glass through persistent and relentless experimentation, she developed a variation of the lost wax casting process to cast knitted work in glass.
She travels worldwide to teach workshops. The most exotic places her art has taken her to are Istanbul, New Zealand and Tasmania. She also teaches extensively in the US, which she will resume once the pandemic is under control.
Carol exhibits her work throughout the US. It is in the collections of the Notojima Glass Art Museum in Ishikawa, Japan; The Asheville Art Museum, in Asheville, NC; the Kamm Teapot Foundation in NC and the Glasmuseum Lette in Coesfeld, Germany.
Recent honours include two Honourable Mentions at Cheongju International Craft, Korea, and an artist’s residency at Amazon Headquarters in Seattle.
These three bright stained glass ‘Shields of Light’, created by CGS member Surinder Warboys during lockdown in 2020, have been donated to the Cambridge University Hospitals, Addenbrooke’s and The Rosie. They are now on display in a peaceful corner of the public Rosie Garden.
Surinder explains: “Our most familiar world became strange and dangerous as a result of the colourless, unseen presence of Coronavirus in March of 2020, necessitating a nationwide lockdown. During this time, images of NHS staff wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) became iconic symbols, and yet many were having to manage with inadequate, or no, PPE.
“The glass shields were forged with a great sense of urgency, during April and May 2020, using only the materials available to me during lockdown. They were a gesture of thanks and a metaphor for the life-risking work being done by others – in particular in our National Health Service.
“The irony of using fragile glass for a shield was pointed out to me at the time. But these shields are shields of light. The light interacting with them has travelled 93 million miles and is continually being renewed.
“Due to certain properties in the ‘antique’ glass, known as metal oxides, only the colour we see is transmitted; all the other colours are absorbed by the shield, or that particular part of the shield. For example, in the orange section, all the colours of the spectrum are captured by that section, except for the orange, which is allowed to pass through, so we experience that section as orange.
“This is the first time my work has been displayed in the open air. When I had completed the glass shields, I photographed them on Mellis Common, against the open sky. I saw that the sky, clouds and landscape transformed, and integrated with, the work. So it is serendipitous that they are now being displayed outdoors at Addenbrooke’s.”
The fifth Venice Glass Week is set to take place for an extended period between 4 and 17 September 2021.
The 2020 event featured over 180 initiatives related to glass, both online and in the city, around Venice, Murano and Mestre, in Italy.
Among many events scheduled for 2021, Venice Glass Week will collaborate with the annual event, Homo Faber: Crafting a more human future, which will be held on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore from 9-26 September.
If you wish to submit a proposal for an independent event, or to be considered for inclusion in the Venice Glass Week HUB, you need to submit your application by 9 April 2021 via this link: https://www.theveniceglassweek.com/en/applications/ . The organisers welcome applications from any Italian or international organisation or individual wishing to propose an event or project relating to artistic glass, such as exhibitions, conferences, performances, workshops, themed dinners, guided tours, or activities for children.
The Venice Glass Week HUB, held at the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti in Palazzo Loredan, will not only host a selection of glass installations by national and international artists, but will also have a dedicated space on the ground floor featuring glass artworks and projects by Italian and international artists and designers aged 18-35. Exhibitors in this HUB Under35 category will be automatically considered for the second Autonoma Residency Prize, promoted by LagunaB through the Autonoma project, in association with Pilchuck Glass School. The winner will receive a two-month Artist Residency at Pilchuck Glass School, Seattle, in 2022.
All applications will be reviewed and selected by a Curatorial Committee, chaired by the Venetian glass historian Rosa Barovier Mentasti, and composed of international glass sector experts, including new members Rainald Franz, Head of the Glass and Ceramics Collection at MAK-Austrian Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art, and Susanne Jøker Johnsen, Head of Exhibitions at The Royal Danish Academy – Architecture, Design, Conservation and Director of European Glass and Ceramic Context on the island of Bornholm in Denmark. They will be joined by curator and critic Jean Blanchaert plus artist and creative director Marcantonio Brandolini d’Adda.
Glass artist Pippa Stacey pays tribute to the talented stained glass artist and tutor.
Claire Prendergast was an extraordinary stained glass artist and an inspiring teacher.
