In residence at the Taoxochuan Art Center, Glass Department, I held a lecture about my current work and findings in relation to my process.
I am impressed by how psychology terms apply readily to moments in the man made world, and presented a collection of photographs I had taken, making these correlations.
I believe that what we observe and who we are is in a constant state of integration, like our built environments... I find this interesting and see how in my own process the lines between what I make and what I observe in the material world start to blur.
I presented this artist statement:
My hypothesis is that we identify with our environment. We who are modern urban dwellers see the world constructed around us, the facades, applications of materials, the disorganization, the signage, and incorporate it into our psyches in some way.
My proposal is to notice and elevate the everyday that we see outside of ourselves, fragments of the constructed world, patterns - adopting it through an alchemical process, noticing where these patterns of our man-made construction show us that since we are from nature, what we create also results in nature.
Some believe that staring at a canopy of leaves can heal our nervous and energetic system - to look at the life force pattern in those arranged leaves is in some way to receive a software reset. The way I see it, when I observe the chaotic urban world created by humans, abstract patterns emerge - and I can connect to the beauty in the chaos itself, giving a sort of resilience and universal guidance through my urban experience.
I believe that by incorporating patterns I see in the constructed world into an alchemical process - mold making, transformation, reorganisation, I am seeking a universal and timeless energy in which we know our abstract, limitless selves.
Some process images form the work made in residence:
Working with glass, the extreme heat conditions can cause unexpected results, cracks and bubbles, and surface imperfections. Working with this material, one studies how it behaves and the “nature” of the objects produced in the process, while designing processes to manipulate and intervene with the material. In residence I made objects that formed arrangements, compositions that dialogued between color, texture, and technique. I made objects using basic forms such as cylinders and cones, and incorporating more complex symbolic forms - heads, a house, spirals, visiting the theme of identity and the integration of various textures into unified bodies.
Working in glass with mold making and pressure through blowing into the forms.
Working with the material of glass feels like venturing into a cave - seeing some way of nature function that you rarely see in your everyday experience - Just as seeing the way nature functions below ground how the action of dripping mineral waters produces stalactites and stalagmites.
Dualism and art making with molds - I presented in residence this diagram. Constantly in my practice I move between negatives and positives of surfaces, and objects: in one scenario - an original surface or object (+) has a mold made from it ( - ) this mold is used to make a replica ((+)) the skin material is used and distorted to make an object (((+))) - the object is used to make a mold ((-)) - the negative has glass blown into it - the final object (((+))) - using brackets to show the level of separation from the original surface used.
