Late Breaking Noose

Its solder time!

2012-01-28T15:08:00.000-08:00

Hey peoples!
I decided to solder what's ready this past week. Why do this before the entire window is done? Because thinking about it was making me squirrely. Because my studio is small and I was starting to have storage management issues. Because it was there.

How do I solder? Let me give you a tip. Use a BIG TIP! Like a Hexacon 250 watt flamethrowing baseball bat. AKA: "The Pursuader". And NO, it is not too expensive. Nothing else will do. Seriously.

I work using copperfoil technique--or "Tiffany". For all you in the industry, I am not going to get into some argument defending the pros and cons of this. For all you people not in the industry let me tell you this technique is the cause of much "controversy" as it is less than a thousand years old and thus, and as a newbie, has yet to prove its value technically and artistically. Such is the curse of being invented post 1000 AD . (that link is to the oldest stained glass fragments known, fyi) ........SIGH........I will also say, my windows, being intensively layered, could not be achieved any other way.

Hexacon 250 Watt Soldering Iron

OK--so I put down the cartoon. Then I lay down the glass. Yes. 2nd grade Jigsaw puzzle skill are helpful.

The laying down of the glass

Then I tack solder the joints so the pieces stay put.

tack soldering

The smallest piece of glass in the entire monster window it the rope between the two tug-a-war girls.

Then I go in and fill in the lines. Kinda hard to write about soldering techniques!!! The point is to get a super smooooooooth line. One that has some integrity and some oomph to it. It should be rounded, but not chunky. Its ALL about temperature...all about controlling those degrees of hot and cold.

Side one halfway done

Side one done.

When the front is done, I clean it up a bit as it is a slimy, greeeeeeasy mess from the flux and covered with blobs of stray solder. It is not a good idea to handle it filthy, just to have it slide out of your grip!

This is what the cartoon looks like with flux gunk on it. I toss this in the trash.

Then I do the other side--which is much easier as it is usually still warm and also the gaps are filled.

ME! As photographed by Ms Fidget! with whom I had the honor of lunch the other day. Where did we eat? WHERE ELSE???

close to done with this section!

2012-01-21T03:27:00.000-08:00

After the second paint firing

2012-01-16T13:33:00.001-08:00

latest noose

2012-01-14T08:22:00.000-08:00

Here's how the lower right hand panel is looking, so far. At the stage depicted above, the glass has been painted with one firing of black paint and I am in the process of engraving and filing the highlights.

detail of lower left

A few days ago, I had only cut and sandblasted the glass. I then marked it with a sharpie to indicate some lines to paint on to begin the painting process and to make it simpler to know where to put the highlights.

detail

and here's the mock up!

How it's lookin' now

2011-12-23T06:52:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the lack of posting! The end of the semester was a bit...frenetic. Here's the top panel for the big window finished!

These "lead lines" are faked in photoshop. I am not going to solder the piece until ALL the parts are done. But its so hard to see what's going on without them, so P-shop it is.

Angel versus Devil. I was really pleased with the Devil's teeth.

Horny monks

Late breaking noose in action

What it looks like in context

2011-11-29T04:23:00.001-08:00

Top section as of today, Tuesday Nov 29.

Some close ups--click to enlarge!

Jaundiced lady in aviator helmet (who doesn't want to look at that in their art?)! This is red on clear that's been engraved, painted and silver stained. Later, I engraved much of the silverstain OFF to cure her of her jaundice but leave her looking...interesting.....
Profile of a clown. I said, many posts ago, that I was doing a lot of experimenting in this window. Here's one! The blue on clear (St Just 11--very pale blue on clear) is sandblasted, then enameled with transparent carmine. That's how it looked together on top. Ultimately, I ground off the carmine and added a layer of pink glass--this was just too murky looking.
Monk-y head! Red on clear and a layer of selenium orange on clear.
Monk outfits. The drapery is painted (stencil black) on sandblasted float glass. That's three firings of paint to get the detail and rich blacks.
Silverstain blooper. I ground it out and repolished the glass. It was not apparent when it went into the oven, but that seam was created by putting on two abutting areas of stain. OOOPS! Don't do that (unless you want to). The "proper" way would be one matte, badgered smooth.
Ladies skirt. Gold pink on clear (DESAG), blue on clear with silverstain. (Photo sandblast stencil.)

many pics!

2011-11-17T04:36:00.000-08:00

Click to enlarge! (But be aware this snail is, in actuality about 1.5" wide) Top panel as of last night....

arranged on the cartoon

I turned this character around to face towards the fray. I originally thought it would be good to have some looking in other directions...but changed my mind.

Monk-like dudes

2011-11-12T14:11:00.001-08:00

Top middle panel: The image on the right is the original. On the left is the newer sketch, which I redid to add more drama. I didn't like the two girls playing tugowar--they didn't have a lot of tension or drama. Plus the gray area seemed too empty.
Above: how it looked this morning. Below: some detail of the work in progress. Click to enlarge!

MIT Lecture

2011-11-05T01:21:00.000-07:00

Surviving Your Creativity can be heard HERE. This is a talk I gave at MIT recently--the 2011 Page Hazlegrove Annual lecture in glass.
The subject is not my work (or even glass) but creativity itself. Bon appetit!

I'm No Stradamus

2011-10-31T12:26:00.000-07:00

The New Authenticity

Now that POMO is dead, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. During the 80’s, 90’s and Aughts I pretty much drove myself to distraction with loathing for POMO (without really knowing what it was, mind you!) but now that its gone, I’m the one throwing histrionic tizzies at the funeral. Damn, I’d throw myself on its coffin if I could....”Noooooo, my darling, bury me with youoooooooo!!!”
Oh well, TOO LATE! And welcome peeps, to The New Authenticity. Now, I am no Stradamus, but I am predicting this (and gawd knows, if it comes to pass, I sure as heck want to be able to point to this essay and scream “told ya so!”)—sort of based on this article....although, recently I saw this and I dunno if it proves or disproves my point!

"The New Authenticity" is wonderfully welcome for one reason alone and that is I think we will see a return to craftsmanship—HOORAY! WOOT WOOT, let’s hear it for the home team!!!! But, ultimately, it will be expounded in utterly ghastly directions. I think, at its worst, it will get construed that imagination, abstraction, metaphor, symbols and myths are suspicious and should be eliminated. Terminator style, preferably. In this way we imagine (how ironic!) that we can triumph over terrorism and other inauthentic enemies that are dogging us. But tilting at windmills won’t authentically address what's ailing us as a culture! So the New Authenticity promises to be very inauthentic.

What killed POMO and paved the way for The New Authenticity? The market crash, 9-11, No Child Left Behind and the inevitable swinging of the pendulum from favoring one type of fashion to its opposite.

Click to show the rest of article

The Market Crash
A sudden craving for authenticity is, in part, a response to the poor economy. We want our durable goods to be effing durable, dammitol! In the most literal way possible. People are getting sick of outsourcing now that our economy’s tanking. If real estate isn’t the real deal, then please, for goodness sakes, don’t lets also buy a crappy imported car.
POMO, because it refused to make hierarchies, defaulted to letting The Market decide everything. So it got very commercial. This explains why hippies disappeared (until they were revived as a fashion style) but punk never did. Punk just got mutated into fashion the day after is gasped its dying breath in 1977. But at least back then, there was a presumption of a literate consumer at least kinda-sorta. As good post-millennial, post-POMO consumers, and goodness knows we want to be good consumers, we (mostly) know enough to understand that our voracious desires are being manipulated. In short, we know we’re impulsive suckers and we’re a little weary of our corporate overlords cuckolding us while they rake in their obnoxiously overblown salaries. Not weary enough or powerful enough to overthrow them, mind you, just enough to demand “real” stuff. Why real? Because we’ve obliterated nature and reality. Absence makes the heart grow fonder! Having, for the most part, achieved virtual reality and genetically engineered food, we recollect real reality with warm affection!
I have already heard that porn sites featuring “real women” (i.e. people you might actually see on the street should you look up from your smart phone) are gaining popularity. Given the chance to f/make it with a celebrity or a porn star? No one wants the (pseudo) pressure!!! They want lumps, bumps, bruises, scars, pimples and wrinkles and all the signs of non-virtual reality. I like this. This seems truly like a refreshing and positive shift! Of course, this is porn and porn isn’t real even when it is. But whatever. Anything that makes a guy like a pimply, wrinkly girl can’t be all bad.

And there’s more good news! What’s The New Authenticity gonna be like for art? Can I hear a big round of applause for the welcome return of craft and skill?! There’s already a trend afoot to demand the artist be the creator of the work (as though that were a guarantee of “authentic”--which it resoundingly is not, but artist/fabricators are not the same as and do not make the same type of work as artist/designers. Allowing them into the dialog is a positive change. There should be room for both.)
Hooray: (Or maybe that’s “Boo hoo hoo”) just in time for a trend towards integration of curriculum in art schools, the Master and Slave...er, apprentice system is gonna come into demand! Or perhaps the atelier school model, if we are lucky.

As for skill? That will come back as well. For at least five minutes. That’s how long I predict it will take before skilled craftsmanship is seen as inauthentic, too mechanistic and slick, to unattainable by “real folks”. Skill is still for show offs who flaunt their superiority in yer face. The new crafetishism will be for poor craftsmanship.

Plan on hearing the words “authenticity” and “authorship” used to death. All this access to everything, leveling of playing fields and the breakdown into indistinguishiblilty that POMO was will convert into some sort of sickening false nostalgia for the good old days when things were a little more definite and less relativistic. The relativism of POMO entailed, in part, an acknowledgment of “the other” and by extension, the awareness that our established hierarchies are worth examining (if not demolishing). It was so much simpler when we could equate “The Other” with “The Bad Guys”! I know, let’s do that again! Beware of “authenticity” becoming a so-called agent for the good guys. Can you say “authoritarian”? “Authenticity” can’t be measured. It’s neither a set quality nor a quantity and much depends on context. One person’s “authentic” is another’s steaming pile of bullsh*t. It just depends where it’s coming from; after all, it couldn’t be more authentic than it is coming fresh from the bull’s behind.
Truth is as much in the eye of the beholder as beauty...but try telling that to Homeland Security.

9-11
The meta-awareness of text, context, meta text and all that POMO was can destroy the suspension of disbelief at the expense of a sense of magic. This was POMO at its worst. But it allowed for the possibilities gained by admitting we might not be superior, good and right all the time. That maybe we weren’t always the nice guys or the right guys. Maybe we weren’t all guys; maybe some guys aren’t even all guy, for that matter! Ohmigosh, blow my mind!
But that’s all gone now! Wiped clean by 9-11. No more ambiguities. You’re either with us, or the terrorists. Those words killed POMO like a can of RAID sprayed down an anthill.

The fear of terrorism, it has been pointed out over and over again, is not based on a real enemy but a boogeyman abstraction*. One that cannot actually be vanquished. In fact, abstractions and metaphors, by their very nature, are inauthentic, imaginary, immaterial things. Not being capable of much nuance, we will now attempt to kill all abstractions and anything that could harbor a terrorist. We are desperate for something genuinely killable to remedy this and make us feel brave and strong again. Ha!
(*Obama was right. The only thing that can kill terror is hope.)

Irony and paradox died with 9/11 and at first it was refreshing...bye bye to the sarcasm and snark of POMO. No more winky winky nudgy nudgy of self-referential in-joking.
But where does this lead but inevitably to no more sense of humor at all? The attempts at fairness and political correctness POMO foisted about will be further codified into fear that you could be laughing at some marginalized group. Today’s nerds are tomorrow’s terrorists. That’s what Columbine taught us. Terrorism is serious business, no laughing allowed. No more Oscar Wildean artifice and sham that reveals a higher truth. No more playing fast and loose with identity. Mutable identity is a real problem for Homeland Security as well.

Authenticity is very serious stuff. Because it’s The Truth. Or so we imagine. But wait...imagination isn't real is it? Oh my, The New Authenticity is going to be very, very problematic! And what is the solution to problems like that? Illiteracy, natch!

No Child Left Behind
The New Authenticity will be predicated on the New Illiteracy. Its gonna really, really suck! By illiteracy, I don't mean not being able to read. I mean the destruction of the idea of "critical distance". Critical distance in art was ANNOYING, true! It led to mountains of self-referential crapola that was more about its own theory than it was about having a passionate or moving experience with deeply held collective subconscious myth etc. No more critical distance------YAY!!!!! Except for this: we will be complete, unabashed idiots.

The craving for "authenticity" will take advantage of the trend typified by "No Child Left Behind" towards eschewing interpretative and creative thinking in favor of “right answers" and fundamentalism. Right answers, after all are true and "authentic", no? Without being able to think analytically, we are as illiterate as one who cannot read letters and words. Without critical thinking, “reading” is a form of consumption. Gobble, gobble, gobble! Have fun with that. We’ll all be too busy texting to worry about text or meta-text! Because we are losing the ability to read critically and think analytically, its pretty much guaranteed we will remain consumers of superficial fashion and obedient to our corporate overlords. The status quo is preserved! The market will be saved!!!! Long live the USA! Three cheers for the New Illiteracy.
With illiteracy comes the ultimate powerlessness that people seem to be leaning towards since they decided to stop weaning their children. Responsibility? Oh man, whatta drag! Real learning? TOO MUCH WORK. Facing adversity? Too much risk. And when the new boss comes goose-stepping in, its “oh pleeeeeease don’t hurrrrt me!” So says a population that has abandoned responsibility of feeling, deciding, and acting for themselves. All that’s left is HOPE. As in I HOPE the new boss isn’t the same as the old boss.

The Inevitable Swinging of the Pendulum
POMO, as a late 20th c. intellectual phenomenon, was, in many ways, dreadful emotionally. It should have been a big costume party, but instead it was a dreary academic conference. Yeah, thanks, a lot for nuthin’ POMO!
We rightfully miss sentiment but whaddo we do about it? We have a nauseating tendency to substitute sentimentality in its place—the difference being sentimentality is a superficial, cheesy, cheap feeling without the messy clean up or heavy investment. You think we love kitsch too much now? The New Authenticity promises to leave one vulnerable to kitsch like you wouldn’t believe, because without critical distance you are a slavering Pavlov’s dog lapping up images and narratives that promise instant gratification at the expense of meaning; full flavored pleasure without the challenge or sacrifice. All the yummy nom noms and no uncomfortable questions or burning, itchy rashes.

All the endless waves of trans-this and multi-that exhausted everyone. We never could choose, so we let the market do it and, oopsy daisy, the market crashed. Time for an authority figure...who’s your daddy?
Politicos have been ushering in The New Authenticity since Reagan (or before). All this intellectual bashing! All this folksy, guy-you-wanna-slug-down-brewskies-with populism. ICK PTOOOI!!!!! This will give the ranting crackpots who are suspicious of what they see as a cabal of culturati crime bosses a leg up. Ugh. More people who, in the guise of “The Common Folk” seek to destroy what teensy inroads the brainy are able to make on the decline of civilization. Disdaining pseudo intellectualism has become equated with disdaining intelligence! The Idiocracy is now! Brawndo! Its got what plants crave.

Prepare yourselves! I’d invest in Brawndo stock, now.

side panel done

2011-10-31T03:55:00.001-07:00

Here it is, in all its glory. Ahem. As always, click to enlarge images. In the top composite, I have photoshopped in the solder lines so as not to be distracting with a lot of spaces. If you are really obsessional and detail oriented--you may notice I have changed the top panel (quite a lot, actually). Why? I will post on it soon and say why....

Happy halloweenies!!!!

2011-10-26T14:16:00.001-07:00

I should be finished with this panel in a week or so.

I am loving this pile of bodies--esp the bloated corpse...

I love this head!! its sort of an experiment...and it seems to be working (pairing the iron pink glass (see last post) with a layer of silver stained red on clear).

2011-10-23T11:00:00.001-07:00

Here's the current state of things.....
DEMO-TIME! OK: the bottom left is the head as it appeared the last time I posted. That version shows the glass having been sandblasted and painted with a thin wiping of black paint mixed with red for flesh to make a brown. There's also trace lines. It was fired on and then I proceeded to engrave and file tones into the flash. This color performs absolutely beeeeeeautifully with this technique! UNTIL the second and third firing!!! (See top left pic.) This firing causes the glass to strike--making it much darker, browner and as one can kind of see in the top right pic, in reflected light it seems to have metalized. The glass does poorly after the second firing, but gets even worse after the third! What's up with that??
OK--I already knew this about this glass and one has merely to re-file the surface to get the pink back. In fact--it looks even richer than before as there's a little bit of yellow tone and the darks are much richer. But still--its kind of a pain.