She gained two Postgraduate Certificates in both Glass and Fine Art and Glass and Architecture from Central Saint Martin’s in London.
She taught stained glass in London for eight years before relocating to Stroud, where she became an invaluable part of the South Gloucestershire and Stroud College Stained Glass department team as both tutor and glass technician.
She had also been a master wig maker and hair and makeup artist for the Royal National Theatre, The Royal Shakespeare Company at The Barbican and for the musical Les Miserables. She was also a hairdresser, known for zooming to people’s homes on her electric bike and making people feel good.
She was also an incredible mum to an unusual brood, comprising a talented gardener, chef, host, comedienne and rule-breaker.
Claire’s bright light, vitality and kindness have had a positive and enduring influence on so many of us.
International glass organisations are coming together to support a resolution for a United Nations (UN) International Year of Glass in 2022 (IYoG2022).
The International Commission on Glass (ICG), the Community of Glass Associations (CGA) and the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Glass (ICOM Glass) are united in the vision to celebrate the past, present, and future of the transformative material that is glass through the IYoG2022.
Their aim is to underline the scientific and economic importance of glass, which, they say, “is the unseen heart of so many technologies and a facilitator of just and sustainable societies as they face the challenges of globalisation”.
An international programme of events is already planned for the IYoG2022, including: An opening conference in Geneva, Switzerland in February 2022; An international high-tech industrial congress in Shanghai, China, in April 2022; An International ICG Congress in Berlin, Germany, in July 2022 (celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Deutsche Glastechnische Gesellschaft [DGG]); International glass displays in art galleries and museums throughout the year; A closing congress in Japan, in December 2022.
Additional activities proposed include: A US Glass Day in Washington DC; The ‘From Pharaohs to High Tech’ glass conference in Egypt, from April-May 2022; Special issues of the most relevant scientific journals related to glass; Special issues of glass magazines, as well as scientific and industrial journals related to national glass societies; Hundreds of further activities globally, focused on a universal distribution of activities at all education levels.
The IYoG2022 aims to meet the UN’s Agenda 2030 goals, by: Demonstrating the role of glass in advancing civilisation throughout recorded history; Organising international glass science and art festivals, with workshops to excite and inform the public of this rich history, and highlight links between glass, art and culture; Stimulating research on glass among organisations in education, industry, research and the public domain, including museums, to address global challenges of achieving sustainable and equitable growth, and improving the quality of life everywhere; Building worldwide alliances focused on science and engineering for young people, while addressing gender balance and the needs of developing countries/emerging economies.
A formal presentation for the initiative was streamed worldwide on 3 December 2020 via YouTube, which you can view here. New letters of endorsement arrived following this, adding to the 1,250 previously received from 77 countries.
If you have not done so yet, please view and register your interest at www.iyog2022.org. There is still time to register, as the pandemic has pushed dates back.
In February 2021, the Spanish mission in the UN, supported by the Egyptian delegation, initiated the process of delivering the Resolution to the UN General Assembly (GA). They received support from UNIDO, the UN body focused on Industrial Development, which is currently editing a final draft of the Resolution.
The IYoG2022 proposal now needs the official support of as many countries in every continent as possible, to accelerate the process and guarantee a unanimous vote at the next UN meetings of the GA in March-April 2021. The organisers ask the main endorsers from every country to contact their Foreign Affairs ministries and their Permanent Missions at the UN to further this goal.
Hailed as “the most important European competition in international contemporary glass art”, the Coburg Prize for Contemporary Glass 2022 has launched. Make a note in your diary now as applications from glass artists will be open online between 1 June and 31 July 2021.
The Prize aims to provide a Europe-wide overview of current trends and developments in contemporary glass art and review the current situation of glass art. The competition and accompanying exhibition are open to artists living in, or originating from, Europe who work with glass as a material.
Participation is open to professional artists submitting vessels, sculptures, objects, installations or stained glass made during 2020 and 2021. Up to three pieces can be submitted for consideration.
Initial applications are via digital images, with selection of artworks for the exhibition and competition to be made from these applications in late September 2021. A second round of judging will take place once the chosen artworks themselves have been submitted, and prize winners will be decided in December 2021.
