2021 Joint Mathematics Meeting

I am feeling a little giddy because I just won an award for the first mathematical artwork I’ve ever exhibited. “Laura’s Flowerpot” is a collaborative work made with my friend Duane Bailey, a mathematician and professor of computer science at Williams College, Massachusetts. The exhibition was curated by the Bridges Organization for the 2021 Joint Mathematics Meetings, an international conference of mathematicians. You may visit the exhibition here, and watch a 9min video of Duane and I discussing our sculptures.

The Artist Reception is today, Friday Jan 8th by zoom. All are welcome. Time: 4pm EST, 9pm GMT Information on how to attend the reception is below.

Join the Zoom reception via your web browser, the meeting ID is 867 8631 2058, and the Passcode is JMMbridges. If accessing by phone, the Passcode is 7707585650. Find your local number here. There will be Zoom breakout rooms so that small groups can split off to discuss particular topics in more depth. To access these you must have version 5.3 or later of the Zoom app. Please upgrade before the meeting if needed, at zoom.us.

Happy New Year indeed! I’m looking forward to connecting with old friends and meeting some new ones.

The stained glass easel; why?

In the process of making stained glass there are two stages where the glass is easeled up against the daylight. First, when selecting glass, then later, when glasspainting. Easeling glass is time-consuming and thus expensive, so why do this?

Here’s my current work for All Saints Chapel at Carroll College in Helena Montana. Note how the opalescent glasses change at night/dusk. This is an effect that can only be estimated, whether on light table or easel, because my north-facing easel does not precisely mimic the light in Montana. The easel does, however, take out a lot of the guesswork.

 

 

Check a few older posts if you want to find out more about how and why glass is fixed to the easel, and watch the embedded video links. Stage one, selecting glass for colour, transparency/opacity and texture the English way, by fixing it to the clear glass easel plate with Plasticene; about choosing colour for a landscape window with figures; using beeswax and rosin (which fires off later in the kiln) in the process of  waxing up (fixing painted, fired  glass onto the easel for further layers of glasspaint); and details of a specific wet-matte technique that may be achieved with my https://coombscriddle.wordpress.com/2015/06/22/spreading-the-word-worldwide/proprietory propylene glycol mixture.

Showing my stained glass in two exhibitions that open tomorrow, Sat May 21

Ornithologist

WILLIAMSTOWN MASSACHUSETTS

My stained glass panel Ornithologist is hanging in The Shops at the Library Antiques in Williamstown as part of  IS-183, the Art School of the Berkshires  25 year celebration Faculty Art Show. This delightfully unconventional exhibition takes place in various non-traditional gallery spaces up and down Spring Street in Williamstown Massachusetts.

Artwork by more than 75 artists from across our region will be on show until  June 16. Maps will be provided at the opening reception on Saturday, May 21, from 4-6pm, at the Purple Pub. After that, visitors may pop into any participating venue, pick up a map and take a self-guided walking tour.

MANCHESTER VERMONT

And… as a new member of the Vermont Glass Guild I am showing six of my stained glass panels alongside the work of 30 other Vermont and New England glass artists at the Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester, Vermont. All are from my seven-year long, 14-piece series Menfolk that explores the emotional landscape of men over time and in different circumstances. Included in the exhibition is Sir Edmund Hillary (below, detail). This was the subject of a lovely 13min video made by our son, Jack Criddle that documents my process, showing how each separate piece of glass is cut, painted, fired and assembled.

There will be an opening reception for “Modern Alchemy – The Art of Glass” in the Wilson Museum and Galleries at the Southern Vermont Art Center, in Manchester, VT on Friday, May 21, from 5 – 7pm. I’ll be there to greet visitors and get to know my fellow glass artists. The show will run through July 10, 2016.

 

 

Glasspainting demo; gorgeous smooth, wet mixture

Here’s a very short video (146 seconds) showing how my glasspainting mixture allows for some sumptuous textural  and printmaking effects. On Aug 31st I’ll be teaching a 5-day glasspainting workshop that will explain my mixing procedure and techniques. I still have one place available if anyone is interested.

Dates: Aug 31 to Sept 5th. Cost $720. Location: southern Vermont (3 hrs from Boston, 4hrs from NY city). Go to the teaching pages of my website for more details. Please use the green NEXT buttons and scroll down to read all the text.

Thanks to Ginger Ferrell, who shot this sequence at the Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts last summer, and the staff, colleagues and students who made it such a wonderful experience. I hope to teach there again some time.

Glasspainting at the easel (videos)

As promised,  here’s a little insight into my wet matting technique. Propylene glycol allows the glasspaint to remain wet (“open”) for much longer than a traditional mix, so I can create graduated shadows while the paint is still wet. I can also leave some areas of the glass completely clear to maintain the sparkle. Watch me apply and manipulate a wet matter in real time in this two minute video  Glass Painting at the Easel Part 1 and brush back the dry matte to remove highlights in Glasspainting at the Easel Part 2 (2.5 mins).

I am painting glass that has been previously painted, fired and fixed onto clear glass easel plates with a mixture of beeswax and rosin (how this is done). Working at the easel with my painted glass up against natural light (not on a light table) allows me to manipulate the transparency/opacity of each piece, add final shadows, and see the window as a whole.

Pics and a video from Arrowmont

Last week’s Arrowmont workshop included slide presentations, design seminars, instructions on mixing, thinning and applying glasspaints and several painting demos.  You can also watch a brief (2.5 minute) video of me painting basket weave with my fingers and printing with plants. Enjoy!

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This next slideshow shares some of the work completed by students last week. All photos by either Ginger Ferrell or Laura Goff Parham. Thanks both!

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I just have to end with this picture, taken behind my back (ha ha) by my long-suffering Teaching Assistant, Ginger Ferrell. Thanks Ginger for minding the kilns and taking some lovely photos.

early morning yoga

I had a really great week at Arrowmont. My mornings started at 7am with yoga on the screened porch with Jean Campbell, one of the nine other instructors.

I got a real buzz from being in such an intensely creative community – the staff, faculty and students at Arrowmont. I came home energized with creative batteries recharged. I’ve already started planning my next series of stained glass exhibition panels and looking for somewhere to exhibit new work in the spring.

There are classes scheduled at Arrowmont right up until the end of October.

class photo

Easel painting prep

Today I fixed all the little pieces of painted glass back onto clear glass easel plates with a mixture of beeswax and rosin ready for final glasspainting up against the daylight. This is where I add any final shading and adjust transparency where needed.

We made two very quick videos of the process for all those stained glass technique junkies….
waxing up a panel (68 seconds) and
putting the glass back onto the easel (22 seconds)

Here’s another panel, partly laid out on a glass easel plate prior to waxing up.

I have to end with a more interesting photo because I never know whether Facebook will choose my first or my last photo to post to my Page. If there’s anyone out there who can tell me how to control this please do!