Weston Lambert, Kay's Grace, 2009. Glass, stone, steel.
While studying for his BFA, Weston Lambert’s work was featured in the Spring 2007 edition of GLASS Quarterly (#106) when he was chosen by Rick Mills at the University of Hawaii for a special article titled “Director’s Cut” that identified strong student work. Lambert’s newest body of work, on display at the Museo Gallery on Whidbey Island, Washington, where his first solo show will remain on view through November 1, reveals a major shift for the young artist. The new sculptures—restrained abstractions that mine the interaction of glass, stone, and steel–bear little resemblance to the stylized figurative heads he had been making by carving laminated sheet glass while in university. Lambert attributes his major stylistic shift to his father’s death in October 2007.
Weston Lambert's work Our Time was named in honor of his father, Mark Lambert, who died in October 2007.
Just months after graduating from the University of Hawaii in 2007 with a BFA, Lambert’s father died after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Before he died, Mark Lambert encouraged his son to to pursue a monumental glass sculpture he had conceived of during the summer at Pilchuck. “At first I hesitated because of the scale and cost,” says Weston of the work called Our Time (pictured at right) currently installed in downtown Bellingham, Washington. “It is named in honor of the time I shared with my father before he passed, and also the time I spent with my family during that hardship.” The 7-foot-tall glass and stone monolith also marked a profound shift in Lambert away from figuration.
“I was initially trained in sculpture by Jose Luis Panet,” says Weston. “For several years, the figure was really all I knew of sculpture. … When I got home and had to actually face the reality of my father’s illness, the playful side of me fell apart, and still has yet to return. My current body of work is based on my attempts to process the events that have happened.”
A recent work, entitled My Losses Being Vast (pictured below), takes its title from the initials M, L, B, and V—Mark Lambert and Bertil Vallien respectively. “It’s an example of my attempt to come to terms with tragedy via commiseration,” says Weston. “I read that Bertil’s son had drowned and that his boat forms were based on that tragic event. Some of my strongest memories of my father are of boating and the water. Though I don’t know him personally, I feel a sharp empathy with Bertil. The form of MLBV mimics a water-bound vessel that has been stripped of all non-essentials in order to survive its next endeavor.” (Editor’s note: On his own website, Bertil does not discuss the origins of the boat symbol, and the only possible reference is to “significant personal experiences” in an article on the meaning of the boat series by Bjorn Onnerhag.)
Weston Lambert, My Losses Being Vast, 2009.
IF YOU GO:
Museo Gallery 215 First Street Langley, Whidbey Island, Washington 98260More information is available on the gallery website.