An international jury will award three main prizes and several special prizes. The first prize is €15,000, second prize is €10,000 and the third prize is €5,000. There will also be an audience award.
Works by approximately 100 to 150 artists will be selected for the exhibition, taking place between 10 April and 25 September 2022 in the historical rooms of Veste Coburg (Coburg Castle) and the European Museum of Modern Glass in Rödental, Germany.
The previous Coburg Prize for Contemporary Glass was held in 2014, when the work of 150 artists from 34 countries was presented.
The objective of the Coburg Prize is to show which design and processing techniques artists currently use, what thematic content predominates and whether current social questions, such as sustainability, migration, political suppression, globalisation and climate change are taken into account.
The event is also concerned with ascertaining the extent to which glass is still considered purely as a material or whether, given its numerous possible uses and special properties, such as transparency, it is viewed as a complex medium with multiple meanings.
The award ceremony will take place on 9 April 2022 in Coburg. A bilingual catalogue will be published to accompany the exhibition. Works will be available for sale through the Veste Coburg Art Collections, with a sales commission charge of 20%.
The competition is organised in cooperation with the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung foundation, based in Munich, Germany.
Note that restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic are possible, which may lead to the cancellation of the competition.
The organisers of this year’s Cambridge Invitational Art Contest & Exhibition have extended the application deadline until 1 July and hope to hold a physical exhibition of works from 16-22 August 2021.
Artists who are affiliated with an art association, society or group, such as the Contemporary Glass Society (CGS), are invited to submit entries. Each artist must submit two works of art that best represent them as an artist.
There is no theme to the contest and all mediums of art, including photography, can be entered. Performance and video art are excluded.
Artwork size must not exceed 120cm x 120cm x 30cm for artworks to be hung on the wall. Sculptures must not exceed 150cm in height x 100cm x 100cm. The total cost of entry is £35.
Galeria Moderna, the organiser of The Cambridge Invitational Art Contest and Exhibition and The London Invitational Art Contest and Exhibition, is working in association with art supplier, Cass Art, and commercial gallery, Castle Fine Art.
Twelve winning artists will be selected by a panel of esteemed judges, each a gallery owner/manager from Cambridge or London, alongside this year’s guest judge, the artist and sculptor John Doubleday. These artists’ work will comprise the 2nd Annual Cambridge Art Contest and Exhibition 2021, and will be shown in an online exhibition hosted by Galeria Moderna and Cass Art, and a physical exhibition at Castle Fine Art’s Cambridge gallery.
Cass Art will host the winning artworks and blog interviews with the 12 winning artists on its website. Cass Art also promotes the winning artists of Sky Arts’ annual ‘Portrait Artist of the Year’ TV series and The London Invitational Art Contest and Exhibition, providing excellent exposure for the successful artists.
Restrictions permitting, each winner and a guest will be invited to attend a preview and awards evening at Castle Fine Art to receive their Cambridge Invitational Art Award. The evening will include further individual awards, prizes, drinks and a chance to chat to the judges and commercial art purchasers and take part in media interviews.
For one week, the winning artworks will be exhibited for viewing and for sale, with 20% of the sales commission donated to the beneficiary charities, Arts 4 Dementia and Arts and Minds.
Should the government or Castle Fine Art feel it is unsafe to hold such an event at that time, the preview and or exhibition will be postponed to a more suitable date later in the year.
Important dates: Submission deadline: midnight on 1 July 2021 Winners announced: 21 July 2021 Preview Exhibition & Awards Evening: 15 August 2021 Online exhibition: 16 August 2021 Physical exhibition: 16-22 August 2021.
To find out more, register and submit your entries, visit the website.
Germany’s Lette Glass Museum is set to reopen its doors at 2pm on 20 March 2021 with the new exhibition, ‘Lette Glass Museum. Exhibitions and Collection 2016-2020’. The show will continue until 22 August 2021.
There will be no opening event, as this would not be compatible with the applicable hygiene and distance regulations in place because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The number of visitors is limited to a maximum of eight people per floor in the glass museum and a maximum of six people in the glass depot.
This year, collector and founder Lilly Ernsting, looks back and celebrates her 25 years of exhibiting and collecting with a special exhibition at the Glasmuseum Lette.
