Glass lasts
Related
Advertisement
12/4/2008 - 12/5/08
Santa Fe is not the end-all destination for lovers of art glass, but there is a history of glassmaking here. And if you look in the right places — down a particular street, into the right galleries, perhaps venturing a few miles outside of town — you will discover some wondrous stuff, both functional and nonobjective.Glassmaking in New Mexico goes back to 1968 — three years before Dale Chihuly co-founded the world-renowned Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington, north of Seattle — when the first hot shops (studios equipped with furnaces for glasswork) appeared. The first in Santa Fe that year was the Glory Hole on Canyon Road, established by metalworker Mel Knowles and sculptor Jack Miller, both of whom had studied glass at the University of Iowa. The name of their shop is a reference to the portal in a glass furnace used for reheating glass already in production. Typical fare by Knowles and Miller at that time were decorative pieces such as vases, drinking glasses, and various household objects.
Although aesthetically lovely, glass back then was seen almost exclusively as functional — at least in the United States — and considered a craft rather than a fine art. But from the get-go, Glory Hole clients could place special orders and, in turn, watch their pieces being made. This is still the case in many glass studios across the country, where customers are usually fascinated by the process. Consequently, an individual glassmaker often plays multiple roles in the business as salesperson, conceptual designer, production worker, educator, and shipper.
In 1970, the Glory Hole was sold to Peter VanderLaan, who revised the name to Gloryhole Glassworks and, after a year in operation, relocated the studio south of Santa Fe to La Cienega. Peet Robinson, VanderLaan's manager at the time, soon opened his own place near Airport Road, while the vacated hot shop on Canyon Road became the Melting Point, which was owned by potter Daphne Morrissey and overseen by various glassmakers, including Robinson, Paul White, and Chris Heimrl.
Five years later, Charlie Miner established Tesuque Glassworks just north of Santa Fe on Bishop's Lodge Road, which continues to operate as "a gallery, school, production studio, and a place to see and learn about glass," according to director Ann Leighton. The studio also offers an apprentice program that has served students from 16 to 65 years of age, Leighton said. Some of the top glassblowers associated with Tesuque Glassworks include Cia Friedrich, David Shanfeld, and Kay Hamilton. The studio has expanded its operation to include glass casting.
Also noteworthy is that in 1974 Lloyd Kiva New, then president of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, invited Chihuly to hold workshops in glassmaking in an old barn on the campus of Santa Fe Indian School. While there — along with a group of students from the Rhode Island School of Design — Chihuly was supplied with material from Gloryhole Glassworks; but the project made little impact then — perhaps a matter of an innovation that was before its time.
Apart from a trip to Tesuque or visiting the few commercial galleries in Santa Fe that feature art glass — such as Arlene Siegel Gallery in El Centro de Santa Fe on Water Street, Jane Sauer Gallery on Canyon Road, and Silver House, also on Water Street — one of the best opportunities to see what's blowing locally in the glass business is this weekend.
Beginning Friday, Dec. 5, and continuing through the weekend is the eighth annual Baca Street Holiday Art Tour, with a variety of artists in this off-the-main-drag enclave opening their studios and makeshift galleries for all to see. If you aren't familiar with Baca Street, find it by looking for the stoplight next to Tecolote Café on Cerrillos Road. Proceeding north on Baca Street from the intersection, you will see Counter Culture restaurant on the left, which exhibits the work of local artists. The next driveway on the left is the first stop on the tour: Baca Street Studios.
A small, unassuming strip mall of shops and work spaces, Baca Street Studios opened in 2000 and is owned by glass artist Elodie Holmes. Current tenants in the complex who are part of the tour include Laird Hovland Sculpture (bronze and steel work), Ark Angel Studio (photography by Jessica Taylor and woodwork and pastels by Jeff Horne), Moontree Boutique (beaded jewelry by Clare Thanhauser), and Ima Glass Studio (flame-worked glass ornaments and jewelry by Holly Goldstein and Donna Nova's glass jewelry and beadwork).
In the corner of this L-shaped complex is Holmes' gallery and work space: Liquid Light Glass. Holmes has been part of glassmaking in Santa Fe since 1981, when she helped run the Melting Point with Waine Archer and Morrissey. "They had a very small gallery, so we would make things to sell there," she recalls. "I was fresh out of school — it was beginner glass, but it was fun."
Holmes' journey to becoming a glass artist was not easy. "In 1985, I was in a very bad car accident on my way to Pilchuck," she said. "At the time, I didn't know if I would ever blow glass again. After I got back to Santa Fe after five months recovering in Salt Lake City, Waine suggested that I do flame-worked glass. So I built up a glass business with an equipment grant from the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. After eight or nine years I was invited to blow glass with Peter VanderLaan in exchange for shop time. I was finally able to blow glass again, and after working out of Peter's Gloryhole Glassworks for five years, I got to a point in my own work where I needed my own shop. So in November 2000, I finalized the deal on Baca Street.
