Ethan Stern in the cold-working shop.
GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet: What are you working on?
Ethan Stern: I’ve just completed a body of work composed of hollow blown forms containing multiple layers of color. After they’re annealed, I carve and engrave pattern and texture into them. The forms are stout and heavy-looking but, like a Japanese tea bowl, they meet the ground at a small point, giving them a sense of lift and breath.
I started out making functional ceramics, and have gradually moved away from the vessel into closed forms that still have a “vessel” anatomy. The foot, lip, shoulder, waist, and so on, are all redefined to compose a dynamic shape. I’m drawn to this type of engineering because it creates a vocabulary and an orientation with which to discover new forms and their relationship to functional objects.
Zoom Trio is a departure point from my recent works. In the past I found myself trying to make the glass look like clay, matte-ing the surface, roughing it up and using rich color that absorbs light. Though these pieces have some of that quality, they also have polished surfaces. Glass naturally wants to reflect light and shine with high polish and, for the first time, I’m trying to embrace that quality and bend it to my will. Because the pieces are flat and hollow they have a depth between the foreground and background creating layers of line, space, light, texture and pattern.
I often view the objects I make as paintings created on a blown canvas. Looking at them this way can determine whether the object has a front and a back and direct the viewer to see them in a certain way. I like the idea of looking inside and outside at the same time, creating depth and dimension in a mostly flat object.
Ethan Stern, Zoom Trio, 2010. Glass, blown and engraved. H 13, W 13, D 4 in (each). photo: rob vinnedge
GLASS: What artwork have you experienced recently that has moved you, and got you thinking about your own work?
Ethan: My studio is in a heavily industrialized area of Seattle, and I can’t help but gaze at the steel and concrete day after day. This imagery has influenced this latest body of work, especially the “Zoom” series. The architecture of the buildings and the structural elements of steel construction all contain compositions that are defined by line quality, scale, and visual weight.
The LewAllen Gallery, which represents my work in Santa Fe had an exhibition this past August of works by painter and sculpture Ed Mieczkowski. I’d never seen his work before but was particularly taken by his paintings of abstract industrial landscape. Mieczkowski was considered an “Op Art” painter and was part of the group Anomina that was said to have began the movement in the 1960’s. The groups manifesto was one that denounced commercialism in art and the museum system, as a backlash against the fame of the Abstract Expressionism of that era. Though I too wish money and art were not as connected as they are, making glass is not a cheap endeavor. Regardless, I instantly connected with these works because of their complex layering of line, color and composition which create the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface.
Though some Mieczkowski’s pieces have titles like “5 O’Clock“ and “At the dock“ (a few of my favorites) they seem to be deconstructions of these declarations. I’m attracted to the idea of deconstructing pattern, cutting it out with a cookie-cutter from a giant sheet and redefining its boundaries on three dimensional forms. The term “Optical Art” absolutely relates to glass; one of its inherent characteristics is optics and light manipulation. Ed Meiczkowski and his friends were trying to challenge how we make art, how we see and how our eyes manipulate line and color. Just imagine if they had made glass!
GLASS: Do you have any upcoming exhibitions you can talk about?
Ethan: I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire. Next week I’ve got a solo exhibition opening at the William Traver Gallery in Seattle on February 4th. The exhibition is called “Zoom” and will be up through February 28th.
In March, I’ll have some work in a group show at the Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge, Massachussetts, called “Glass Quake.” In April, I’ll be showing with Chappell Gallery at SOFA New York.
This spring I’ll be in another group show called “Glass Uprising” that’ll be up at two locations, Swanson Reed Gallery and Zephyr Gallery both located in the same block in the business district of downtown Louisville, Kentucky. That show will run from May 20th to July 7th, and be open during the GAS conference.
On top of that, I’ll be teaching a course called “The Hot and Cold Context” at the Appalachian Center for Craft in Smithville, Tennessee, right after the conference from June 14th through July 2nd.
You can also find my work at The LewAllen Gallery, Thomas R. Riley Galleries, Morgan Contemporary Glass Gallery, and Stewart Fine Art. Additionally you can find my work at www.ethanstern.com or read my blog here.