casting

I'm giving in to glass transparency right now, (weird, because I tend to sneer at artists who substitute transparent bling for a voice). What's utterly fascinating is the almost symbiotic relationship that transparent sculpture has with its environment. I want to learn to use that power in my work, and from what I've seen so far, it'll be a helluva challenge. Sculpting with glass is, for me, an extreme exercise in controlling the viewer's eye. The artist directs the viewer's eye with all art, of course, but in other media that control is largely confined to the surface. A work's mass and volume are simply vehicles for presenting (or hiding) whatever the artist has put on the surface. Not so with glass--you can send the eye anywhere you want in that volume; surface constraints only exist if you choose to use them, i.e., opaque the glass.

What's worse than Castuary?* Castuary squared. What's worse than Castuary squared? Obviously: Castuary cubed. I am in Castuary for three simultaneous firings, and it's driving me nuts. I've stuffed my own kiln to the gills, along with Hugh's kiln and Kat's kiln, as if I'm in some goofy and rather spendy race to see which spits out sculpture the fastest. And it's teaching me a great lesson in the whole artist/show/gallery thing: Procrastination costs bigtime money and biggertime anxiety.

I'm SUPPOSED to be working. Instead, I'm petting crystal, which either means I'm a glassist who's finally gone over the edge...or that the nice delivery man just dropped off a big honkin' Gaffer shipment. Lordee, these things are gorgeous. How are you supposed to actually chop them up?

Why does there seem to be so little time when you're facing the future, and so much when you're looking back? It's mid-February already? How did that happen? Eeek. I've got to get on the ball. Now. I've got a show at Guardino's in late March/April and another, OGG's Spring Glass Gallery, at the end of April, and I'm not nearly ready.