This glass is Verrerie Saint Just STD225 (sexually transmitted disease??) ANYWAY. I believe this violetty pink is made with iron. If any glasspeeps reading this can confirm or deny I would be most appreciative.

On the bottom right is how it came out in the end, after re-filing. One of my favortiest faces I've ever done...and to think...I found it on a doodle I thought more or less worthless. Just shows ta go ya!

2011-10-19T10:25:00.000-07:00

How its looking now.

This is done with a french pink on clear flash (painted with a mix of brown and black, then engraved and filed.) This color fires on wonky but files away so gorgeously....

2011-10-11T09:43:00.001-07:00

Hoo boy, did I ever do a lot of painting in the past 24 hours! Let me say one thing: this is atypical. I almost never work on the whole image at once like this. This is made possible by the amount of decision making that went into the first panel that affects this panel. The bottom dead guy has a leg in the other panel so I know what his pants should look like, for example.

These skeletons are from a particularly schweeeeeet doodle that I made in about one second at a meeting.

Doodling is the single most important aspect of my work (and many other artists as well). Doodling is the (OK "a") secret key to making art. No joke!!!! Without doodling, I would probably keel over and wither and die. I doodle, therefore I am.

2011-10-10T08:07:00.001-07:00

Moving on....I have begun work on the lower right hand panel. Why that one? because I have some concerns about the continuity between the two panels w/r/t the big naked psycho clown.The art supply stores sells these great canvas trays (could they possibly have some other use? I'm gonna say no way...)! This is the pile to haul down to the sandblaster for "treatment".

The panel after a day of work.

More clowning around.

How the panels look together.

2011-10-08T07:56:00.000-07:00

OK! Now its "done". !!! By "done" I mean, this section is provisionally finished and barring any dramatic revision while I do the rest of the piece, this is what it will look like. Its not yet assembled--meaning its not soldered together. Clever stained glass artists will note that I have eliminated all light leaks between the pieces in photoshop as they are monumentally distracting and this is pretty much what this monster will actually look like when soldered.
Below, some details! Don't forget you can click to enlarge!

Changes since last post include the main clown's suit has a layer of blue added. This allowed me to make his hat have more blue in it too. I did this to balance out the color, having stained the road with blood....(which is an additional layer of red glass. The decision to do this took a week!)
Invisible to you: I eliminated the layers of glass that were only carmine and silverstain. With the addition of the blue layer, this would have made certain parts of the piece four layers. I didn't want that mainly because they would be thicker there and rise of the surface of the piece by about 5/8th of an inch--which would mess with the bas relief. So I eliminated that layer and painted the carmine on the back of the red and the silverstain on the back of the blue.

Knees, elbows, feets and hands. And intestines. Yes, I know they don't really fit into the torso that way...

Doggie's dinner

2011-10-03T13:48:00.000-07:00

I thought I was done.....but! I decided to make the road a bit redder...so I am now, officially NOT DONE...stay tuned. Its close!

Upcoming events

2011-09-27T02:12:00.001-07:00

Please note the following :
My work will be included in the following group exhibitions coming up soon!!

Cute & Creepy
Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University
530 West Call Street, Tallahassee, Florida 32306
Mon. - Fri., 9am - 4pm, Sat. & Sun., 1pm - 4pm
850 644 1254
Allys Palladino-Craig, DirectorDirector
Teri R. Yoo, Communications OfficerCommunications Officer

The exhibition Cute & Creepy was organized by the Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts in concert with Guest Curator Carrie Ann Baade, Art Department, College of Visual Arts, Theatre and Dance. Project Staff: Allys Palladino-Craig, Grantwriter / Editor; Jean Young, Registrar and Fiscal officer; Teri Yoo, Communications Officer; Viki D. Thompson Wylder, Educational Programming; Wayne Vonada, Chief Preparator; Dalia Grad, Editorial Assistant.
This program is sponsored in part by: The State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, Florida Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts; the Arts & Humanities Enhancement Program of Florida State University; the City of Tallahassee State Partners Initiative and the Leon County Cultural Development Program, both administered by the Council on Culture and Art.

Please note my lecture Thursday Oct 13, 7 pm

----------------------
La Luz de Jesus 25

Billy Shire celebrates 25 years with huge group show & book

Part 1 opens October 7 & 8, 8–11 PM
Part 2 opens November 4 & 5, 8–11 PM

My work is in the November show.

To celebrate 25 years of groundbreaking art shows, Billy Shire presents his biggest event ever: La Luz de Jesus 25, a major retrospective exhibition and companion book. The show, offering work by more than 260 artists who have exhibited at the gallery over the years, is so extensive that Shire has split it into two parts, each with two opening nights: part 1 opens October 7 and 8, and part 2 opens November 4 and 5. The list of participating artists is a veritable Who’s Who of art world luminaries. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see all these artists together in one show.

View the artist roster for each month here

The book, La Luz de Jesus 25: The Little Gallery That Could, features images of all the art in the show, a personal anecdote about Shire and the gallery written by each artist, essays by La Luz gallery directors and a foreword by Shire. The book is more than a simple record of the show. Taken together, the images and essays present a history of La Luz de Jesus through the eyes of the artists whose careers are intertwined with Shire and his gallery.
About La Luz de Jesus
Billy Shire opened La Luz de Jesus in 1986 to showcase the work of underground and folk artists largely ignored or dismissed by the legitimate art world. The first permanent gallery space to exhibit alternative art, La Luz quickly became famous as much for its splashy, raucous monthly opening parties as for the often outrageous and confrontational art on its walls. When choosing artists, Shire challenged received notions of “good taste” and “high art” and rejected the arbitrary but long-cherished distinction between commercial and fine art, embracing illustration, underground art, outsider art, animation, and comics, both underground and mainstream. As a result, many artists hugely successful today credit Shire with having launched their careers, and he is widely acknowledged as a seminal figure in contemporary art movements such as Lowbrow and Pop Surrealism.

For purchase questions or for more information, please contact gallery director Matt Kennedy at 323.666.7667 or info@laluzdejesus.com
La Luz de Jesus Gallery is located at 4633 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90027. <mailto:info@laluzdejesus.com
----------------------

OCT 5-- MIT
The MIT Glass Lab in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering is pleased to present the 2011 Page Hazlegrove Lecture in Glass Art
“Surviving Your Creativity”

Oct 5 6:30 PM Rm 10-250, MIT Campus, Cambridge MA.

----------------------
I will be contributing a piece to this benefit:
.
PAWS no-kill animal shelter benefit- Live Music + CD Compilation + Art show
Time Friday, October 21 at 7:00pm - October 22 at 10:00pm
Location: Digital Ferret732 S. 4th St.
Philadelphia, PA

2011-09-25T13:49:00.001-07:00

5 pm Sunday and the piece looks like this.
Bad doggie!
The three layers comprising the clown. One the left is the glass I mentioned in my last post. It is a piece of regular float glass with silverstain on one side and transparent carmine enamel on the other. (Both of the other layers are lambert's 1001 r/cl b--one with stencil black vitreous paint and the other is silverstained.
Layers of the little girl--goldpink/cl desag, Lambert's 1006 bl/cl b with vitreous paint and Lambert's 1001 r/cl b with silver stain and firepolished)
The hands are painted on aurora on clear. The bottom layer is transparent carmine on float.

2011-09-23T02:08:00.000-07:00

Currently the piece looks like this. I have cut glass for the entire piece--although not all the second (or third) layers have been cut.) I have begun roughing out these areas with my usual procedure of sandblasting and painting.
Believe it or not, I am doing some technical experimentation--I want to create "flash glass" by using float glass that has been enameled with transparent carmine #2227 (or is it 2777?) and silver stain (one on one side of the glass and the other on the flip side to facilitate easier manipulation post-firing). I had a few disasters...and I didn't take pics of them. Suffice it to say, the carmine doesn't mix with water and turps makes it turn into a sort of bloody bruised liver color that's opaque. YIKES! I went back to water and made a layer underneath that clown above. It doesn't have the clarity a layer of gold pink glass would have, but it is interesting!
Third layer on the little girl. This is done with gold pink glass (this is a color made by DESAG and is no longer manufactured. I own quite a few sheets of it, but when I run out I will be really mightily sad as it behaves much better than either Lambert's or Saint Just gold pink does. For one thing, the flash layer is nice and thin and pale. It seems with gold pinks, the manufacturer wants to give you as much pink as they can for the money.....but it is TOO THICK and as such it resists being used to create tonal variation with either sandblasting OR filing.) One thing about layering stained glass is generally speaking, thecolors should be lighter than you think. A little color goes a long way! A long, long, long, long way!!!!! Start piling up that glass and you get darkness and murk pretty quick!
I like this convergence of limbs.

2011-09-18T14:21:00.000-07:00

Since we last met.....I started manipulating the second layer--in fact, I re-cut the blue layer on the bird-monk's robe in a lighter blue and sandblasted a pattern on it. I also did stuff (by "stuff" I mean: sandblasting, flex-shaft engraving and diamond filing) to the second layer on the red clown, the little girl kneeling in the foreground and the bird monk's head. I also cut a bunch more glass for some of the other areas.

Photoshop test to see how its coming together

2011-09-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

Third paint firing. A third layer of paint seems necessary to get deep blacks and for tweaking. I can be a sloppy painter and go back and forth between engraving and painting to get things "right"...whatever that means.
Hey! Its been called to my attention that some of the tech talk is a bit advanced. I don't always have a sense of whom I am writing for...anyway--earlier in the blog, I posted a more basic painting demo which should explain things in much greater depth. This one, too...
should you be interested.
OMG---what's THIS???? I ruinnnnned it!! Probably.... ! But not just yet, I hope.
This is the second layer of glass cut out. As yet--nothing has been done to it so its just plain color...stay tuned.....over the weekend I will start to manipulate this layer and you'll see stuff begin to happen. Much of it is the ever-sublime Lambert's red 1001-r/cl--b the most gorgeous color in the world. its OK for an artist to have a favorite color, right? I like warm, warm reds that veer off into scarlet.
This Lambert's is the only sheet glass I know of that's a warm cherry red. For some reason most glass reds are wine-y or whiny....or browny... Second, it cuts perfectly--like a hot knife through butter. It grinds, sandblasts, engraves and files easily--which makes me think its quite soft. It also soaks up silverstain like a sponge--even when sandblasted and its always well behaved. Except that it tends to scream.
A close up of one of my favorite characters so far.
As always, click for enlargements.

Monday's stuff

2011-09-12T14:54:00.001-07:00

Friends, Romans, Countrymen: what's this? What the piece looked like this AM. with the all the pieces made of flash glass engraved. So now they are ready for MORE PAINT, which is much easier than the first go-round and, just because you've been good, provides a super amazing level of return on your investment: meaning: it often looks fabulous.
Here is is with the second layer of paint--on everything but that lovely buttock on the right and the behumbled blue man at the top (well--he's got a shadow, but no detail yet.)(He's getting scythed to death by a ninja lady who may or may not be Pride)
The clown is starting to look like something....I can't believe I am gonna be able to pull off his shirt...wait! I don't mean that the way it sounds!!
More creepy faces. The top one was a surprise to me as the doodle its based on had little detail to go on.
Patience--who's getting her head kicked in by Wrath. I dunno if I bothered to mention it, but there's a number of sub battles here intended to vaguely refer to the Seven Cardinal Virtues versus the Seven Deadly Sins. But very, very loosely. Why? Because it will be better that way, trust me. These things need to work themselves out--not have me dictating their fates to them.

Sunday's work

2011-09-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

The piece as it looked this morning. After sandblasting the glass and marking it with a pen, I paint the first layer and fire it. Specifically--I wipe Reusche Stencil Black 1059 onto the sandblasted surface with a dampish paper towel and then wipe the excess off. THEN! I go over all the magic maker lines with a thin liner brush and paint them in....for your glass folks who know something about glass painting, this is my version of doing the first matte and trace but I am total cheater since I am using sandblasted glass. (The exception is the naked bits which I painted directly rather than wipe. Why? Because it seemed like a good idea??)
I fire at 1213 F. UP in 25 mins, open the kiln to 1050 and then put two bits of fire brick in to crack the door very slightly (otherwise it will take up to five hours to cool which is not necessary). It cools (and anneals) in about 2 or 3 hours this way.
Then, I went into it with a flexible shaft engraver using diamond ball burrs and also 3-M diamond files and started defining the highlights. This technique is so physically taxing (even after years of doing it often), I type this with almost totally numb fingertips and you can see I did not finish today.
Some close ups. Hey! Don't get any ideas about me going fast. Each of these areas will ultimately be two or three pieces thick to get in all the color and detail I am lookin' to get. So while a head may be blue now....it won't be later--this is akin to an underpainting and has little bearing on how it will look when its finished.
By the way....I hate clowns.

Carnival and Lent in prog

2011-09-10T05:16:00.000-07:00

I'd like to attempt to copiously document the making of this piece--for my students and any others interested in my working methods, techniques etc etc. So here goes.
Above is the photoshop document printed out at actual size hanging above my light table. Inspiration or ominous threatening reminder of my deadline? Who can say....
The piece needs to be done before March and my best time estimates would put the ETA at.....2013! The pieces contains 95 figures. All of which must be fabulous or I will not have done my job. Meanwhile, I am teaching three three credit courses, which is full time. Oh yeah--that's some wacky time management issue!
First version of the cartoon (cutting pattern) for the bottom middle section on top--I simplified it below. A catrillion cut lines doesn't make a piece better or even more intricate. It is not necessarily "lazy" to make fewer or a sign of obsessive devotion to make more. I felt like I would be able to make the image with fewer so I got rid of some.

This is how I "plan color". Hahahaha! As you can see, its a big joke as I am barely even trying...just splashing some colors around so I have an idea of what glass to cut. I then immediately diverged from the plan, as I am wont to do. I.e. the Bird-monk playing tug-a-war with the naked clown is wearing a blue robe in the color sketch but I cut it out in yellow below. Maybe I will put a blue layer on top of that.
I cut some glass....
Then I sandblasted it. Just enough to cut into the surface and rough it up some. Show it who's boss...
OK--I then sandblasted the pattern into the clown suit. Just because I fancied the idea. The markings on the glass are done with a razor point sharpie. This is because I intend to paint these details in and the pen guides me--it burns off when the paint is fired on.

I think its important to note that I'm not operating on any kind of preconceived notion that I know what I am doing. I really DON'T! I have no clue how to make this window--I only know how to make something once its done. Does that make sense? I mean--I know how to cut glass and solder it together...but I do not know how to make this image YET...I am just acting and then reacting and on and on it goes...
stay tuned.
Any questions?

sketch for ESP transom

2011-08-30T13:53:00.000-07:00

this is a thumbnail cartoon--not even a sketch really. Although it looks teensy here it is 57" wide and about that tall at the peak of the arch. I used tons of doodles from umpteen trillion meetings, lectures and phone calls. So much I previously thought useless has found new life here. Mostly in clown suits....... The theme is "The Battle of Carnival and Lent". I thought it fitting for a prison--the kind of battle inside everyone with impulse control issues. Let's think binary for sec, shall we? Apollo vs. Dionysus, angel vs. devil, chaos vs. control, Lennon vs. McCartney, vanilla vs. chocolate, night vs, day etc etc the yin yang of it all!!! The humanity!

God help you if don't click to enlarge it....

Here's Breughel's orig.

E.S.P.

2011-08-03T15:40:00.000-07:00

Nah--I'm not psychic! That's stands for Eastern State Penitentiary!
Here's some teaser photos--but some of you may not know that I am posting very, very little of my progress here or on FB.
For info on how to follow the project at USArtists please follow this link to a post I did a little while back which has all the info.

Click on images for ginormous versions.

Here's the layering for you techies. That's R/cl lamberts with 1059 reusche and silverstain. The blue is who-knows-what...lambert's probably....and the pink is aurora on clear Saint Just...I had a huge SNIT when the layer for the body fell out of my hand (apparently the brain function which governs gripping is defective in me) and smashed to bits.... Here is an excellent resource for those trying times, so you aren't left speechless, gawd forbid.