"The Baca Street Tour idea originated with me the minute I moved into my new studio," Holmes said. "I had always done holiday sales over the years, and now I saw greater potential now that I had a permanent location." For this year's event, she has invited several of her glassmaking colleagues to display their work in her gallery: Marcy Albin Horne, Robert "Spooner" Marcus, Ira Lujan, Patrick Morrissey, Meryl Wolper, and Jannine Cabossel.
Like most of the artists represented in her gallery, Holmes creates functional and nonobjective pieces. Personally, she prefers to let her imagination — and the chance factor in glassmaking — dictate the direction of her work. "I started out in ceramics and ended up doing a double major in glass and ceramics at the California College of the Arts in Oakland," she said. "Glass spoke to me with its fluidity, light, and magic. It's also very physical. I still like clay, but the rhythm of glass and clay are so different. Sculpturally, I can let the glass do what it does best — flow, move, absorb, and reflect light — then freeze it in motion. It's an incredible material, unlike anything else on Earth." Her abstract Aurora series, Triton pieces, and Totems (in collaboration with Cabossel) are her current foci.
Holmes and Cabossel also collaborated in producing a series of oversized glass eggs, some of which were featured in the recent exhibition Flux: Reflections on Contemporary Glass curated by Laura Addison for the New Mexico Museum of Art. Not as ornate as the storied Fabergé eggs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the ones created by Holmes and Cabossel are nonetheless beautiful, and their dimensions make quite a statement.
Holly Goldstein has been working with glass for 15 years and established Ima Glass in 1996. (The name is pronounced "eemah" and taken from a Hebrew term for mother.) She began working at her present location at the east end of Baca Street Studios in 2005. Primarily a flame worker, Goldstein makes her small glass sculptures, ornaments, and jewelry out of borosilicate — commonly referred to as Pyrex — seated at a table, using a torch, and then annealing her pieces in a kiln. Much of her work is related to ocean themes: fish, shells, and sea horses. But her inspiration comes not so much from the sea but from sources at her grandparents' gallery — Guildhall Galleries in Chicago, where as a child, she saw work by Chagall and Picasso. In addition, O'Keeffe's flower and skull paintings show their influence in Goldstein's Southwestern work. Asked about sales at this year's tour, Goldstein is optimistic. "Sales have been a little quiet this year, and traffic has since picked up with the holiday season. And what's interesting is that people seem to be much more thoughtful about how they spend their money. And handcrafted items play into that."
In October, flame worker Donna Nova joined Goldstein in her shop. In her artist's statement, Nova comments, "When I sit down at the torch to make beads, I often have ideas in my head that are never made because, as most glass workers will tell you, the glass has a mind of its own. I love the flame and the slight hiss and the warmth of it, as well as the interplay of the different glass colors, and, of course, the chemical reactions that are often unexpected."
Elsewhere on the Baca Street tour, glasswork may be found at Dahl Glass and at the Volume hair salon, adjacent to Counter Culture. For more than 20 years, Duane Dahl has produced commissioned glasswork in cooperation with architects, designers, and homeowners. Consequently, his work has adorned public places as well as private residences in the form of door and window panels, sconces, chandeliers, countertops, and sinks. His clients have included Absolut Vodka, Wolfgang Puck, the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, and most recently the new Buffalo Thunder casino and resort near Pojoaque. Working in warm-glass techniques, Dahl boasts a kiln capable of producing singular pieces up to 36 by 96 inches in size. Dahl started out working in stained glass in Seattle and learned kiln-fired techniques in Albuquerque. He has lived on Baca Street since 1985, but his studio spaces were located on Lena Street and Siler Lane. In 1997, he moved to his present location. "I passed the empty Sena's Auto Body shop every day thinking what a great studio it would make and jumped immediately when I saw the sale sign go up," he said.
If your taste runs less toward the formal or industrial and more toward the quirky, Kristin Lora's work at Volume takes the cake. A jeweler at heart, Lora's mini mixed-media pieces — labeled by the artist as "neo-geo and pop art" — poke fun at social mores and display comic situations between the sexes. "Humor is important in my work and my life — a very direct humor that is slightly bemused," Lora says in her artist's statement.
Baca Street has been proclaimed by some of its business owners as "the Soho of Santa Fe," and Sunset magazine has referred to the place as a "fashionable artists haven." But don't expect to see high-end galleries with floor-to-ceiling windows, burnished concrete floors, and the latest in high-tech, color-adjusted lighting. These are artists' work spaces made from corrugated sheet metal, converted garages, and other structures that have seen better days. Nevertheless, low chic lends itself to unpretentiousness and approachability when it comes to meeting and conversing with the artists directly, one of the many perks of this open-studio tour. So get out and support local glassmakers; you'll walk away glassy-eyed but without the hangover.
details
Baca Street Holiday Art Tour
5-9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday & Sunday, Dec. 6 & 7
No charge; 820-2222
