possibilities

My favorite glass artist is Carrie Iverson. Her aesthetic is spare and at times haunting. I was fortunate enough to take a class from her at the Bullseye glass facility in the Bay Area last weekend. The experience was transformative.

A graduate of Yale with an MFA from the Chicago Art Institute, Carrie started out as a printmaker and painter, achieving considerable success. She describes seeing her first art glass piece as an experience that transformed her as an artist. She had to work with glass, and set out to adapt her printmaking knowledge to the technical arena of kilnformed glass.

She shared her expertise in the class. We learned a technique for image transfer. The method  has the potential to evoke mood and wonder, and I was so energized by the class that it is hard to think of anything other than possibilities.

The images above show a photo I created digitally some years ago. On the right, the photo is now in glass, with all its reflective and absorbing properties. We learned the many permutations possible in this process. Below are two glass versions of a photo I took at Lotusland in Santa Barbara of some rather engaging succulents:

I have long been experimenting with portraying images in alternative media, so this new way of using glass is beyond exciting. My works that have come from photos of  James, my homeless friend, have been produced on cotton and organza, as well as in traditional photograph. Here is a version of that photo printed on glass. (Note, students learned the method; good works will follow, one hopes -- these are an initial stab at the process):

Many of these results (color, intensity, degree of clarity) come from the chemical reactive properties of certain Bullseye glasses and powders. When copper interacts with sulphur, exciting things happen. There are myriad ways of combining these elements, so experimenting with permutations of these reactions will be my next step.  Lucky me.