Thinking Outside the Coffin

2011-07-05T10:21:00.000-07:00

This is my keynote from the BeCon Conference...sadly without all the images as that would probably take the rest of my life.
It is similar, but not the same, as my talk last spring at the Art Alliance (reviewed here) and it also draws from a post on ending media prejudice from this blog...

Thinking Outside the Coffin

Let’s start with the obnoxious assumption that “Art” is a Higher Pursuit than “Craft”
In the high stakes world of Fine Art, Craft, as a field is, sometimes secretly, but often openly, reviled.

Click to show the rest of article

How many times have I heard critics, academics, curators, collectors, dealers and yes, even artists, for goodness sakes, publicly trotting out their unquestioned, and insufferable belief that Craft is lesser than and lower than “Art”? Too many.

“Craft” lacks the intellectual and philosophical panache of “Fine Art”—it can go as far as being seen as less intelligent—less important, and less serious–at best, a quaint and harmless pastime that results in free sweaters or maybe a job coopering at a reconstructed village. At worst, it is perceived to be retardaire and anachronistic. In this digital age, why go backwards? Art, by comparison, is seen as sophisticated, enlightening, profound, relevant and wise. Prices, respect and status follow suit. Once money enters the picture, there are more devious and capricious reasons those in power might want to protect these boundaries and defend their piece of the pie, surprise, surprise. Although it may appear as if “anything goes” in terms of what gets called art; the fact is that the Fine Arts must very narrowly define their practice in order to maintain their mystique, their market share and its stature as a revered activity. You can test this out by trying to get yourself a gallery show. You will find out pretty quick, that your art, probably isn’t their kind of art. So the definition of art, to some extent depends on it being the high end of something. Craft suffers the fallout .

This brings me to the odious, ignorant prejudice against certain materials and certain methods. When I have referred to myself as a craftsperson, people have assumed I have some problem with my self-esteem—on the contrary—I am very proud to identify as such. I was once uninvited from a speaking gig because the painting department head heard I worked in glass (she never even bothered to look at the work)! When I got the Guggenheim award, I went to the party. People asked me what I did—on more than one occasion, I watched them shrink in horror from me as if glass might be some horrid contagion. There are endless examples, I’m sure you all have stories.

Critics, academics, curators, collectors, dealers and ignorant artists: get a clue. Mediums are media and technique is simply a means to an end. They are the materials and processes that are in between the artist and the object being created...you know, the thing that really matters? This type of media prejudice is especially ridiculous in light of the fact that artists are free to work with anything, from diamonds (Damian Hirst) to feces (Chris Ofili)—so why anyone should disdain, say, ceramic is a real mystery. Why care if the substance is glass, ceramics, oil paint, paper, poop or bubble gum? Why is carving marble more artistic than carving wood? Is there a quality in oil paint that makes it inherently artistic, some quality of glass that makes it crafty?
Isn’t the entire point what’s being done with it? Isn’t the point the experience it confers on the audience or users? It is just as wrongheaded as assuming something is art because it is paint on canvas. As if that offered some kind of bulletproof protection against being lousy!

In a related theme, devoting oneself exclusively to a singular branch of material knowledge (i.e. being a “glass artist” or a “clay artist” etc) is seen to be case of idiocy, confused priorities or unhealthy obsession. This is different than the Fine Arts as it is currently the trend (and its only a trend!) to believe that the materials and techniques should serve the idea and not vice versa . This deliberate and willful elevation of material above all else comes seemingly at the expense of more profound content, although why that should be accepted as self-evident beats me. Why is a dialogue between the maker and their medium and process not ideal?

Another thing I hear a lot is “Craft and Art are the same or have merged”
First off—other than cold hard cash, champagne and limos, why on earth would we want to be the same as or to merge with Fine Arts? Have you seen the conditions of the Fine Arts these days? Fine Arts are in a crisis. Have you not noticed that the decades of modernist deprivation has starved the field of most of its claim to relevance? That the relentless “purification” has led to so much less materiality and aesthetic impact that it has essentially castrated itself? Removed it from its source of power? Why would we merge with them?
Is this what you want for our field???
And yet, how many times have I heard someone make this claim—that “craft” and “art” have merged or even more bizarre, “the same thing”? Given the attitudes described above, how so? It is ever more obvious that the two practices are worlds apart in terms of attitude, output and methodology. Whether this is a result of nature or culture is debatable, but regardless, this is how things are. In the Fine Arts the end justifies the means and in craft, the means justifies the end. Art for art’s sake is beholden to nothing and no one while craft, for better or worse is the polar opposite, it responds to and is responsible to all. An artist is someone whose work is informed almost entirely by ideas and a craftsperson is one whose work is informed largely by process, material or functionality.

But no matter how much we may wish it otherwise, craft is seen as the lower. Now why is that? Darned bad luck? An unfortunate historical coincidence? A conspiracy by evil marketing overloads? Lets look at the historical reasons two words diverged and one became “lower” and the other, “higher”.
The terms “craft”, “applied arts” and “decorative arts” are relatively recent terms. In western culture, before the Renaissance, artists and artisans were more or less anonymous. Its not like “everyone was considered an artist back then”—on the contrary—more like “everyone was considered a craftsman”. So those who wish to elevate Craft aren’t trying to get something back but establish it for the first time.
When painting and sculpture became one of the Liberal Arts, the practitioners became academics, scholars and philosophers, if not brand names, rock stars and geniuses. They became exceptional and not the same as toilers and yeomen. They were valued for their brilliant ideas, and who manufactured them mattered less.

The next blow came with the Industrial Revolution, which necessitated a rethinking of craft owing to mechanization and mass production. This codified the institutional separations that arose in the 20th C, in part to the G.I. Bill and the idea of higher vocational training. There are still separate departments of Sculpture, Metals/Jewelry, Wood/Furniture and Glass, Industrial Design in art schools. Similarly museums have different curatorial departments that often break down on similar lines of applied versus fine art. There are also museums, magazines and collectors devoted exclusively to Craft or to Fine Art. Unless these institutions are dismantled, someone is claiming a pedagogical, if not categorical difference—however they may define it.

Lately we have suffered the end of nature and the death of God. Yikes—talk about nihilism! It is a great paradox that the more we dominate nature, the more we revere “the primitive”, and nowhere is this more evident than in than arts. As if somehow crudeness, awkwardness and ineptitude were somehow more authentic than cultivation and finesse. Having almost annihilated all of nature, yeah it would be a great idea to try to honor it for a change. Ironically, it ends up being OK to make baldly fecal art as long as you can claim to be some kind of shaman! But, of course, god forbid you should desire to transform clay into something other than a excretal gray blob. That would be artificial, concealing, not ‘true to nature”; as over processed as a TV dinner.

But before I go any further, I want to say that not all separations and hierarchies are bad. Not even ones in the art world—not even ones that delegate one sector of making to be extra special and elite and another to be crap. When navigating this world one must take into account the difference between something that represents a pinnacle of human expressive accomplishment and something mundane. We can’t level all objects into a vast all-inclusive category of “art”, “craft” or even “human production” wherein the Sistine Chapel ceiling would be the equivalent of a Dixie cup. Saying craft is the same as art blends a lot of different intents and objects into an indistinguishable mush. To do so is to generalize to the point of meaninglessness. It is truly a case of apples and oranges. There are things made to be treasured and things made to be trashed, things made to contain spirits and things made to contain spirit and sometimes there are things made to contain spirits that also contain spirit!
And elevating a spork to the equivalent of a silver spoon to avoid being racist, classist or any other “ist” is insulting to the intelligence in addition to depriving people of their autonomy to dream and aspire. There is a problem in that dispatching with hierarchies affects one’s ability to enjoy life. How can we recognize good without acknowledging the bad? Yeah, its unfair, but isn’t it worth it so we can actively pursue the good and avoid the bad? To pretend all objects are the same in order to "level the playing field” is to ensure that everyone loses the game. Someone of a paranoid nature might find this the basis of a conspiracy to anesthetize the masses into an army of obedient consumer zombies. We love Wal-Mart!
The fact is, we need to set aside some term for our highest; most exalted, sacrosanct expressions—even if we can’t agree on them. Like “beauty”, and “love”, “Art” is one of those abstractions that can only be defined subjectively, if at all. But, as the paragon of aesthetic experiences it is no less real for lack of defining—as witnessed in clichés like: “I don’t know what art is, but I know it when I see it”. We need to look up to something, to feel awe. But that the notion should be predicated on media or technique or even form (like “vessels”) is completely ludicrous.

So what’s the deal? What is the relationship of art to craft?
A quote attributed to Louis Pasteur (which he never said but should have) is “There’s no difference between applied science and pure science, just good science and bad science.” Just change “science” to “art” and you get the drift. So, if we must dispatch with stuff, can it just be the crap in any medium instead of, oh, say the whole category known as “Craft” or “Glass art”?
It seems that the best way to conceptualize this morass is as follows: In the field of human creative, artistic endeavors we have a range of activities and a range of results from those activities. From highly the highly inventive and original to the most repeated of historical and traditional forms and methods. From the most banal to the most exquisite and unique. From the most refined to the most crude. From the highly individual expressions to the most collective. From things engineered for display, decoration, to the most exaltedly spiritual and contemplative to the pragmatically useful. Sometimes these things overlap and sometimes they hover at the poles. None of these give any indication of how far up or down on the art scale they might be.

Material, technique and form are neutral. All are born with the equal potential to be that super special thing we call art—despite material, technique or associated tradition. All have the potential to scale the heights and or, conversely to bomb and become trash. Sometimes the maker’s intent actually impacts what they make—as in, sometimes a self-professed artist actually succeeds in making art. But it’s by no means a foregone conclusion—despite all the self-identified artists out there! Yes—a cup can be “as good as” a painting—a claim made ever easier by painting growing ever more vapid and awful. Some craft is art, no doubt about it; but not all; not even a lot. So yes, in terms of potential, art and craft are the same even if the institutions don’t recognize it.; as Louis Pasteur,famously didn't actually say (but, damn, I sure wish he had!): "There's no such thing as pure science versus applied science--only good science and bad science.

However, this does all of nothing to address the deeper issue. Why is there so much CRAFT ANXIETY? And what can and should we do about it? How did history come to see Craft as doomed to be the worser of two polarities? Why does work that emphasizes technique, utilizes certain materials and takes on traditional form earn less money and engender less respect? It seems so arbitrary and weird. Why not, say, more respect?? There are several main reasons, which are rather intertwined. The physical utility of craft objects, the physical materiality of them and the physical hand skills needed to make them are all in disrepute.
There are money and class issues, the sense that craft is obsolete, body dysmorphia, the fallout from the Fine Art’s identity crisis and, naturally, the entropy that prevents anything from changing course mid-stream.

Body Dysmorphia
Let’s start with body dysmorphia because I think, as a culture, we suffer from a nefarious ambivalence towards our bodies.
We are often uncomfortable with the intimacy of close-up encounters. We have entire codes of behavior devoted to when touching is appropriate and when it’s not.
There are times we prefer to keep an emotional, if not physical distance from that which we value. It’s no coincidence that art is literally untouchable, that which we touch, we taint.
And if you only love someone only for his or her body, well then, you are a sleaze!

We can traverse our feelings about objects from head to toe or, as it were, from sacred to profane. We place abstractions like beauty, love and truth far above fleshy, carnal or coarse material. There’s matter and what really matters, after all! Everyday objects are lower than people (and art)—so its OK to touch them, abuse them, exploit them. Our bodies act as a metaphorical hierarchy-- the mind is not only higher symbolically, but conveniently located nearer the heavens and at a significant distance above the feet, which must contact the dirt of the earth. The head is also far enough from our privates to imagine them as having a (somewhat mischievous) will of their own. Consuming and processing food and its attendant waste, sex and other basic survival needs remind us that our bodies are messy and make embarrassing, uncontrollable and noises, smells, fluids and demands. Most of the stuff that is in us we ardently hope stays in there and the rest we are anxious to flush away (with the notable exception of babies). Even worse? Bodies die and rot.
Craft items are frequently defined as those of a utilitarian nature, having to do with bodily function. Reflecting their usage, the forms craft objects take are often a reminder of our physicality—they are body-like—as in vessels. Clothing, and furniture have arms and legs (but no heads!).
Plenty of people just want to wish our nasty corporeality away and the associated devices and objects are similarly subject to our loathing. Handwork and technique are a little too easily separated from “The Life of the Mind”. Its not crafts fault we are scared and humiliated by our bodies—and it’s no surprise that is scapegoated.

Another fallout from its close association with bodies is that Craft is subject to a fear of idolatry. Perhaps we worship truth, love, beauty and maybe even God, but usually not cups and plates. This is the difference between false idols and “real gods”. One is just a thing...to imbue it with extra power is perverted, superstitious and ludicrous. Material objects can seem fetishistic, easily commodifiable and thus all about consumption and unhealthy appetites. Objects also get old and worn...just like we do, and ohmigosh, there’s another unpleasant reminder of our mortality! And then what? Toss it so you can get a shiny new one! Fill up the landfills with more junk . Rightly, we associate our materialistic tendencies with greed, waste and environmental devastation. Concepts don’t have that problem. They are exalted and ethereal and make us look immortal and morally righteous.

Money, Class, Labor and Skill Issues
As if bodies and their abundant issues aren’t enough, there’s more to worry about! Let’s start with the easy one, money and value. Craft suffers from the same problem anything that is produced in multiples does in the arts. Rare and inaccessible generally equals more valuable. People pay more for what’s extraordinary and hard to come by. Craft objects tend to be small, used by hand and used by everybody in everyday life. Therefore, they are also going to be necessarily more common, available and accessible. Owing to their frequent use and, often mindless interaction, they rarely seem extraordinary. Never mind how one’s life might be improved by not taking every little moment for granted (as the Japanese glorify with their tea ceremony and their aesthetic of wabi-sabi.)

Perhaps more damning is the fact that it’s not too far a leap of the imagination from throwing pots to the manual labor of mucking the stalls. Many people dislike physical labor. The ruling class doesn’t get sweaty or get their hands dirty, end of story. Labor and material reminds us a little too much of.... slavery...either in the standard sense of horrific exploitation of others or in the sense of slavish devotion—unhealthy obsession (as I mentioned with regard to dedicating one’s self to one medium). There is a big issue of service. Art answers to no one—but craft is often about utility and thus is bound to us, serving our needs. And that makes us superior, no? Cups serve us, not the other way around—as evidenced in names like a tea service.
As I said earlier, the Fine Arts, since the advent of Modernism, take for granted the notion that the materials and techniques should serve the idea and not vice versa. Again, the idea of service, with the idea as the ultimate master over the rest of creative production. For this reason, skill and technique are as unpopular as material. The idea of skill has been more or less entirely eradicated from Fine Arts education (a good reason to keep craft and fine art separate in our schools). Why bother working up a sweat developing skills when it’s perfectly acceptable, encouraged even, to just purchase stuff and display it? Why bother wasting time practicing one’s “craft” when it’s perfectly acceptable, encouraged even to make work that’s considered “raw and direct”
or when its perfectly acceptable, encouraged even to get assistants to do that part for you?
Because of all this, the status gap between craft and art is a class issue.
Those who strive to be ranked amongst the “Haves” value art as its exclusivity and one-of-a kindness confirms a unique, hard-to-attain position in life and conversely, they dislike Craft as it reminds them of common folk and toiling servants.
As if that wasn’t bad enough—the “Have Nots” are disinclined to value skill and virtuosity, as it is unfair and undemocratic! Virtuosity is primarily available to the privileged, those who have endless time to practice, the money to get a fancy education or the random lucky prodigy. Extreme abilities with no philosophy substantiating them are merely the performances of show-offs or a fatuous demonstration of outmoded values, mechanically executed by meaty automatons, exhibitionistic blowhards or perhaps, on a good day, autistics. Why buy into this when we are inundated with acceptably perfect clone items made much more cheaply by actual machines on a daily basis?

