Hybrid Workshop with Silvia Levenson
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| Glass collage: "Mourn not the barren fields nor open green that sits silent" |
However...
When I opened my email a few months ago and learned that Silvia Levenson was coming to the Bullseye Glass Resource Center in Portland, I broke my promise to myself of "no more technique classes". Silvia's work is beautifully done, thought-provoking, and at times, unsettling -- everything I love in art and what I aspire to create. I had the opportunity to see one of her Strange Little Girls while in Scotland in 2017. The exhibit was in a renovated byre. The venue lent a surreal quality to the work on display, and I was awestruck as I walked through.
So... promises to myself or not, I signed up for the workshop.
The title of the workshop was Hybrid: The Synthesis of Form, Image, and Texture. As the name suggests, the class was about bringing together form, images, and texture when creating fused glass work. It was a great workshop. Silvia is a knowledgeable and delightful instructor, and of course, the Bullseye facilities are top notch. During a factory tour the Friday before class started, I had an opportunity to say hello to friends at Bullseye and also to meet people I have interacted with on-line but have never met.
Below you'll find images of the pieces created during the workshop.
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| "Where am I going" |
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| "The mind was dreaming" |
These two globes were the first projects we worked on.
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| Headstone, Blair Castle - St. Bride's Kirk |
The layered collage at the top of the page was created from images provided for the class, as well as a couple of my own photographs taken in Scotland of headstones (there's something compelling about old graveyards and churches...). I love the image at the right. I will likely remake the fused glass piece using all of my own images and editing the gravestone image so the text is more predominant.
The final project was the creation of a textile object in glass. I picked up a vintage collar at an antique store here in Logan for the project, prior to leaving for Portland. I was drawn to it because of the variety of texture in the piece.
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| A vintage collar and its counterpart in glass. |
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| Close-up of the glass collar. |
These obviously are learning pieces, but I'm eager to get back in the studio and apply some of what I learned to my current work. I've recently been incorporating screen printed images into glass, and this has given me inspiration to keep moving forward in this direction.
Happy spring!
Dana
Resources
Silvia Levenson, website: https://silvialevenson.com/Permeable Structure press release for the exhibit at the Byre: https://www.bullseyeprojects.com/exhibitions/270/press_release_text/
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