A selection of objects acquired over the past five years at exhibitions and on travels will be displayed. There is also a catalogue offering insights into the museum’s activities during this period accompanying the show.
A series of in-house exhibitions and numerous journeys made across Europe bear witness to several busy years of collecting. During those years, 270 objects have joined the collection. From this rich assortment, 60 pieces have been selected to illustrate the museum’s broad exhibition and collection concept.
Lilly comments: “The current show displays all the vibrancy and diversity of the collection itself, like a multi-coloured kaleidoscope revealing the exuberant creativity of the glass scene. These glass objects thus serve as a mirror of developments in art glass, in artistic concepts and in the applied techniques.”
Her maxims are to have direct contact with artists, frequent visits to galleries and museums, examine objects on site, and to talk with all those involved. She believes that this is the only way to maintain the continuity and quality of the exhibitions and collection.
Contemplating all the activities and exhibitions that have developed since she began her modest private collection in the 1970s, Lilly exclaims, “Who would have thought!”
Please note that, in accordance with the Corona Protection Ordinance, you must book your visit to the Coesfeld district in advance by phone or email for a one-hour time slot and leave your contact details with the museum.
The address is: Glasmuseum Lette, Letter Berg 38, D-48653 Coesfeld, Germany. Website: www.glasmuseum-lette.de
Image artist: Alena Matejka, Water (2020). Photo: Gabriel Urbánek.
Glass artist Sivan Pais combines pate de verre and printmaking skills to create her delicate artworks. Glass Network digital’s editor, Linda Banks, discovers more about her and her practice.
What led you to start working with glass? It is actually all thanks to my Aunt Maya. I had been taking pottery classes in the north ofIsrael for a year, but when I moved closer to her I started helping in her jewelry studio. I began experimenting with flame work, making beads, and kiln work, fusing and slumping Judaica and bowls. I heard that Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design taught a course that combined ceramics and glass, so I decided to apply and develop my art more seriously.
Detail of Ripeness no.10, showing the 3D effect created with the pate de verde process.
What glass techniques have you used in your career and why do you have a preference for pate de verre work today? While I was a student, I explored almost every glass technique, including glassblowing, flame work (soft and borosilicate glasses), kiln casting, fusing, slumping, coldwork, engraving and sandblasting, as well as pottery and ceramic sculpting. I thought I should embrace the opportunity to learn new skills and acquire a large skill set. Then, later on, I could decide what I wanted to do.
I also added a printmaking course each year. To me, adding imagery gives more depth. I fell in love with printmaking and used it to introduce another layer of interest to my final piece.
Sivan Pais applying fine glass fit to the silk screen. Photo: Amir Koren.
When I saw a demonstration on how to transfer powdered frit through a silk screen, I knew I wanted to explore more and to stretch the boundaries of this technique. It allows me to work fast and multiply with great accuracy. There is something wonderful about working with glass in its most basic form, returning the raw material to the same place that it began, sculpting with sand. It’s amazing to me that, within the tiniest grain of sand, there is the entire potential of glass, like DNA in cells. I love how it moves, plays, and takes a different form each time. And the colours are amazing!
How did you develop your unique style of working with delicate glass and printmaking? It took a lot of experimenting and testing to see what images were best to print. I also had to work out the precise temperature needed, because the pieces are so delicate. Sometimes the different colours can be over-fused or under-fused. I needed to make them strong enough to be able to play with them when arranging them after heating. I make twice as many as I need, because they break a lot!
Ripeness no.4. Many extra pieces must be made because there are a lot of breakages.
I wasn’t sure how my final-year piece would turn out. At that time, I was going through two years of recovery from an autoimmune disease. I was taking myself on a journey of healing, and expressing that journey through art. I used art as therapy to express my feelings and let the process show me the way to heal. Each step revealed only one next step, so, while I had a vision of what emotions I wanted portray, and what I was trying to evoke in the viewer, it was not until the final step, when everything was assembled on the large silk screen, that I knew how it was going to look. So, the final artwork was a surprise, even to me.