So, what’s important and distinct about Craft that we should bother preserving it?
One thing about the so-called “low” technology of hand made craft is that it represents a huge body of knowledge. Shouldn’t the default position on any branch of knowledge be “keep it, don’t dump it”? Not all valuable knowledge is exclusively verbal, last I looked. The knowledge of craft is a vast area that involves intimate kinesthetic understanding of the physical body and its needs and desires. It includes an intimate knowledge of materials and how to construct with them. It includes a deep understanding of tool use, how materials respond to touch, and how our bodies move and respond to the objects they interact with. Craft knowledge is the exclusive nexus between bodies and using, making and enjoying things. Dispatch with that at your own risk!
We might, also, want to acknowledge the transitory nature of societies. They tend to collapse. It helps to have people versed in how to make stuff. If one could elect to NOT lose a body of knowledge, why would one arrogantly declare one obsolete and dispatch with it? Can we afford to outsource this?

There is a lot of truth in the "quality of life" defense of preserving Craft. I can see how easy it would be to assume a cynical or a so-called “practical” stance but regardless of how nostalgic and sentimental it all seems, craft’s virtue bears further attention. To put it very simply, most evils in the world, on both a personal and a mass scale, are ultimately caused by fear, and anger. And what do we fear ultimately? What makes us really frustrated, enraged and terrified? That we might be nothing, that our lives might be meaningless. Well, surrounding oneself with industrially manufactured clone trash items is hardly going to make one feel like an individual, let alone a cherished one.

It’s true that handmade objects do have more character than mass-produced ones! Yes, to use a handmade object is to be in communion with the maker of the object! And yes, yes, yes, unique objects enrich our lives more than soulless, machine made ones!! All it takes is simple sensitivity, awareness and an open mind. We have been brainwashed into craving the slick uniformity of mass production. These goods don’t age well—the patina of use and abuse looks odd, dirty or messy and if it isn’t “new” anymore, hey, why not go buy a sparkly fresh one and support our financial economy! But at what cost to everything else? Are we really prepared to suffer the consequences of preferring brand new at the cost of treasuring things being held dear for a lifetime?

Finally: people have hands. They enjoy using them. Until our hands mutate from digital to “digital”—meaning from fingers into mouse-clicking flippers, a certain proportion of the population is going to be eager to employ their hands in activities like knitting, wood work, playing with clay etc. The desire to be a craftsperson has not disappeared in synch with our technology. So what to do with all these burgeoning craftspeople? Interventions? “Deprogramming”? Lobotomies? Labor camps?

Fine Art and the Dialectical Other-- Craft is the Collateral Damage of Art’s Identity Crisis
So craft suffers from being too close to the body and too far from the head and from being a nagging reminder of servitude and too natural in some circumstances and not natural enough others. This enables Fine Arts to swoop in and occupy the top spot, near the head and away from the ditch.
Ergo, much of Craft’s identity crisis is actually watershed from the massive predicament Fine arts has found itself in. In a way, Fine Craft represents a huge threat to Fine Art’s elite status as the sole provider of aesthetic nourishment.

Art is a funny, funny thing. You think you have worries trying to figure out what “craft” is? Try defining “Art”. The term “Art” is utterly fugitive. Of course, Art doesn’t have to define itself and as long as art cannot be defined, then its shadow—all the stuff that isn’t art but is kind of like it, is just as doomed to being indefinable.

For the most part and we continue to reap what was sown when Fine Arts disassociated itself from practical (and religious) purpose. The course was set in place during the Renaissance. “Art for Art’s Sake” has always contained the seeds of its own destruction (or at least, radical transmutation). Modernism saw a call for new extremes of originality, overthrowing the previous avant-garde or even a need (however secret) for novelty that left the idea of traditional form in the dust. In its eagerness to reject the past, contemporary Fine Art has thrown out the baby with the bathwater so frequently that the army of discarded babies is threatening a zombie-style take over.
Fine Arts claim no responsibility to be anything to anybody and whatever it is; it often comes with an astronomical price tag. They have become increasingly inaccessible and rarified, both intellectually and materially. By ever tightening its focus, Art has treed itself at the very top of a pyramid and it has almost defined itself out of its own practice. (The bone has become a space station...) Meaning, that in the name of “purity” or perhaps, “critical theory” Fine Art washed its hands of technique, aesthetics, skill, narrative, figuration, material and even objecthood and substance. As Art grew ever more dependent on the ideas rather than the object itself, it was inevitable that at some point the object might just...vaporize.... POOF!

Conclusion
That which we term Fine Art is in danger of launching itself into an entire new field—that of cultural critique, or maybe philosophy. By claiming exclusivity, whatever that means this week, there’s obviously going to be a lot of exclusion going on. Assuming people still have senses, bodies and a physical existence... the craving for beauty and the need for actual objects is a gaping vacuum that will necessarily be filled by something. And we will need to find a new word to describe actual aesthetic objects.... perhaps the word Craft might find itself willing to loan its fine name?
(Boy, will MAD be mad then!)

Art has abdicated the throne! Art is dead, long live Crafts! But, for goodness sakes, let’s not become them! Viva le difference!!!
Let’s not fill the void at the expense of what makes Craft unique. Never, ever believe that skill is anything less then the measure of the miraculous feats that our hands, our HUMAN HANDS, inextricably attached to our brains, are capable of. Never, ever believe that materials are lesser than the mind of who is employing them...

Never doubt, for a single instant, that to passionately dedicate oneself to a vein of material knowledge is one of the very best ways to find levels of inspiration and avenues of creativity that are unavailable to those who flit about on the surface. Never doubt this leads to enlightenment! Never change this to suit the times as it is a timeless fact (until we evolve) that if anything, monomanical devotion is one of the surest paths to discovery, originality, and deep spiritual truths. And god help us if those are out of fashion.

There’s more at stake here than words, kudos and money—entire domains of knowledge stand at risk for being lost. The imperative of teaching craft and preserving craft knowledge at any sort of rigorous level is seriously threatened. In many cases craft is being absorbed into the fine arts—with many craftspeople cheering this on. But do you really think the things we value are staying similar enough to painting and sculpture that those technologies will be preserved in fine art departments, collegiate and curatorial? Deskill all you want; all it only means is more outsourcing. Not to mention the loss of a precious body of knowledge that is irreplaceable, priceless and a profound expression of our identity and potential.

Never doubt that Craft, the dogged pursuit of material and technical when allied with expression, emotion, and of course, intellect are a primary instance of healing the pernicious mind body split that ultimately denies all unity; in life and in metaphor.
We have a bi-polar world view in which bodies, sensual and earthy; manual labor, from brutal toiling to fine motor skill; and physical material, from precious to despicable are suspicious, dangerous and somehow at odds with ideas, spirit and inspiration. Fine Arts, as a western cultural institution largely supports that view. But in Craft these are all false dichotomies. Never underestimate what it means to have a deep connection to and a deep understanding of the material world!! We are, ourselves.... material! Craft, as it honors the carnal, the sensible, the sensual, the perceptible, the palpable stands uniquely poised to bring art back to a place of fusion...back to where materials and concepts can cohere, not collapse, where technique and analysis can be a dialectic, not a fight and back to the mysterious spot in our body where spirit meets matter. You know—they used to say it was in the pineal gland...(its still up for grabs!).... Ultimately the task of being alive is to integrate ourselves; to become as fully alive and as fully human as we can be—body and mind. As long as we see them as separate, we are doomed—to disrespect ourselves, our planet and everything on it and in it. Only when we stop hating ourselves will Craft be accorded the respect that is its due. You want to hate a work just because its glass? Go ahead—I DARE YOU!

Can we say mind and body come together in CRAFT? Yes we can. Never apologize for being a craftsperson. Never.

Nudes that are dudes.

2011-04-21T14:56:00.001-07:00

Click on them to enlarge, if you are a size queen.

By the way, they are all graphite on 18" x 12" paper.

Bon Appetit!

from the Renwick show

2011-04-13T08:37:00.000-07:00

Brief interview here!!

2011-04-13T07:19:00.000-07:00

Renwick Invitational

2011-03-30T02:11:00.000-07:00

History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational 2011

1st floor, Renwick Gallery,
March 25, 2011 – July 31, 2011 1661 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. (at 17th Street)
Washington, D.C. 20006
Museum Information (recorded): (202) 633-7970
Smithsonian Information: (202) 633-1000

featuring ME, Ubaldo Vitali, silversmith, Cliff Lee, ceramist, and Matthias Pliessnig, furniture.

Upstairs in the Grand Salon is a show of paintings on loan from the American Museum. This is me in front of a painting of Vinnie Ream. I am descended from the Ream family.

Eastern State Penitentiary Project

2011-03-12T11:45:00.000-08:00

Hey listen up!

If you are interested in following along with the Eastern State Penitentiary project, you can do so by signing up at United States Artists.
The project is already funded, however one can still sign on to be a follower. This is where updates and images will be posted, not on this blog or on my Facebook page.

The very first window was installed today and there's a link to a private photo album at USA Artists. Here is a teaser photo to provide the proper incentive:
That's installer and artist Bryan Willette doing all the work!

Art Phag Hag

2011-03-11T08:15:00.000-08:00

This here's a short video for your viewing pleasure (or pain):

It was made by Marc Brodzik (Woodshop Films and Scrapple TV) and I am speaking to my friend Eric McDade, (who also did a vid for Woodshop).

The video co-stars, Rain, the cat!

Blurred Horizons

2011-03-02T10:57:00.000-08:00

Hey Peoples!
I am lecturing next week at:

Philadelphia Art Alliance

251 South Eighteenth Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103

Telephone: 215-545-4302 Fax: 215-545-0767 www.philartalliance.org

Here's part of their press release for your edification:

The Commonwealth:

PAA’s flagship lecture series examining the state of the modern craft and design movement

March 10, 2011 – 7:00 PM

Speaker: Judith Schaechter, Award-winning stained glass artist and educator

Topic: Blurred Horizons: Fine Art vs. Craft

PHILADELPHIA, PA –The Philadelphia Art Alliance is pleased to announce the second lecture in our Spring 2011 schedule for our newest program stream, The Commonwealth! Continuing with PAA’s new mission of the advancement and appreciation of contemporary craft and design, The Commonwealth will explore the current issues pertaining to the modern craft and design movement, through panel discussions and lectures by artists, academics and curators from the notable craft specific institutions in the city and the larger Northeast Corridor. This series is the product of collaborations between PAA and nationally featured artist/educator Doug Bucci, who is serving as Program Curator.

It is $5 and you can buy tix online here!

Hey: I have been writing on this subject for a while now...or should I say ranting and raving? Will I really discuss "blurring the lines"? Hmmm.....maybe yes, maybe no....I was kind of hoping to offer some clarity, actually...but that might be too much to hope for. I was thinking of trying to blurt the whole thing out in one breath....but its 7 pages so far...call the paramedics!

I do promise to discuss toilet bowls. I do use the phrase "dialectical other". Consider yourself warned!

Here's a pretty picture to entertain you. I think it explains pretty much everything....

click

2011-02-18T07:32:00.000-08:00

here! Ten Words and One Shot.

Eastern State

2011-02-15T15:33:00.001-08:00

Many of you know I am working this year on a series of windows for Eastern State Penitentiary here in Philadelphia.
I have made the decision not to post updates (or at least not very many and not too many pictures) on this blog because I felt it was a conflict of interest. Let me explain: I was given the opportunity, outside of E.S.P. to raise funds. This was done through a new initiative by United States Artists.
I was successful in raising all the funds I was asking for!!!! And I am immensely grateful to the donors and to USA Artists. Now, their website has a blog feature (called "Updates") so donors and followers get privileged info via the site. I don't think it would be fair to them to post here as well, since that was a special perk of being a member of the site.
HOWEVER: one need not have donated to be a "follower".
If you are interested in reading my updates on this project and seeing images of the work in progress please go here and sign up as a "follower" of my project. At the top right of the page is a "sign up" button. Let me know if this doesn't allow you to follow my project as I am a bit uncertain how this works.

If I use part of a piece as a demo I will post on this blog, however as this seems the appropriate venue for that type of post.
Just to prove I mean what I say, above is a head for window #2 and below is the layers used to create the colors.

French antique blue on clear #11 (only because I can't get Lambert's light enough!!!!), An old sheet of Desag gold pink on clear (same reason its not Lamberts--which I far would prefer to be using!) and LAMBERT'S red/ cl B. Stencil black and silver stain.

this is just a test

2011-02-08T04:34:00.001-08:00

Something I'm diddling around with in Photoshop. It is a full figure from the drawing below. Probably these wide eyed little girls have had more than their meme-day...but I can't seem to lose interest! Perhaps someone should stage an intervention. (Note to the overly literal: that was a joke.)
For goodness sakes, click on it to see it big!! All those pixels...just for yooooou!

More info than you asked for

2011-01-27T02:26:00.000-08:00

Here is my skeddy for the next year or so as it stands today......

MARCH:
Exhibition: “History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational 2011”

1st floor, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution
March 25, 2011 – July 31, 2011
“History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational 2011 presents the work of ceramic artist Cliff Lee, furnituremaker Matthias Pliessnig, glass artist Judith Schaechter and silversmith Ubaldo Vitali. These four extraordinary artists create works of superior craftsmanship that address the classic craft notion of function without sacrificing a contemporary aesthetic.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lecture: Thursday, March 10th – 7:00 PM
THE COMMONWEALTH:
Speaker: Judith Schaechter
Topic: Blurred Horizons: Fine Art vs. Craft

Admission $5 Buy Tickets Online!
“The Philadelphia Art Alliance is pleased to present the next installment in our new flagship lecture series, The Commonwealth. On Thursday, March 10th, PAA will host Philadelphia artist and educator Judith Schaechter for a lecture entitled “Blurred Horizons: Fine Art vs. Craft”. Ms. Schaechter, a distinguished artist who has received multiple fellowships from prestigious foundations such as The National Endowment for the Arts, PEW Trust and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, will speak about the inspiration for her modern stained glass work and examine the trajectory of craftspeople who have sought to position themselves as fine artists over the last half-century.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

APRIL:

Lecture:“Creativity: Surviving Challenges”
The Professional Institute for Educators
Continuing Studies | The University of the Arts
215.717.6431

“Artist Judith Schaechter will show some examples of her own intricate, narrative glasswork and will talk about approaches to creative thinking – both as an artist in studio practice and as a teacher guiding students in developing their craft and concepts.

How can new creative ideas be cultivated? The creative process is weird, elusive and ultimately unknowable. Sometimes ideas occur suddenly, sometimes they linger and sometimes there is the dreaded “block.” How can teachers in the arts help students to embrace and better understand that creativity and perseverance are essential, yet difficult? How can art teachers help students value the process of exploration to find multiple possibilities?

Schaechter has considered these questions, influenced by the Multiple Intelligences research of Howard Gardner, to explore the challenges that artists face. She developed a quiz to guide her students in the exploration and discussion of their own creativity in practice---looking at inspiration, work habits, motivation, beliefs and audience.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Late April/early May:
Visiting artist in residence at Australia National University in Canberra Australia. Glass Department.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JUNE:
BeCON Conference
Bullseye Glass, Portland Oregon
I am delivering the keynote address and also teaching a one day workshop June 20th.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OCTOBER:
Exhibition:
“Cute & Creepy” (group exhibition)
October 7 (opening date) – November 20, 2011
Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MARCH 2012:
Exhibition:
Installation of 10-15 windows at Eastern State Penitentiary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! First major showing in Philly since 1999-ish!!!!!!!
Link to art installation program at ESP

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Upcoming (no date)
My work will be featured on skateboards by MakerUSA! I guess I should stop telling those durned kids to quit skateboarding in front of my house....
“Maker collective exists as a place where the reverence for the handmade is at the core of our mission, where an authentic life is one where inspiration and insight inform the hands and work of the artistic soul.”

As always.....my work is exclusively represented by Claire Oliver Gallery
513 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10001 / Tel: 212.929.5949 / Info@ClaireOliver.com

Say good by to Germ Books

2011-01-21T10:27:00.000-08:00

Hey peeps who like Germ books!! Friends and fans of the fantastic David E. Williams!!

Come out and say goodbye on Monday with me! (for the record--I am NOT "co-hosting" this event--I will be there, that's all)

So sad to see this fantastic "institution" close its doors....

THE END OF GERM

A night in tribute to David E. Williams and the closing of Fishtown's legendary GERM books/gallery

Monday Jan 24 - 9pm FREE

with tributes from Radio Eris, Jon Canady, David Talento, Red Masque, the Nikola Tesla Inventors Club and more LIVE

National Mechanics

22 S. 3rd St. btween Chestnut and Market

All the Noose that's fit to print

2011-01-06T02:27:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of posting....may I plead holiday distractions?
Here's what's going on at Studio House of Rats:

1. new print "Feral Child" 60" wide....woot woot!

