Blown Away Season 1
In the winter of 2018 I was cast in Blown Away, a 10-episode television program where glass-blowers compete for a cash prize. The series was released on Netflix internationally on July 12, 2019 and can be seen here.
All photos are courtesy of Marblemedia.
1) Lachrymatory Viewer (for Cleo)
(2018) Blown glass, water, photograph of my dog, Cleo.
I made this project for the first challenge on Blown Away. A lachrymatory is a small vessel historically used to collect tears as part of a mourning ritual. This one, when filled, worked as a lens, magnifying the face of my beloved dog in the photograph.
2) Tableware for Changes in Texture of Mi Xao Don
(2018) Blown glass
I made this set of tableware for the second challenge on Blown Away. It is for a Vietnamese dish with a nest-like mass of crispy noodles that soften as they are saturated with a thick brown sauce. The problem is the dish doesn't keep well - the noodles get too soggy.
The fragmented glass on the top was made by dropping the hot glass into water instead of annealing it. This creates little cracks in the surface, that a liquid can slowly permeate. The sauce travels down three hollow legs to the plate where it can slowly mix with the crispy noodles.
3) Lighting Augmentation for a Post-Electric Future
(2018) Blown glass, light bulb, cord, socket.
This object was made for the third challenge on Blown Away. I wanted to make lighting that would work after a severe economic / environmental collapse.
As a material-specific artist / educator and a maker of objects entrenched in a studio practice that consumes resources at an alarming rate, I am confronted with quantifying my carbon footprint, assessing the relative scarcity and availability of material, and otherwise measuring the environmental impact of my work as an artist. As these unintentional effects of my studio work eclipse the projects they once served, an urgent shift has begun to reorient my practice.
This object is designed for a fast approaching future where we no longer have reliable access to electricity and new technology must be designed to work on top of the crumbling infrastructure of the past.
4) Decanter and Drinking Glass to Cultivate Patience
(2018) Blown glass.
I designed this set of tableware on Blown Away based on some antique absinthe glasses I had seen with a constriction in them. I wanted the hour-glass tops to force the user to pour extremely slowly, creating a visual and aural spectacle of the brightly colored liquid trickling into the clear vessels.
5) Pill Bottle
(2018) Blown glass.
This sculpture was made for the sixth challenge on Blown Away
6) Equilibrium
(2018) Blown glass.
Made in collaboration with Janusz Pozniak on Blown Away.
Equilibrium is a state of rest or balance due to the equal action of opposing forces.
7) The Disappointment of the Tropics
(2018) Blown glass
This work was made for the 8th challenge on Blown Away.
The Wardian case was a small portable greenhouse, its design the basis for European Hothouses of the 19th Century, invented to create a microclimate to transport delicate and valuable flowers like orchids from distant tropical locales back to Europe. These botanical specimens resisted European collecting stubbornly, more frequently arriving rotten and wilted than in the state of perpetual bloom scientific institutions and collectors so deeply desired. Botanical collections in European glass houses presented a false picture of tropical beauty, showing diverse colorful species, always in bloom, when the reality of the tropics was usually muddy, damp, brown, and green - disappointing to traveling Botanists expecting to find a rainbow of exciting flora in their natural environment.
This work is inspired by the research and writing of Elaine Ayers.
8) Thaumatrope (Persistence of Breath)
(2018) Blown glass.
This object was produced for the ninth challenge on Blown Away.
Even a still body is in constant motion as its interior mechanisms beat, digest, excrete and breathe. In the early 1800’s a simple proto-cinematic device called a thaumatrope was used to create the illusion of movement using two still images. This glass thaumatrope depicts two sets of lungs (one set swollen, full of breath, the other empty after an exhale) encased in a clear glass which, as it spins, evokes the bodily process with which the object was created.
