3 Questions For … Tom Patti

Tom Patti at work in the studio.

GLASS: What are you working on?
Tom Patti: Currently I’m overseeing the assembly and installation of a site-specific work for a 14-story parking garage in Miami. Titled Miami Rain, the project is part of a larger 67-story building designed by Arquitectonica as a gateway into South Miami. The project gave me the chance to create artwork that is an integral component of the Marquis building and that interacts with the movement in the surrounding neighborhood — from the pedestrian to the light rail traveler to the drivers of cars passing on the adjacent highway. It was a design challenge in this economy, but it relates to my interest in utilizing innovative materials and glass technology to inform my work. I’ve also been working on large-scale pieces being installed in two New York City plazas: one a back-lit glass wall, 250 feet long by 17 feet high on 6th Avenue; the other involves two large glass fountains near the World Trade Center site.

A rendering of Miami Rain, a sculptural architectural installation that creates a dynamic surface on the walls of a parking garage, the diagonal field of laminated optical glass reflects the surrounding Miami skyscape and the activity of the moving vehicles on the adjacent elevated highway, the trains on the light rail, and the pedestrians on the street below.

GLASS: What artwork have you seen recently that inspired you?
Tom: I found Aernout Mik’s video installations at MoMA very provocative when I saw the exhibition last summer. Because my work is autobiographical, I often relate what I’m currently working on with past work. Mik’s focus on social and economic narratives that create fluid boundaries caused me to rethink and reflect on my past architectural design work developing innovative solutions for global housing system issues.

GLASS: Where is it possible to see your work?
Tom: I have two upcoming exhibitions. I will have a show in Biot, France, at the International Glass Gallery that will show my “Plateau” series of low tables made of metal and glass that I made between 1995 and 2009. The other is an inaugural exhibition at Westfield State College’s new Fine Art Gallery in Westfield, Massachusetts, which will follow-up a lecture I gave after receiving an honorary doctorate of fine arts in 2008.