2. Sculpture (currently in plasticine, to be cast in glass by Steve Easton). Hey--sculpture is fun! Who knew????

3. I am writing a book. Title suggestions welcome...this is going to be five essays.

"Beauty-Inspiration-Creativity"--this incorporates the beauty essays from this blog--rewritten for the ten thousandth time. I swear...this time nailed it. yeah right!

"Craft in the Age of Digital Technology"--craft...what is it distinct from fine arts and design, why should anyone care, etc.

"This is Not a Pipe" on the notion "authenticity"--originally for a symposium at Camden Rutgers but posted here too.

"Treasure and Torture" --art and politics. Ugh. I hate politics. This was written originally to present to my UArts students in conjunction with a project they were assigned. They were tasked with responding to the "Tesoros" exhibition at the Philly PMA, an exhibition of post-colonial South American art and artifacts.

"Light, Divine and Otherwise"--stained glass and light.

So enough about me...how do you think I look?

A Call to End Media Prejudice in the Arts

2010-11-14T04:52:00.000-08:00

I know...its not quite got the same urgency as Civil Rights or Equal Rights.... but still...

How many times have I heard critics, academics, curators, collectors, dealers and yes.... even artists, for God’s sakes, publically trotting out their ignorant and insufferable belief that working in certain media is somehow lesser than another.

SHAME ON YOU!!!!!

Critics, academics, curators, collectors and dealers: get a clue. Mediums are media. They mediate. They are the thing that’s in between the artist and the work of art...you know, the thing that really matters? Why care if the substance is glass, ceramics, oil paint, paper, poop or bubble gum? Isn’t the entire point what’s being done with it?

I have heard that glass is a ghetto. That craft is a ghetto. I was once uninvited from a speaking gig because the painting department head heard I worked in glass (she never even bothered to look at the work)!

Is it a ghetto? Well, if we insist on making it one, I suppose so.

Here is the issue that this prejudice is based on, as I understand it: “Craft is based on technique and materials rather than intellect”. OK, so I have to ask: and that’s bad and wrong why exactly? Wait—I’ll pretend to be one of these people and answer that myself:

1. Body dysmorphia: In setting up Art versus Craft as a dichotomy of mind versus body, or brawn versus brain, the body is going to be the loser because its seen as stupid, and often disgusting. Bodies are messy and make embarrassing demands. Then they die.

2. False Idol Worship: In setting up Art versus Craft as a dichotomy of materials versus concepts the material will lose because its, well...materialistic. Material seems fetishistic; overly commodifiable and it reminds us we are greedy and using up our natural resources. Concepts don’t have that problem. They are lofty and ethereal and make us look immortal and morally righteous.

2A. More False Idol Worship: In committing one’s work to a singular branch of material knowledge (i.e. being a “glass artist” or a “clay artist” etc) one is deliberately and willfully elevating material above all else at the expense of more profound content. It is a form of misguided monomania because it is believed that the materials should fit the idea and not vice versa.

3. Class Issues: In setting up Art versus Craft as a dichotomy between process and technique versus analysis and discourse, process and technique will lose because virtuosity is seen as showing off and as a performance rather than a philosophy... Skill and labor remind us a little too much of.... slavery...either in the standard sense of horrific exploitation of others or in the sense of slavish devotion—unhealthy obsession.

4. For Artists Only: there’s more money and clout in being called an artist than a craftsperson or “glass artist” or “oven mitt maker” or whatever. See above for the reasons why.

But........what's going on here?..............is this stuff true? NO!!!!!!!!...........wait for it......!!!...........These are all false dichotomies. Duh. We need to unify mind/body not banish them from one another. We need material and concept to cohere, not collapse. We need technique and analysis to be a dialectic, not a fight.

Marriage, peeps, not divorce. Stop gnawing your arms off trying to get away from what scares you cuz it ain’t going away!!!!! Deskill ALL YOU WANT; all it means is more outsourcing. Not to mention the loss of a BODY of knowledge that is irreplaceable and priceless.

A special word to artists working in craft media who insist on supporting these prejudices. THAT’S BAD!!!!!!!!!! STOP IT!!!!!! Have some effing pride for goodness sakes!

Militant Ornametnalists, unite! And don’t cow to these harmful and ignorant beliefs. Stand up for the gloriousness of your chosen profession and be happy and secure in the knowledge that devotion to materials and process are just as righteous a path to enlightenment as anything else. Just because monomaniacal devotion is out of fashion doesn’t mean you should apologize—if anything monomaniacal devotion is one of the surest paths to discovery, originality, and deep spiritual truths. And god help us if those are out of fashion.

As Louis Pasteur once famously said*: “There’s no such thing as applied science and pure science, just good science and bad science” So, if we must dispatch with stuff, can it just be the crap in any medium instead of, oh, say the whole category known as “Craft” or “Glass art”?

Can’t we all just get along?

*Actually, supposedly he didn’t really say this. Too bad, cuz it’s an awesome quote.

demoliciousness

2010-10-07T14:19:00.000-07:00

Its been a while!
I don't want anyone to stop chatting up this blog's more arcane topics because its rockin' my world...
but here's a demo in case you are jonesing for one.

This is what this piece currently looks like on the light table. Her arms aren't done yet, that's why they are blue and not purple.

She is comprised of two layers. On the left is St. Just Blue on Clear #11. Very pale. Never underestimate how much color pale tones are in stained glass. The red is Lambert's R/cl 1001b.
About that red layer: people get freaked out about sandblasting "too much". The glass is pricey, yes, but you are paying for the layers, not the color. Sometimes you just have to be brave and sandblast like a maniac. Trust me on this.

This is the sketch (which I colorized in photoshop just for amuse myself.)

Here are some of the stages of the work: on the top left she's been sandblasted as a silhouette and I made some magic marker indications. I have done a little work with the flex shaft--but mostly I am starting to file the tones into the figure. The top middle shows a bit further along the process and the top right shows all the highlights filed into it.
The bottom row is the two firings I did of the painting. As always I use stencil black vitreous paint. I did only the two firings.

The whole bod.

This is a close up of the two layers together. She's purple now because I wiped some transparent red oil paint on her. I want to emphasize that its a teensy tinsy amount...and it has this huge effect of the color. This isn't lightfast. DON'T put oil paint on a window intended to receive UV light (that's THE SUN). This is not a technique that is appropriate for work installed in architecture.

OK--this is important so listen up!!!!!! I don't know how I want these windows to look like finished. I prefer to find out as I go. One of the things that's most important is trying things out in layers. So here are four pictures with sample layers taken from my "Bulk Failure" boxes to see what looks interesting--I'm just messing with colors and patterns here. This is crucial and one can learn a TON doing this. Don't assume you know what a layer is going to look like ahead of time. You don't! Its really amazing what happens and its a lot of fun, to boot.

It will eventually inspire the rest of the piece. Right now, I don't know who she is or why she's wearing a fishnet bodystocking that makes her look like a cheese hanging in the Italian Market. As soon as she's happy with her outer layer, I am certain she'll let me know!

Deep Thoughts

2010-10-03T09:30:00.000-07:00

I was reading this blog by an old friend of my family’s. I was fascinated by this particular post in which he discusses the mind/brain problem. Now, I am very interested in anything pertaining to the mind/body because I would say that therein lies the dilemma, the drama, the delight of ART but I’ll get to that in a minute.

It would seem that culture has encouraged a widening of the mind/body gap that has the chasm getting bigger and bigger, like two tectonic plates determined to form continents that will be settled eventually by warring tribes. I have my theories why. To reduce them to a single sentence? I would say we despise our bodies because they DIE—best to focus on the soul which we can’t usually observe rot so we can pretend its eternal. The Industrial Revolution didn’t help with the mind/body split problem as it reinforced the idea of physical labor being the realm of the poor, the uneducated and unfortunate and entirely a separate thing from those who were rich and schooled and could live an intellectual existence and a leisurely life thinking deep thoughts. I hate that. Especially as a craftsperson. Of course, I work with my hands and I can see clearly its not just the head that is intelligent and that hand skills are a vast body of knowledge—and one our culture undervalues to the point where we are in danger of losing it altogether. Let’s see where that gets us shall we? Outsourcing, anyone? Its gonna be a bitch if society collapses or the bombs drop.

Mechanization certainly enabled us to imagine our thoughts as being entirely divorced from our senses and our physical existence. Everyone knows their soul doesn’t look nasty like a spleen. It looks like this. Or, I guess, like this! (Perhaps they could rename it the “Penile Gland”?)

OK, bear with me here—I will try to relate these concepts at some point!

Because I am evil, I asked my students at NYAA to define art. Not in the personal sense, but the universal. Cuz I’m just nutty that way, I assume commonalities—that all peoples have always made artistic stuff and I wanted the students to think about some sort of baseline definition.

I then gave a power point about the definition I came up with... which I have since decided was a bit overly wordy and I have simplified it. Before I poison you with my definition however, I shall insert an absorbing graphic so you can come to your own conclusions without the influence of my own incredibly persuasive mumbo jumbo.

OK—done? Please add it to the comments!

My universal, all encompassing definition of ART is thus: the marriage of form and content.

I have also asked my students at times, to define creativity. I define it, not as “an original idea” but as creating relationships between disparate ideas. Now if Art is the marriage of form and content its sort of the ultimate union of two incompatible ideas.

Think about language: that’s putting ideas into forms too—no wonder most of my students answered the art definition as some variation on the idea of communication. I actually think that art’s communicative power is sort of a side affect and that we have verbal cognition for a reason!! Art is no replacement. It’s more like telepathy than talking. And its very personal, one to one communication—it’s not preaching (lest it become propaganda)

So, to marry physical form to mental content sounds easy. Hahahahahahaha! Joke’s on you. Artists know that it’s damned near impossible to do in any original way or with any finesse—you non-artists try it sometime! Get back to me with pictures, please.

But my point here is that the artist is re-enacting the greatest creative connection in the universe. That of spirit to matter—content to form. Perhaps it’s why religious people can see artistic creation as being in competition with God-the-Creator. To actually, successfully turn the intellectual, the emotional, and the inspirational into a physical THING is pretty miraculous.

The aware (sometimes even enlightened) human soul is packaged in this gloppy, wrinkly object... Where do they actually connect? Where does the soul begin and the brain end? I’m guessing in that synaptic leap. If it’s something scannable then maybe someday we can diagnose artists!

It’s enough to make you religious....

Wanamaker Organ

2010-10-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

If you are from Philadelphia you are probably familiar with the organ in what used to be Wanamaker's (now a Macy's)
A friend of mine and UArts alum, Scott Kip, is part of the team that works restoring and preserving it and he gave me and some friends an inside tour. Its five stories of rooms--very labyrinthine and compressed in terms of space. It is very much analogous to being inside a body as it seems to have a circulatory system, a nervous system, lungs (so MANY lungs! its pneumatic, after all) and intestines. Just an incredible place.
Click here to see the album of pics.

harpy engraving

2010-09-20T10:50:00.001-07:00

click to enlarge! This is on a piece of Lambert's blue on clear flash glass "B". Its about 13" x 17"
The procedure:
Sandblasted the silhouette--no detail. Just a light blast.
Traced drawing on glass with a razor point sharpie.
Engraved highlights and roughed out some of the shading (not too much)
Used a file to smooth out the tones.
There's some sharpie marker on the mouth. I don't really want to paint that on but I may.

The bottom image is me trying out a layer on the lightbox. That red is an outtake from my piece "Nature".

Eastern State Penitentiary project

2010-09-17T01:47:00.000-07:00

From my proposal--a photoshopped image of what a cell might look like filled with the colored light cast by a stained glass window.

Example of the amazing spaces at Eastern State.

Hi all! I am super excited about this bit of breaking noose!
I have been chosen as one of the artists to do an installation at the historic ruin, Eastern State Penitentiary.

For many years, this has been my dream venue--its a truly amazing place. Each cell has chapel-like proportions and a window aperture reminiscent of a cathedral architecture. Not to mention the beauty of the decay....its an amazing place. I aim to make ten windows in all.

I am also working with United State's Artists Project Site to help raise funds. This site has a number of features that may interest people in that one can follow the project, interact with me etc. If you do choose to participate by funding--hey I will send you a present! And its not a tote bag, I promise! Pledges start at 1$, FYI.

You can access my page here !

I will have a blog at that site where I update my progress and my thoughts about the project...feel free to follow along.

I thank you so much for your interest and your support...!!!!♥♥♥♥

Eclectix interview

2010-09-11T04:26:00.000-07:00

interview here!

Andromeda

2010-08-21T12:05:00.001-07:00

Girl on a bench

2010-08-19T11:12:00.001-07:00

Rat or wolf?

2010-08-14T11:40:00.000-07:00

This is what the sketch looks like in real life.
And this is what it could look like (when I do it in glass)--this is a photoshop fix. The only difference is a shorter muzzle and the tail.

I am curious as to whether or not the fixed one actually looks more wolf-like to you. Because I dunno if I should bother changing it.

Cassandra

2010-08-05T10:24:00.000-07:00

Cassandra. Click to enlarge...seriously as she looks much better a bit bigger.

Harpy

2010-08-01T14:25:00.001-07:00

what I did this weekend. Besides bonk my head while attempting to "garden".
As usual, click to enlarge.

Me talkin'

2010-07-21T09:38:00.000-07:00

Interview up at Phawker.

David Byrne weighs in on art vs craft debate....

2010-06-22T08:10:00.001-07:00

For the most part I really liked this article...
BUT then he said:

"A song is not better because it has more chords, and it certainly isn’t better because I labored over it longer...odds are, that extra labor might mean it’s simply overworked."

With all due respect to one of my punk rock gods, this made me quite angry as I see this response to labor, skill and technique as the knee jerk post modern de rigueur elevation of intellect which implies that it is somehow a separate process from hand work. Bad punk rock man!

Second of all, the relationship of labor to results is not so simple. I have often really struggled with work only to have the really easy ones be the best. NO KIDDING. But does this mean I should stop doing that? No way! It just means that some are easier. More importantly, I assume the intense labor from the hard ones informs the easy ones. Or at least gets me to a new level...

Sometimes more labor improves a piece and sometimes it does not. I feel very strongly that teaching restraint is a HUGE mistake. Overwork things, then edit. Seeing how far you can push things is way more informative that seeing how good you are at stopping. Overworking leads to discovery. Restraint, not so much.

But to say "odds are ..its overworked" is ludicrous. The odds are that most people are lazy and don't put enough work into their stuff. Occam's razor. 99% of people are in NO DANGER of working too hard!

stuff I'm kind of working on....

2010-06-19T12:42:00.000-07:00

If you are a long time reader of this blog, you may recall this hooded face was a demo some months back. She has acquired a body at long last! I may change the color of her gown by adding another layer (although I kind of like it this way...dunno yet...)
And this one I blogged about a few posts back....

On the light table they seemed to be interacting....hmmmmmmmm.....

Beauty revisited

2010-06-08T08:23:00.000-07:00

I rewrote the essay...and...uh...I think I nailed it this time! Not only are some of the muddled parts less muddled, but there is an expanded section on prettiness and ugliness...plus a thrilling joy ride into Tall Poppy Syndrome!

I will spare you all and put it behind a cut.

Click to show the rest of article

PART I: Introduction

I am not interested in ideas about beauty. I don’t find it thought provoking. On the contrary, I find beauty to be thought annihilating. Which is as it should be. I believe the experience of beauty to be universal. Every culture has a sense of beauty—although we could argue the details and the semantics.
The real question isn’t “is beauty in the eye of the beholder or is it a quality in the beheld” anyway—the real question is: “do we desire something because it’s beautiful or is it beautiful because we desire it?” It’s a chicken/egg question.

Because beauty is really not a particularly verbal or intellectual experience, critics, theorists and philosophers can argue forever that its irrelevant and we can all even agree on that point...basically, you can deny it all you want, and still, the appetite continues to rage completely unfazed, unabated and entirely undiminished. Similar to the smitten lover who knows they’ve chosen an inappropriate partner, passionate love blazes on regardless of all rational logic.

