Monday, June 11, 2012

Raaaaaaaadish!!!!!

In my haste to depart for beers and hugs, I forgot to show you what I have actually been working on at Pilchuck...

RADISHES!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Sorry, I think they are hilarious! I made them all hot too so I am a super proud mama. I had anticipated developing my cacti and succulents more, which I started on in the beginning, but I just could not get the radish that I had seen in Japan out of my head. So I thought when else am I going to get the chance to make a radish? And now I'm hooked and want to make a whole series of radish and beets.
(See? Same, same....!)
But then I go back to the conversation I had with my sister, "who is going to want to buy a glass radish?" but that was the amazing thing about Pilchuck, it was the first time in a long time that I was given the opportunity to create without the hinderance of those pesky money questions. And isn't that what art is about? Sometimes coming from a production background I get the lines mixed up I think. It is an expensive medium and somewhere along the lines it gets a little blurry and I only end up making for money ie functional wares.

Now functional wares have never really been my strong point. I can make vases and bowls I suppose but I always felt like they weren't  good enough. Never thin enough, never tall enough, blah, blah, blah. But with sculpting this all goes out the window! I feel like with my skills I have learnt from production blowing I can be a better sculptor, if that makes sense? And I love it. (that helps too I suppose...) And it is ridiculous amounts of fun.

I got to use the garage for the first time and that was awesome. I found that it works best to make all the radish leaves first then reassemble on the last leave and put it in the garage. Then make the body and reattach the leaves as a whole. Super fun. I ended up having to give the big guy away but I did manage to ship one little guy and store 2 in my backpack. The big guy was the first one I made so the leaves are not as nice (well thats what I told myself as I had to give it up) Now I wanna make some metal stands for them and I would love to have some sticking up from the ground!

These next pics are (unfortunately..) not my work. When we were in Seattle we were fortunate enough to see the brand new Chihuly exhibition. It was absolutely awe inspiring. Honestly it was so beautiful it nearly made me cry. 


Sometimes I think Chihuly gets a bad wrap, for what I'm not exactly sure (being successful? makin the cold hard cash?) but not from me. I still think he is amazing and will always be one of my first inspirations in glass. The man knows colour. His drawings relate so well to his glass. And you know what else I like about him?, how even though he lost the use of an eye and could techncally not blow glass anymore, he made it work. He found a way. He got together these amazing teams to make his visions and be became more successful than ever.



The man is a fucking genius already! I would give my right arm to be on one of his installation teams. At the end of the exhibit you could watch some short movies on his works and it just looks amazing. I had always wondered how he put them together. Hey Mr. Chihuly? If by some freak of nature you ever read this and have any job openings just drop me a line and I guarantee I will pretty much drop everything to get to you.



So Seattle was fantastic. And to conclude:


I hears ya brother, me too.













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