What is your favourite tool or piece of equipment and why? It is hard to choose just one tool, because the process has many different steps. Every step has its own tool and way of working. But I guess the most helpful one in printmaking and in the final assembly is duct tape. It is versatile and I use it a lot for many things. I also have long tweezers, which I use a lot to handle the hot pate de verre pieces when the kiln is still hot. I make rapid exchanges to save time, electricity and heat. I also use the tweezers for the assembly.
Detail of Ripeness no.11.
What is the thinking behind the ‘Ripeness’ series? What message do you want to covey? The works that comprise ‘Ripeness’ are an expression of the healing process that occurred inside me. Their creation was driven by gratitude, and a desire to pay tribute to the fruits which had given me back control over my body. As my health improved and prospered, I discovered paradise in simple eating, and delight in consuming nourishment in exactly the form that nature gives it to us. ‘Ripeness’ invites the viewer to be present in the face of this simple abundance and happiness, which we all deserve to experience.
Ripeness no. 1. 290x215cm. Photo: Noam Shainberg.
The project is an allegory on a rule of nature, an observation between two situations that are opposite but yet contain one another: the decay versus the ripening.
The works in ‘Ripeness’ are created from fragile elements of glass. The fragility of the glass symbolises the delicate balance of health, and how easily health can be broken. The glass pieces are placed into rich assemblages of movement and colour, representing the gateway to the heaven of the inner kingdom, an imaginary wilderness full of desires to taste fruits I have not yet known.
The issue of health is worthy of public and cultural discourse. No one is immune to disease, and the prevalence of sickness is on the rise. Through my art, I aim to demonstrate that illness is not a decree humanity should accept; health and wellness are possible and achievable through natural, simple methods.
Do you have a favourite piece of work? Why is it your favourite? When I see a piece of art where I can tell that the artist worked on it for ages, meticulously putting all of his or her crazy mind into the piece, it immediately captures me.
I love the artist Kathleen Ryan’s work – her ‘Bad Fruit’ series. Her work is so beautiful and I feel that she deals with the same topics as me, the beauty of decaying. All my life I have been interested in mould or rotten things; it is like a microcosm of a new life. Her grapes and lemons are phenomenal!
Where do you show and sell your art? Currently my largest piece from ‘Ripeness’ is on show at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv, as part of the Biennale of Crafts & Design exhibition in the glass pavilion. I also sell smaller pieces in the museum gift shop and in a few home interior design shops around Israel. Additionally, I’m excited that, as of 2021, my work is displayed at the Blue Gallery in Delray Beach, Florida, in the USA.
Who or what inspires you? I love nature. What I love most in nature is seeing it’s process – how it’s always changing, and striving for balance. I love to see that everything in nature has a purpose, and nothing goes to waste. It makes me feel very optimistic knowing that, no matter what humans do, nature continues to change and heal.
I am, of course, also inspired by my close circle of family and friends. Each one has struggles in their life and I learn so much from them, their point of view, and the different ways of overcoming everything.
Ripeness no.6.
How has the coronavirus pandemic impacted your practice? At first it didn’t seem like such a bad thing to be close to home at my studio and using all of that time to create. I was keeping safe, keeping my mind clear and quiet, thinking healthy thoughts and not letting all the panic and stress of the media get to me.
In September 2020, I moved to Florida and have continued to create at the Blue Gallery studio so, in some ways, the virus hasn’t stopped me achieving my goals. However, now it’s been a year since the pandemic started, and I think we are all feeling the impact of a world that has significantly slowed down. Many museums, galleries, and exhibitions are completely closed.
I’m praying that we all are able to continue to create art, and life will go back normal so we can socialise again, and that better days will come.
I’m very happy to share my art with this community of glass lovers. For more visuals of my work please look at my Instagram: Sivanpais.glass.art or my website: https://www.sivanpais.com
About the artist Sivan Pais is an Israeli artist, born in 1990. She graduated with a BFA from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, in 2019.
She received a full scholarship to Pilchuck Glass School, Washington, USA, in 2017 and undertook a course in vitreography and engraving with Professor Andrea Dezso.
In 2018 she took part in the ERASMUS exchange programme at Eugeniusz Geppert academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw Poland, studying in the printmaking and ceramic departments.
She received ‘the Andy’ – the Andrea M. Bronfman Prize for the Arts, in the field of glass, for her graduation project in 2019.
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