What is “beauty”? Because for this talk to have any meaning there needs to be a definition put forth at the outset. So here’s my provisional definition, which keeps getting revised with invasive surgery every time I visit this topic!
“Beautiful” is a sacrosanct term reserved for the extra special peak aesthetic experience that appeals to our “soul” as well as to our senses; “Beauty” is the transformative experience of being filled with desire and inspiration. The simplest way I define “aesthetic Beauty” is that it is the object, the embodiment, of our love, which we perceive as attractive in appearance. So now you can relax while I digress a bit...

I want to be clear, that in discussing “beauty” I am distinguishing between “beautiful nature” and “man made beauty” and also between “beautiful ideas” and “beautiful objects”. As an artist I am interested in the aesthetics of man-made objects.
Nature is beautiful. No kidding—one hears this ALL the time, its hardly a burning debate. But it’s not really very interesting in a discussion of aesthetics because we are not responsible for creating it and we have no impact on its meaning. A flower, a tiger or a sunset is ultimately utterly without morals or meaning. A sunset only means the earth is still in rotation...unless it’s a painting of a sunset. Art can embody intentional metaphor, and narrative—even though it can be deployed exploitatively rather than empathetically. At the very least, it has the potential to address humans on their own terms.

Beautiful ideas are similarly uninteresting—world peace, caring for others—all beautiful ideas but they are cheap, easy to come by and not particularly in contention. Yet they STILL need aesthetic help in selling them to humanity. Any fool can and they often do have good ideas but it’s the guy who writes the best song who gets the followers who are actually inspired to make changes. This is why I find much conceptual art is so dreary.

I believe "beauty" and "pretty” are, by definition, two different things. A pretty object needs something more to make it beautiful. But beauty doesn't need anything more to make it relevant. Pretty is only skin deep—but beauty is much, much deeper as any ugly person can tell you.

PART II. Prettiness and Ugliness

Pretty is the word we give to a superficial attractiveness that gives pleasure or is emotionally neutral. “Pretty” appeals to our senses and maybe our egos (think “trophy wife” to get a sense of what I mean). Pretty is hedonistic and provides a low level boost of instant gratification. Since all humans share the same biology, the same five senses, and that is more than enough to ensure that there are aesthetic qualities that are universally agreed upon. The human mind cannot tolerate much ambiguity or constant incompletion. It seeks patterns and imposes them on disorder. We are biologically wired to be alert to color contrasts, patterns, symmetry, and radiant light. I say alert—because its not always attraction=consumable. The biological imperative seems to be to notice, then analyze the red berry rather than gobble it down or toss it out without thought. We also have much software we have devoted to facial recognition and the fact that mirror neurons fire like crazy whenever we see anything resembling a person. Apparently we find the most mathematically average faces the most attractive. So that’s what “pretty” is, its inert, powerlessly pleasing. Pretty is “nice”.

But lately, the idea of PRETTY has begun to really pique my interest. Because I am not sure the issues of beauty are really debatable, as I have (and will continue in a few moments) to define them. What’s bugging the art world isn’t whether or not someone’s is having a real moment with an artwork! What’s irritating is the demand that it be good looking. So the real issue isn’t beauty at all but prettiness. Should an artwork look pretty? And for most culturati, the answer is no. For example, if you tell someone they made a pretty painting you are really asking to be socked in the kisser! Because artists are generally reaching for the higher goal of sublime, or awe inspiring or at the very least something profound calling it “merely pretty” is quite the insult.
And I agree art shouldn’t linger too long at the pretty level—but why isn’t it seen as a stepping-stone to something more visually intense? Why can’t it be a means to another end, a tool? In the desperation to be profound, is it necessary to jettison prettiness? Why must it be reflexively dispatched with entirely in order to ensure the primacy of meaning?
I like some art that’s pretty—I’m not afraid to admit that in public—but I demand it be pretty and beautiful too!
So as I continue with my remarks about beauty—keep in mind that one way—maybe even a major way, to reach beauty is via prettiness.
Thus I will repeat that pretty appeals to the senses. It is attractive to the eyes, it draws you in. And it is universal—in the object itself, not the eye of the beholder.
These pretty things are:
CONTRAST (of material, form, shape, color, texture, line),
RANGE (how diverse are the elements comparatively),
DESIGN (proportion, pattern, repetition, rhythm, symmetry),
LIGHT (radiance, warmth, shadow)
MIMESIS (by which I mean that representation activates recognition and empathy.
SKILL (I include this because, for better or worse, we are turned on by displays of skill).

There are two ways these principals are manipulated by artists to be interesting and possibly beautiful—either harmoniously or disharmoniously and the level of intervention can remain merely attractive or can scale the heights all the way to beauty. But these are the things that get our visual cortex humming. They prepare us to have a beautiful experience...and when we don’t we get disappointed which is why, I think we hate pretty so much.

So if pretty is pleasing to the senses (and the ego) then ugly is the opposite—displeasing to the senses (and ego). But beauty’s vastness can contain both—they just don’t happen to intersect, as seen in the top diagram. I don’t think that if pretty and ugly were to overlap, as in a traditional Venn diagram, you would get anything like “beauty”...more likely it would just compound the nauseating factors! A sugar coated turd, if you will.

Ugliness is usually more interesting than pretty, though, because it’s associated with the repulsive and things tend to be repulsive for a good reason. Thus, they are more psychologically loaded. It takes more energy to process something negative than positive--it stands to reason that prettiness doesn’t really require any real effort, but ugliness must be dealt with somehow—either avoided, transformed, or disposed of. Again—if an artist is intent on avoiding the dreaded “pretty” dead end and adopts the strategy of making work ugly for its own sake... if they imagine that’s a recipe for guaranteed artistic depth, well then I’m more a little concerned. Ugliness can be a profound, powerful experience but only if its wielded appropriately—otherwise it just gets tossed in the trash can.

Some notions of ugly derive from self loathing and fear of our bodies not putting us in the best light with its chaotic, unpredictable, dirty, smelly, demands and its insistence that it someday will die. Furthermore, it makes sound biological sense to not to consume what is rotten or mate with the horrifically asymmetrical or those with festering sores –no matter how politically incorrect and just plain cruel that may seem.
Now this is where ugliness gets really interesting. What should be repulsive is always going to get a portion of passionate defenders. People can be open minded and often perverse—we have a huge capacity to find attractive things that could easily lead to self-destruction. Its not as simple as unhealthy=repulsive and good for you=attractive.
We are a tricky species. Perhaps the biological imperative to analyze applies to the ugly as well. Or we may initially feel repulsed—but maybe we are turned on by the intensity of our response alone.

But seduction involving a hefty component of ugliness is not something one can typically accomplish by a full frontal assault. Transformation across domains is necessary. So you can manifest an ugly idea with good design and it changes from a bad idea to a beautiful one.

So we have an elevated awareness and fascination with the grotesque. The word grotesque derives from the word grotto, and a grotto is a moist cave. You don’t have to be Freud to know why dark, moist caves are going to be an emotional hot zone.

Pretty is the biologic attraction to appearance and ugly is repellant appearance. Since both involve a heightened response, they can be used to create beauty.

PART III: What is Beauty?
To repeat what I said above: “Beautiful” is a sacrosanct term reserved for the extra special peak aesthetic experience that appeals to our “soul” as well as to our senses; “Beauty” is the transformative experience of being filled with desire and inspiration.

The impact of beauty is nothing short of fierce. Nancy Etcoff points out that many of the words we use to qualify “beauty” are violent: bombshell, knockout, drop-dead gorgeous. Rapturous...This is how bad we want it; this is what we are willing to risk getting it. Beauty provokes a gut “WOW!” response, which is why I called it “thought annihilating”—it doesn’t really appeal to the intellect.

Beauty is also always positive, meaning, “life affirming”. But it’s rigorous (where prettiness is not) because it’s not about gratification at all. It is more about anticipation rather than relief and release. As long as we are filled with desire, we are engaged with something and probably not looking to end it all. So beauty is hope-full. The chicken/egg question is a positive feedback loop—we desire it because it’s beautiful and it’s beautiful because we desire it. So we keep after it.

But there’s a dark side--beauty can be so powerful it can transform meaninglessness and atrocity into a union with the cosmic. Because this experience is so glorious, so fleeting, mysterious, erotic, traumatic, even, it is always calling attention to its own inevitable loss. Therefore, beauty embodies a healthy measure of anxiety and fear. It takes courage to take the risks of engaging beauty.

Beauty fills us with desire.
I think we want two things in life. We yearn to be complete and we want to know there is a good reason for suffering and profound meaning in all that seems random and troublesome. Beauty, like love or truth or god, belongs to the category that promises catharsis, completion and enlightenment rather than simply pleasure and we imagine that possessing beauty will bring relief once and for all.

Beauty is to art what love is in life. Beauty is something without which, you suffer. Something you will go to great lengths to experience.
The desire for beauty defies rationality and common sense. It can cause one to abandon safety and self-interest in its pursuit. Under its influence one feels vulnerable, out of control. The loss of beauty causes pain; its death causes more pain. However, beauty is all the more poignant because it is transitory, and it cannot actually be possessed although it tantalizes us with this possibility and that keeps us awake, alive and feeling.
(This is why I find man-made beauty the most interesting, or a flower--a rainbow, a sunset can only be itself and follow its own independent destiny which includes its inevitable demise. But art can address our desires both directly and eternally; it has nothing better to do, in fact!)

Beauty fills us with inspiration.
I think as a species, we have a nagging sensation we are incomplete and we yearn for the long lost missing thing that will make us whole again, take us home again. We want to fit in—and we want to be unique simultaneously.

This is why we enjoy being full for the most part; like all galactic matter, we enjoy expanding and contracting and there’s nothing like a big bang every now and then. We like to define, refine and confirm our barriers to protect our sense of uniqueness and identity and yet we like to let the outside in- to prove we are not empty and not alone--as in breathing, eating, or sexual union— but also metaphorically, as in “full of inspiration” or “full of love”. Nancy Etcoff, whom I mentioned above, is a neuropsychologist at Harvard who has studied both prettiness and happiness. It would seem that what for many years was called “the pleasure center” of the brain is more about anticipation than results. If you stimulate that section of a rat’s brain every time it pushes a lever, it will push it until it dies of exhaustion. This may sound a lot like addiction (and certainly explains addiction as a spiritual crisis wherein one replaces an abstraction with a chemical substance) but the reward is not so important as hope and faith…so ladies and gentlemen—it’s not really about the climax so much as the penetration, if you catch my drift. (Don’t worry people—it’s not really a gender thing, OK?)

When we are full—our boundaries become fuzzy—we become at-one, or a lot less hungry or lonely, if you will. The hole becomes a whole. But something happens to one’s sense of being a discreet being in these cases.
Which brings me to the role of “self” in beauty. Beauty is not only is thought annihilating and language annihilating but also ego annihilating—it allows one to transcend the self which is why it feels so good. When someone surrenders their ego, they are for the moment, anyway—AT-ONE. with something larger than the self. The petty miseries of life seem to dissolve away. “Get over yourself” is more than a glib phrase—it's a path to enlightenment.

One of the things inspiration does is it completes a circuit, jumps a synapse. “Inspiration” literally means to be taking a breath—the opposite of which is expiring, a synonym for death. And in the case of art, one is symbolically inhaling the life of another. As a viewer you take in the artists inspiration when you engage with the artwork and it inspires you. So there’s transference here. The inspiration travelled from the artist, into an object and then into you. It’s a form of deep human communication and empathy that transcends time, space, and even death. So beauty is a momentary triumph of eternity. Seeing an object made well made intelligently and with care and love, made to be special or beautiful collapses barriers, and for a second, you share an understanding. Even though the maker may be long gone, you can see exactly what they dreamed, as they were able to see how you feel.

Beauty is the aesthetic expression of Eros.
The metaphor of transferring life force with one’s breath is the original myth of Eros. And one could easily see beauty as the aesthetic expression of this Eros. I got this idea from Rollo May, the great existential psychologist, who discusses Eros as “the power which drives men to god” (Atheists, please understand that’s metaphorical). Eros was originally a creator:

“When the world was barren and lifeless, it was Eros who ‘seized his life-giving arrows and pierced the cold bosom of the Earth’ and ‘immediately the brown surface was covered with luxuriant verdure.’.... Eros then breathed into the nostrils of clay forms of man and woman and gave them the ‘spirit of life’.”

Originally, Eros was the force that propelled the self towards its highest expression—towards mature self-fulfillment and union with the divine. Apparently, Eros became “sexy” later. In a later telling of the myth, the Earth is barren until Venus lifts her curse and allows smitten Eros to consummate his love for Psyche.
The kiss of life is no joke—when it comes to beauty and its attendant passion and inspiration this is not “artificial respiration” but metaphorical. The transference of the life force of one creator into another.

The experience of beauty is transformative. It can transform the awful into the awesome.
In addition to being the promise of that long lost thing, perhaps beauty’s function is its ability to transform chaos into something transcendent and meaningful. To transmute suffering into a beatific state (whence “beauty”). To transubstantiate our mortal flesh into something more eternal, more metaphorical.
This explains why so much of we call beautiful art must reference heartbreak and tragedy. There’s no transformation from joy to joy—obviously there’s no need to change that particular situation! Nor is there any transformation from emptiness to emptiness or ugliness-to-ugliness, this is just a reaffirmation of our worst fears.

Beauty is empathic, empathetic and embodies the notion of pathos in everyway possible with the exception of apathy. Beauty makes it possible to face, even embrace, the unbearable and traumatic, which would otherwise be too painful to contemplate. Beauty’s power is transformative because it assists us in feeling our feelings in a richer, deeper way, and it is a full spectrum emotional experience in which all is fair game to express. This certainly explains the appeal of tragedy. One can call an absence of pain and sorrow “happiness”, but joy can really only exists in contrast to darkness.

Beauty is dangerous.
Because the thing we desire makes us feels so positive we hope that it is good--we struggle to find these desires noble and moral. There is a long historical confusion between beauty and goodness—no doubt arising from the positive feedback loop. But anything we desire can be exploited for nefarious purposes and beauty can and has been used to sell people just about everything. But beauty is amoral and may deliver one to some odd conclusions, not always in line with society’s rules. There’s a lot open to interpretation with beauty and who knows what the brain of the beholder is bringing to the experience. Beauty is ironic—it promises everything but it delivers just about anything it wants to—from a momentary peek at the deepest mystery of our existence to the cheap euphoria of a commercial jingle. No wonder it’s so dangerous and threatening. No wonder it gets abolished from time to time.

Beauty, truth, the meaning of life, god, and love: these are all just synonyms for the same thing, the thing that makes it all worth the trouble. And to me, this makes beauty something worth fighting for.

PART IV: Creating Beauty
Trying to make something beautiful because you wish it to be so is almost as ludicrous as trying to make something meaningful. Interacting with the material world to create a physical object involves a lot more than intention and wishing. One can take “the beautiful” as subject matter and illustrate it directly. But to transcend apery, the image or form must actually embody the experience, not just parrot it back to the audience, which is why so much falls flat.

In order for an artwork to transcend pretty and become beautiful the appearance of the object itself must invoke a sense of...of...of...what? Imperative desire? Intense pleasure? Deep emotional longing? Shock and awe? Mystery and/ or the miraculous? Love? Hate? All the above and more?
If none of this makes any sense, well here’s a more usable, concrete definition:
Beauty is the formal elements of art (line, color, shape, pattern, texture, composition, rhythm) and the concept --it’s intelligence and it’s emotional tones-- in a confluence that results in a visual equivalent of “love”. Perfection, being the completion of something is the death of it—it demands admiration but does not allow for much empathy. So I think most so-called perfect images are rather boring and end up just being pretty, ironically.

Beautiful art is MORE than the sum of its parts. Of course, one can’t find a recipe to follow or even hope that with the right attitude and ability, beauty will result. You can only have intuition, faith and hope that beauty will arise out of a righteous quest based on love. Does that sound silly? Oh well.

The biological qualities we find attractive or pretty: symmetry, recognizability and familiarity, bright color, pattern, shape are “beautiful” when they are emphasized, ornamented, enhanced, exaggerated and celebrated. When they are made WRONG in the RIGHT way. Artists draw your attention to these qualities by tweaking them a bit so they are unexpected. There is something about beauty that is familiar, yet unique. Obvious, yet mysterious. Easy, yet difficult. Comfortable yet disturbing. Lovely, yet hateful. And in every case, a lot in between.

