An article in the Sunday New York Times discussed Kiki Smith's frequent use of glass in her latest projects.
In an article in Sunday’s New York Times (also published on its website) arts writer Dorothy Spears discusses Kiki Smith‘s numerous current projects that involve glass.
From her museum exhibition “Sojurn,” on view at the Brooklyn Museum of Art through September 12, 2010, to her photo exhibition “I Myself Have Seen It“ at The Henry Gallery at the University of Washington in Seattle, up through August 15, 2010, Smith is profiled as an exceptionally productive artist. The article, entitled “Through a Glass, Busily,” also examines Smith’s commission to produce a stained-glass window for the Eldridge Street Synagogue in New York City, a project she has been fabricating at the studios of Franz Mayer of Munich in Germany. (A multi-media photo gallery accompanying the New York Times article provides some of the first renderings of this much-awaited stained-glass project by Smith.)
Though the article mentions Smith’s involvement with major glass art centers in the U.S. such as the New York Experimental Glass Workshop (now UrbanGlass) and Pilchuck, the artist is frank about the fact that she does not consider herself a glass expert. In the article, Smith is quoted as saying “blown glass is a real craft and not something you can just pick up.”
And the New York Times goes on to give credit to David Willis who made the work. It’s wonderful when an artist and a craftsman collaborate and the craftsman is credited by name. This never happens when it comes to casting bronze sculpture. And in the case of David Willis, he’s not only a very skilled craftsman, he’s an artist in his own right. What could be better.