Part V: Beauty’s Banishment from Art
So why did beauty go out of style in the art world in the 20th Century?
The first reason is TALL POPPY SYNDROME. This is the yearning to be all-inclusive, homogenous, equal and fair at the expense of extreme accomplishment. Great for short poppies, I guess, but not much else.
Technique, materials and process became an issue. After the Industrial Revolution, a pernicious mind/body split became manifest in the art world. One might observe that mass production was, in part, to make things more democratic—decent plates and bed sheets for the proletariat at last! But at a cost—I don’t just mean that machine-made things are bereft and depressing. They ARE bereft and depressing (as the social experiment with public housing so deftly illustrated) or “objects always reflect the character of their maker so when that maker is a soulless automaton, you will be eroding the human condition” I do believe that, but perhaps that’s an argument for another day. —But I refer to the unwinnable contest between hand and machine—I am saying when machines do it cheaper, beauty becomes a social and economic battle and extremely undemocratic as unique human made objects (objects made with love and intelligence) are mostly available only to the wealthy (and those who can make them, of course!). Albeit, beautiful objects have always been more valuable and the better they are the less affordable. So status is always lurking in the margins making kind, generous, liberal people very uncomfortable. When the middle class arose, it was out with the “wall bling” and in with the Wal-Mart.

Obviously, making something beautiful requires ability and time. Whether that comes from hands–on practice or raw talent, it doesn’t really matter—either way—its totally at odds with middle class democracy as it is either merely a coincidence of genetics or the result of having a lot of spare hours and money to indulge on an expensive hobby. And if the plates and sheets from Wal-Mart are nice enough...well why gripe? So judgment became suspect—is became hierarchical elitism based on obsolete patriarchies and exclusionary practices. It seems to be kind and generous to “level the playing field” and see everyone as equal. Perhaps we are born with that potential, but as we grow we make choices, we must face our limits and it’s utterly disingenuous to treat all aesthetic experiences as equally moving.

Body dysmorphia is another reason for beauty’s suspect position in contemporary art. We just can’t seem to reconcile our brains with anything below the neck. Perhaps its because of all the embarrassing and undignified noises and demands our bodies make on us that we would prefer to launch our heads into outer space. We want to liberate them from our crotches, our stinky feet. Or maybe its just because our bodies and the bodies of even the most loved of loved ones will betray us by dying and rotting.

Safer to emphasize the idea, then one can farm it out to a pair of invisible, contracted skilled hands at no cost to the concept. Then, not only have you created needed jobs and the artist doesn’t have to rely the capricious talent of some mutant savant (probably of the idiot variety if “Amadeus” taught us anything) nor do they need filthy lucre to be considered worthy. Thus, technique became mindless labor entirely divorced from the sublime, lofty philosophies of the Artist. The issue became polarized: sweaty toiling cattle tilling the fields versus pure inspiration and the clean zaps of an enlightened brain thinking deep thoughts. Of course, the brain is a moist and goopy organ with plenty of obnoxious physical needs. How can we ever feel at-one with some greater context if we simultaneously deny our own bodies? The mind/body split will only lead to a dead end until we are at last the artificial intelligence we seem to be slouching towards. Bionic brains, here we come!

The other devastating blow to aesthetic beauty was World Wars I and II. If beauty is analogous to high passion it was never more obvious how much tragedy and atrocity that can lead to. Best to stay cool, and the Birth of Cool was the death knell for beauty. People became afraid of passion and sought to devalue it. War also spelled out in bold type how frivolous and luxurious beauty can be. With all that suffering, is not the indulgence in individual pleasure not insulting, idiotic, a fearful escapist denial or glitzy sugarcoating of the truth?
Beauty became an insult. It became economically impractical. Everyone can see how utterly unfair it is, OFF WITH ITS HEAD!

And voila! The head and the body are two separate things!

And yet we still desire beauty, just as much as we ever did, despite our best interests. And you know why? Because despite what it seems—it is still an experience available to ALL. Anyone can get a glimpse of who we are and why we are.... Beauty absolutely can deliver on its promise of love, completion and enlightenment to anyone as long as they are open to it.
Would you feel better knowing how many lives had been saved by beauty? So many.

©Judith Schaechter 2010

Talk in Brooklyn June 5

2010-05-29T04:46:00.000-07:00

At The Observatory Room in Brooklyn.

Here's the press release:

“The Beautiful Experience” with Judith Schaechter

Date: Saturday, June 5th
Time: 8pm
Admission: $5
Presented by Phantasmaphile

World-renowned stained glass artist, Judith Schaechter (AW shucks!), will share her thoughts on Beauty through an image-rich presentation based upon her own research and ruminations.

Her talk is in response to the growing dialogue in the art world started by Dave Hickey 17 years ago, when he first published his book “The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays in Beauty.”

In Ms. Schaechter’s words: “As someone who’s always approached the fine arts from a sort of wonky angle — a female craftsperson from Philadelphia who is adamantly figurative and decorative — I have a personal stake in the notion that beauty is not ALWAYS in the eye of the beholder, but sometimes in the object beheld.”

Further note from moi:

This will be a super souped up, amped up revisiting of the Chicago talk with side digressions and elaboration. All this to say: it will not be a mere reiteration at all but a new improved in-depth probing.

Website updated!

2010-05-19T05:06:00.001-07:00

www.judithschaechter.com has been updated. FYI!

Show opens this coming Saturday!!!!!

2010-05-17T10:54:00.000-07:00

Please come!!! Saturday May 22 6-8 pm at Claire Oliver Gallery! Located at 513 West 26th Street, New York, NY .
I am super psyched--hope to see you there! If I don't know you, don't hesitate to introduce yourself. I am told I am somewhat friendly and not at all morose like my work.......

Books!

2010-05-14T12:11:00.001-07:00

There's two widgets on the right side of the page...in case you didn't notice!
The top one's for a 10"x8" book of recent work--including prints, drawings etc. The lower one is for a 7"x 7" version--less expensive--fewer images.
I hope you enjoy them if you are inclined to purchase one!

recent dabblings

2010-05-13T11:25:00.000-07:00

Hey look! Its a "sketch*"! (*In quotes because the head is from one sketch, the body is from another and each of the two hands are from still yet other sketches--all put together in p-shop.)

So here's the head. Its three pieces of glass --red/clear; turquoise/clear; goldpink/clear.
On the left above is the red/clear layer with the goldpink On the right is the red/clear with the turquoise. The red layer has glass paint and silver stain fired on.
On the left is the red/clear and the turq/clear before the silver stain and second paint firing. On the right is red/clear; turq/clear and goldpink/cl before silverstain.

Here's the three layers after sandblasting and engraving.

Beauty

2010-05-01T07:09:00.000-07:00

PART I: The Beautiful Experience
I am not interested in ideas about beauty. I don’t find it thought provoking. On the contrary, I find beauty to be thought annihilating. Which is as it should be. I believe the experience of beauty to be universal. Every culture has a sense of beauty—although we could argue the details and the semantics.
The real question isn’t “is beauty in the eye of the beholder or is it a quality in the beheld” anyway—the real question is: “do we desire something because it’s beautiful or is it beautiful because we desire it?” It’s a chicken/egg question.
.Because beauty is really not a particularly verbal or intellectual experience, critics, theorists and philosophers can argue forever that its irrelevant and we can all even agree on that point...basically, you can deny it all you want, and still, the appetite continues to rage completely unfazed, unabated and entirely undiminished. Similar to the smitten lover who knows they’ve chosen an inappropriate partner, passionate love blazes on regardless of all rational logic.
What is “beauty”? “Beautiful” is a sacrosanct term reserved for the extra special peak aesthetic experience that appeals to our “soul” as well as to our senses; “Beauty” is the transformative experience of being filled with desire and inspiration.

I want to be clear, that in discussing “beauty” I am distinguishing between “beautiful nature” and “man made beauty” and also between “beautiful ideas” and “beautiful objects”. As an artist I am interested in the aesthetics of man-made objects.
Nature is beautiful. No kidding—one hears this ALL the time, its hardly a burning debate. But it’s not really very interesting in a discussion of aesthetics because we are not responsible for creating it and we have no impact on its meaning. A flower, a tiger or a sunset is ultimately utterly without morals or meaning. A sunset only means the earth is still in rotation...unless it’s a painting of a sunset. Art can embody intentional metaphor, and narrative—even though it can be deployed exploitatively rather than empathetically. At the very least, it has the potential to address humans on their own terms.

Beautiful ideas are similarly uninteresting—world peace, caring for others—all beautiful ideas but they are cheap, easy to come by and not particularly in contention. Yet they STILL need aesthetic help in selling them to humanity. Any fool can and they often do have good ideas but it’s the guy who writes the best song who gets the followers who are actually inspired to make changes. This is why I find much conceptual art is so dreary.

I believe "beauty" and "pretty are, by definition, two different things. A pretty object needs something more to make it beautiful. But beauty doesn't need anything more to make it relevant. Pretty is only skin deep—but beauty is much, much deeper as any ugly person can tell you.
Pretty is the word we give to a superficial attractiveness that gives pleasure or is emotionally neutral. “Pretty” appeals to our senses and maybe our egos. Since all humans share the same biology, the same five senses, and that is more than enough to ensure that there are aesthetic qualities that are universally agreed upon. The human mind cannot tolerate much ambiguity or constant incompletion. It seeks patterns and imposes them on disorder. We are biologically wired to be alert to color contrasts, patterns, symmetry, and radiant light. Not to mention how much software we have devoted to facial recognition and the fact that mirror neurons fire like crazy whenever we see anything resembling a person. So that’s what “pretty” is, its inert, powerlessly pleasing. Pretty is “nice”.

PART II: What is Beauty?
The impact of beauty is nothing short of fierce. Nancy Etcoff points out that many of the words we use to qualify “beauty” are violent: bombshell, knockout, drop-dead gorgeous. This is how bad we want it; this is what we are willing to risk getting it. Beauty provokes a gut “WOW!” response, which is why I called it “thought annihilating”—it doesn’t really appeal to the intellect.

Beauty is also always positive; by which, I mean, “life affirming”; and by this I am referring to beauty’s momentary triumph over time and death (which I will get to momentarily). Because this feels so good we hope that it is good--we struggle to find these desires noble and moral. There is a long historical confusion between beauty and goodness. It doesn’t help that anything we desire can be exploited for nefarious purposes and beauty can and has been used to sell people just about everything.

Beauty fills us with desire.
I think we want two things in life. We yearn to be complete and we want to know there is a good reason for suffering and profound meaning in all that seems random and troublesome. Beauty, like love or truth or god, belongs to the category that promises catharsis, completion and enlightenment rather than simply pleasure and we imagine that possessing beauty will bring relief once and for all.

Beauty is to art what love is in life. It is more about desire and anticipation rather than relief and release. Beauty is something without which, you suffer. Something you will go to great lengths to experience.
The desire for beauty defies rationality and common sense. It is dangerous because it causes one to abandon safety and self-interest in its pursuit. Under its influence one feels vulnerable, out of control. The loss of beauty causes pain; its death causes more pain. However, beauty is all the more poignant because it is transitory, and it cannot actually be possessed although it tantalizes us with this possibility and that keeps us awake, alive and feeling.

This is why I find man-made beauty the most interesting, or a flower--a rainbow, a sunset can only be itself and follow its own independent destiny which includes its inevitable demise. But art can address our desires both directly and eternally; it has nothing better to do, in fact!

Beauty fills us with inspiration.
I think as a species, we have a nagging sensation we are incomplete and we yearn for the long lost missing thing that will make us whole again, take us home again. We want to fit in—and we want to be unique simultaneously.

This is why we enjoy being full for the most part; like all galactic matter, we enjoy expanding and contracting and there’s nothing like a big bang every now and then. We like to define, refine and confirm our barriers to protect our sense of uniqueness and identity and yet we like to let the outside in- to prove we are not empty and not alone--as in breathing, eating, or sexual union— but also metaphorically, as in “full of inspiration” or “full of love”. Nancy Etcoff, whom I mentioned above, is a neuropsychologist at Harvard who has studied both prettiness and happiness. It would seem that what for many years was called “the pleasure center” of the brain is more about anticipation than results. If you stimulate that section of a rat’s brain every time it pushes a lever, it will push it until it dies of starvation. This may sound a lot like addiction (and certainly explains addiction as a spiritual crisis wherein one replaces an abstraction with a substance) but the reward is not so important as hope and faith…so ladies and gentlemen—it’s not really about the climax so much as the penetration, if you catch my drift. (Don’t worry people—it’s not really a gender thing, OK?)

When we are full—our boundaries become fuzzy—we become at-one, or a lot less hungry or lonely, if you will. The hole becomes a whole. But something happens to one’s sense of being a discreet being in these cases.
Which brings me to the role of “self” in beauty. Beauty is not only is thought annihilating and language annihilating but also ego annihilating—it allows one to transcend the self which is why it feels so good. When someone surrenders their ego, they are for the moment, anyway—AT-ONE. with something larger than the self. The petty miseries of life seem to dissolve away. “Get over yourself” is more than a glib phrase—it's a path to enlightenment.

One of the things inspiration does is it completes a circuit, jumps a synapse. “Inspiration” literally means to be taking a breath—the opposite of which is expiring, a synonym for death. And in the case of art, one is symbolically inhaling the life of another. It’s a form of deep human communication and empathy that transcends time, space, and even death. Seeing an object made well, made intelligently and with care and love, made to be special or beautiful collapses all barriers, and for a second, you share an understanding. Even though the maker may be long gone, you can see exactly what they dreamed, as they were able to see how you feel.

Beauty is the aesthetic expression of Eros. (In the older sense of the word*.) The kiss of life is no joke--it is not “artificial” respiration but metaphorical--Eros and Psyche's kiss. “I need your kiss, in the coldness of the night, to worm my senses and my feelings. I want fall in your breath and find the reason why humans can't live without air, as I can't live without your kisses.”

The experience of beauty is transformative. It can transform the awful into the awesome.
In addition to being the promise of that long lost thing, perhaps beauty’s function is its ability to transform chaos into something transcendent and meaningful. To transmute suffering into a beatific state (whence “beauty”). To transubstantiate our mortal flesh into something more eternal, more metaphorical.
This explains why so much of we call beautiful art must reference heartbreak and tragedy. There’s no transformation from joy to joy—obviously there’s no need to change that particular situation! Nor is there any transformation from emptiness to emptiness or ugliness-to-ugliness, this is just a reaffirmation of our worst fears.

The transference of empathy is important—beauty is empathic, empathetic and embodies the notion of pathos in every way possible with the exception of apathy. Beauty makes it possible to face, even embrace, the unbearable and traumatic, which would otherwise be too painful to contemplate. Beauty’s power is transformative because it assists us in feeling our feelings in a richer, deeper way, and it is a full spectrum emotional experience in which all is fair game to express. This certainly explains the appeal of tragedy. One can call an absence of pain and sorrow “happiness”, but joy can really only exists in contrast to darkness.

Beauty is dangerous.
Beauty can be so powerful it can make meaninglessness and atrocity into a union with the cosmic. Because this experience is so glorious, so fleeting, mysterious, erotic, traumatic, even, it is always calling attention to its own inevitable loss. Therefore, beauty embodies a healthy measure of anxiety and fear.
Beauty is also amoral and may deliver one to some odd conclusions, not always in line with society’s rules. There’s a lot open to interpretation with beauty and who knows what the brain of the beholder is bringing to the experience. Beauty is ironic—it promises everything but it delivers just about anything it wants to—from a momentary peek at the deepest mystery of our existence to the cheap euphoria of a commercial jingle. No wonder it’s so dangerous and threatening. No wonder it gets abolished from time to time.

Beauty, truth, the meaning of life, god, and love: these are all just synonyms for the same thing, the thing that makes it all worth the trouble. And to me, this makes beauty something worth fighting for.
PART III: Creating Beauty
Trying to make something beautiful because you wish it to be so is almost as ludicrous as trying to make something meaningful. Interacting with the material world to create a physical object involves a lot more than intention and wishing. One can take “the beautiful” as subject matter and illustrate it directly. But to transcend apery, the image or form must actually embody the experience, not just parrot it back to the audience, which is why so much falls flat.

In order for an artwork to transcend pretty and become beautiful the appearance of the object itself must invoke a sense of...of...of...what? Imperative desire? Intense pleasure? Deep emotional longing? Shock and awe? Mystery and/ or the miraculous? Love? Hate? All the above and more?
If none of this makes any sense, well here’s a more usable, concrete definition:
Beauty is the formal elements of art (line, color, shape, pattern, texture, composition, rhythm) and the concept --it’s intelligence and it’s emotional tones-- in a confluence that results in a visual equivalent of “love”. Beautiful art is MORE than the sum of its parts. Of course, one can’t find a recipe to follow or even hope that with the right attitude and ability, beauty will result. You can only have intuition, faith and hope that beauty will arise out of a righteous quest based on love. Does that sound silly? Oh well.

The biological qualities we find attractive or pretty: symmetry, recognizability and familiarity, bright color, pattern, shape are “beautiful” when they are emphasized, ornamented, enhanced, exaggerated and celebrated. When they are made WRONG in the RIGHT way. Artists draw your attention to these qualities by tweaking them a bit so they are unexpected. There is something about beauty that is familiar, yet unique. Obvious, yet mysterious. Easy, yet difficult. Comfortable yet disturbing. Pretty, yet ugly. Lovely, yet hateful. And in every case, a lot in between.

I believe what I am describing here is, in a sort of reductive extreme, called “peak shift”.

Part III Banishing Beauty from Art
So why did beauty go out of style in the art world?
First of all technique, materials and process became an issue. After the Industrial Revolution, a pernicious mind/body split became manifest in the art world. One might observe that mass production was, in part, to make things more democratic—decent plates and bed sheets for the proletariat at last! But at a cost—I don’t just mean that machine-made things are bereft and depressing. They ARE bereft and depressing (as the social experiment with public housing so deftly illustrated) or “objects always reflect the character of their maker so when that maker is a soulless automaton, you will be eroding the human condition” I do believe that, but perhaps that’s an argument for another day. —But I refer to the unwinnable contest between hand and machine—I am saying when machines do it cheaper, beauty becomes a social and economic battle and extremely undemocratic as unique human made objects (objects made with love and intelligence) are mostly available only to the wealthy (and those who can make them, of course!). Albeit, beautiful objects have always been more valuable and the better they are the less affordable. So status is always lurking in the margins making kind, generous, liberal people very uncomfortable. When the middle class arose, it was out with the “wall bling” and in with the Wal-Mart.

Second of all was the recognition that making something beautiful requires ability and time. Whether that comes from hands–on practice or raw talent, it doesn’t really matter—either way—its totally at odds with middle class democracy as it is either merely a coincidence of genetics or the result of having a lot of spare hours and money to indulge on an expensive hobby. And if the plates and sheets from Wal-Mart are nice enough...well why gripe? So judgment became suspect—hierarchical elitism based on obsolete patriarchies and exclusionary practices. It seems to be kind and generous to “level the playing field” and see everyone as equal. Perhaps we are born with that potential, but as we grow we make choices, we must face our limits and its utterly disingenuous to treat all aesthetic experiences as equally moving.

Body dysmorphia is another reason for beauty’s suspect position in contemporary art. We just can’t seem to reconcile our brains with anything below the neck. Perhaps its because of all the embarrassing and undignified noises and demands our bodies make on us that we would prefer to launch our heads into outer space. We want to liberate them from our crotches, our stinky feet. Or maybe its just because our bodies and the bodies of even the most loved of loved ones will betray us by dying and rotting.

Safer to emphasize the idea, then one can farm it out to a pair of invisible, contracted skilled hands at no cost to the concept. Then, not only have you created needed jobs and the artist doesn’t have to rely the capricious talent of some mutant savant (probably of the idiot variety if “Amadeus” taught us anything) nor do they need filthy lucre to be considered worthy. Thus, technique became mindless labor entirely divorced from the sublime, lofty philosophies of the Artist. The issue became polarized: sweaty toiling cattle tilling the fields versus pure inspiration and the clean zaps of an enlightened brain thinking deep thoughts. Of course, the brain is a moist and goopy organ with plenty of obnoxious physical needs. How can we ever feel at-one with some greater context if we simultaneously deny our own bodies? The mind/body split will only lead to a dead end until we are at last the artificial intelligence we seem to be slouching towards. Bionic brains, here we come!

The other devastating blow to aesthetic beauty was World Wars I and II. If beauty is analogous to high passion it was never more obvious how much tragedy and atrocity that can lead to. Best to stay cool, and the Birth of Cool was the death knell for beauty. People became afraid of passion and sought to devalue it. War also spelled out in bold type how frivolous and luxurious beauty can be. With all that suffering, is not the indulgence in individual pleasure not insulting, idiotic, a fearful escapist denial or glitzy sugarcoating of the truth?
Beauty became an insult. It became economically impractical. Everyone can see how utterly unfair it is, OFF WITH ITS HEAD!

And voila! The head and the body are two separate things!

And yet we still desire beauty, just as much as we ever did, despite our best interests. And you know why? Because despite what it seems—it is still an experience available to ALL. Anyone can get a glimpse of who we are and why we are.... Beauty absolutely can deliver on its promise of love, completion and enlightenment to anyone as long as they are open to it.
Would you feel better knowing how many lives had been saved by beauty? So many.
---------------------------------
©Judith Schaechter 2010
Thanks to Crispin Sartwell and Sharon Church

professional page on Facebook

2010-04-26T15:42:00.000-07:00

If you want to be updated on activities via Facebook, please consider "liking" me (yeah...the new terminology's a bit weird!)

"Lockdown"

2010-04-24T14:08:00.000-07:00

"Lockdown" is 21" x 31"--its the last piece for my May show--come see it in person!

Art Chicago 2010

2010-04-22T09:06:00.001-07:00

Hey all!
Claire Oliver Gallery will be featuring my work at Art Chicago 2010--April 29-May 3

I will be there! Friday, Arpil 30, 4-5pm, I will be participating in a round table discussion on the theme of

Beauty in Contemporary Art: Paradigms, Problems and Possibilities

This is a favorite subject of mine and here's some good reading if you are interested!
And some more!

You! Are! Invited!

2010-04-16T10:37:00.000-07:00

To my exhibition!!
May 22 6-9 pm CLAIRE OLIVER GALLERY!

Be there or yer fishfood!Come see these suckers in the flesh!

"Nature"

2010-04-03T10:07:00.001-07:00

"Nature" 28" x 45". Come see it in person at my exhibition at Claire Oliver Gallery May 22! (click images to enlarge)

Friday Arts

2010-04-01T02:54:00.000-07:00

Philly area peeps: I am going to be on TV tomorrow, Friday April 2. Its a new show on WHYY called "Friday Arts"--check it out here.

great news!

2010-03-29T15:36:00.000-07:00

Once again available at His Glassworks! 1/2 Inch diamond discs!! Great for making tones fast on sandblasted flash glass or getting rid of color in an area you decided need getting rid of but the sandblaster was too far away. Just a great thing to have and have fun with.... (I silicone the disc to the mandrel).
Buy them and experiment!!

Color demo--for UArts

2010-03-20T15:16:00.001-07:00

This image demonstrates how to get different colors using two layers--one red on clear and one blue on clear. The third, on the far right, is both of the two pieces of glass together. With the addition of yellow paint, or silver stain, one can get red, blue, yellow, white, dark purple (or near black), orange, green and lighter hues. The principle is pretty simple but can be confusing to think about. Wherever you want blue, green, yellow, or white: sandblast the red all the way off. Wherever you want red, orange, yellow or white, sandblast the blue off.
A color image such as this above can be made with the following steps. I find its best to work one plate all the way through so as not to get an incapacitating brain freeze trying to orchestrate the color relationships. So start with red and follow these steps. Remember, these aren't the laws of God inscribed on tablets and delivered to us mortals by Moses. These are just the way I do it. Sometimes. (Click the images to enlarge)
First three steps of the red plate. Stage sandblasting and flex shaft engraving.
Second three steps to completion.
First three steps of blue plate.
Last two.

Let me know if you have questions!

Demo for Uarts class!

2010-03-18T08:01:00.000-07:00

Sandblast the clear glass with a silhouette of the image you are painting.

Use the 80 grit available in the classroom.

TAKE EVERY PRECAUTION TO SEE THAT THIS GRIT STAYS PURE!!!!!!!!

No kidding. This is IT for GRIT.

DO NOT leave it in the blaster and leave the sandblasting room for ANY length of time.

Take the glass up to the classroom and rinse it off and dry it. Trace the major lines in your image onto the sandblasted area with a razor point sharpie pen or other permanent marker as seen above.

Wipe the image with black glass paint and wipe it off so the paint only sticks to the sandblasted area. You want a very light gray tone like in this picture. You should be able to easily see the pen lines.

Use a LINER BRUSH to paint the lines on top of the pen lines. You can clean up clumsy lines with and xacto knife.

That’s it—its ready to fire.

This is a liner brush.

Upper image: When the glass is out of the kiln, engrave the hard edge highlights with the flex shaft engraver

File around the hard edge engraving lines to make the tones nice and smooth (that’s what’s making her look slightly freckly—the file on the paint gives a pointillist effect)

Below: Paint in the next level of darker gray shadows using a #2, 4, 6, and/or 8 natural bristle brush modified by burning the tip to blunt it so its about ¼-1/2 inch long. POUNCE the brush to make the grays more tonal. This isn’t the final layer so don’t get crazy picky....

You are then ready for the second firing.

The final stage you may wish to pump up the highlights with engraving and filing before you paint another layer of deeper darker grays. This demo is stopping at three firings—which should be enough to get a decent rendering with gray tones ranging from white to black. In reality, you may with to fire one more time which we may be able to accommodate.

Sky demo

2010-03-18T02:47:00.001-07:00

click to enlarge!

The bits I use in my flex shaft (the 1/2 diamond discs are the second row)

A caveat before I proceed. Go ahead: make a sky just like me! I’m posting this demo because, although I come up with these methods of representation after experimentation and sometimes much anguish—they aren’t state secrets. However— I wish to share this information in the hopes that you will go further than merely plugging them into your own work but to develop these techniques into your own personal expressions. Even better, that you would develop analogous methods of your own.

Furthermore, I have made many night sky images over the years and every single one of them is a totally different technical solution: no kidding! This is the task I set out for myself and you should not expect less from yourself as an artist.

OK—that said: Here’s goes!

This is really simple. The blue glass is unknown, but any blue flash will do. This is some kind of French, I bet and it has a streak through it—which adds some nice character.

I also don’t know what the violet is—\there was a half sheet of it in my glass rack with no label. The paleness, though, makes me think it’s also a French antique. The main thing is that its a flash on clear.

1. Lightly sandblast the violet. Kind of hard to see in the photo—but the point is that you are not removing color, per se—just lightly abrading the surface. (I am using about a 100-grit aluminum oxide)

2. Engrave a bunch of dots in the blue

3. Put the purple plate on the blue, both flash sides facing OUT (this is because in this case, I want the piece to end up with both flash layers flush to each other) and with a permanent marker make an indication where each star is engraved in the blue.

4. Using a ½ inch diamond disc bit, hold the flex shaft hand piece at about an 80 degree angle to the glass and make the sort of indistinct circle shapes on the violet, which are the glowy halos around the stars.

5. That’s it!

Exhibition Alert! (Early distant warning--mark those calendars!)

2010-03-13T13:21:00.001-08:00

Opening Saturday May 22 at Claire Oliver Gallery

Come see this stuff in the flesh!

(I will be taking attendance)

Four stages of an engraving so far

2010-03-09T13:37:00.000-08:00

What have we here? Why this is a 14" square of Saint Just 221 Turquoise on clear flash glass that is in the process of being mutilated beyond recognition.
FIRST: I sandblasted it. I did use a hand-cut stencil (3 ml clear contact paper)...however, after all I've done to it, I didn't really need it. FYI: it was the silhouette of the plants and the birds. I could have easily gotten away with just a light allover even blast.)
SECOND: I used a flex shaft engraver to delineate the plants.

THIRD: I decided I should paint NOW rather than later. Why? Because this glass strikes a little in firing. So what I did was wipe the whole square down with 1059 Stencil Black Reusche. And wipe it off so it left a tone atop the sandblasted turquoise. This will help a LOT with getting a nice dynamic range of tone--even thought the black is close to invisible. I swear, it makes a huge difference.
FORTH: I began to engrave the highlights with the flex shaft.
FIFTH: I went into the engraved highlights and softened them by using a diamond file. This is how all the volumetric tones are achieved.

SIXTH: I ground off the sky with the flex shaft. Then I went and took a walk.I saw a pretty red House Finch on Bainbridge St. (BTW--I have been working on this piece of glass for four days straight.)House Finch (not my pic)

SEVENTH: I began to work into the background using a 1/2" one of THESE. Important note: the link takes you to a potentially wonderful product that has some issues. This is the 1" version and I have both that and 1/2" which I think they stopped making. BIG MISTAKE!! The 1" version is TOO BIG for detailed work. Call HIS and ask for 1/2 inch! Plus they attach to the shank with velcro. This has hilarious results as the abrasive discs wing themselves across the universe and get lost somewhere after traveling through a wormhole where all your socks end up after they get lost int he laundry. Useless!!! SO...I silicone them onto the rubber thing on the shank. Velcro and all. This isn't a perfect solution but its adequate.

Detail of how it looks today.

This is how it looked on Sunday, three days ago.
Wait a few days and there will be some more layers.

Good pictures of work for May Exhibition

2010-03-05T03:23:00.000-08:00

“The Minotaur” 25” x 38”

“Mad Meg” 53” x 21”

“The Cold Genius” STUDY 25”x 29” (bottom) x 37” (top)

Cold Genius Study detail

who's on top...

2010-02-19T10:57:00.001-08:00

close up of figure on top of obelisk...click images to enlarge.

PShop composite (lousy--mea culpa!) of what its gonna look like...more or less.

New Girl

2010-02-10T14:08:00.000-08:00

Here's the new girl who will stand atop the obelisk. She's not done yet...she needs some yellow, some more paint and other tweaks.

Here's the red layer alone, carved (except back leg)

Here's the layers for the top part...kinda lookin' like a chorus line.

obelisk

2010-02-07T12:27:00.001-08:00

Obelisk soldered together. This isn't the whole window--I did this part separately so I could handle it as one section. I will hopefully be done with the entire piece in a couple of weeks.

all copperfoiled....I dare you to lead something like this, stained glass purists.

seen in reflected light

Details...

demons and diatoms .....etc

2010-02-02T07:58:00.000-08:00

Demons and diatoms

details--nipple maggot, straight-jacket-hot-dog-nose, mace-tail-penis, sperm etc

spiky cone-head, screaming sack thing, et al.

colon-dog and friends

a buncha flowers.....

Pongs galore....

More pongs...

Young lady. This figure is going to be perched on an obelisk/mountain of the above imagery most of which is surplus miscellany from the past few pieces. I am imagining it will read like some kind of toxic waste dump/landfill-monument to one woman's mental baggage. Which seems to be affecting the character like sirens going off during the year's worst migraine. How glorious!!!!!

The birds and the beef.

2010-01-25T05:16:00.000-08:00

The Mintoaur so far. This is the bottom section of the piece 16" x 11"--The layers are described below.

These birds will be the top section of the window.

Here's this bull again. This is sandblasted (the silhouette--lightly blasted--no detail, nothing fancy) engraved with a flexible shaft (Foredom) and filed with Starlite files. The glass is Lambert's 1006 Bl/cl B.

1st try at man--simple sandblasting into Lambert's 1001R/CL B.

I hesitate to show this image--but I think its interesting to note that glass, being transparent and all, the layer of the man and the bull can relate to each other in four different orientations. I chose the top one..but...wasn't pleased with the colors or contrasts. This image is not made with the man layer I used in the final but the one above. I wanted something more subtle and more blue. Also, this man isn't as sensitively done as I would like in terms of the shape.

This maze was made with a photo stencil on Lambert's 1001/R/CL A. Light sandblasting to negative space only.

After much experimentation, all in my bulk failure box now, I decided on this outline of a man. This is 1/8" (double strength) float glass. Hand cut contact paper stencil with light sandblasting. I rubbed a mix of Hancock's Red For Felsh mixed with Stencil Black 1059 Reusche paint into the frosty areas and fired it at 1213 degrees F. THEN I rubbed some transparent red oil paint into that area to pump up the color from a dull brown to reddish.

birds and bull

2010-01-17T08:28:00.001-08:00

This engraving is about 16" x 12"

Birds to go with bull. They are two layers.

some of the birds apart