Lisabeth Sterling at work in her studio engraving a blown vessel work Mars, Mercury and Venus (2007).
GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet: What are you working on?
Lisabeth Sterling: My latest works are sandblasted and engraved white cameo glass on inked etched copper. Over the years, I’ve made choices in the direction that my work would go, often choosing between two equally good approaches. It feels good to revisit some of those paths not taken.
My background was in drawing and painting on two-dimensional surfaces. I then spent more than 15 years engraving transparent blown cameo vessels. For the past year-and-a-half, I’ve been revisiting some of the themes and approaches that I missed from a two-dimensional point of view.
Lisabeth Sterling, Young Raisins, 2009. Sandblasted and engraved white cameo glass on inked etched copper. courtesy: the artist
My wall pieces have evolved considerably in the past two years. At first I was focused solely on what I was doing with the white flashed glass. The effect was much like graphite on paper but with the luminosity of glass (I always enjoyed pencil drawing!). My engraved glass panels looked like details of larger images. It prompted me to start carving the steel that the glass was mounted upon, to extend the composition. It was then that I noted how much the carved steel looked like a plate used for printmaking, and that started me down another path. I brushed up on my etching skills and started working with copper. The prints I make from the copper plates are kind of a side project that I’m just starting to get out into the public. However the primary function for the copper is for use in my engraved glass and etched copper wall pieces. I’m happy with the work that I am producing: the imagery is meaningful to me, I enjoy problem-solving and making things of beauty.
GLASS: What artwork have you experienced recently that has moved you, and got you thinking about your own work?
Lisabeth: When my grandmother died, she left me two small unsigned watercolor paintings that she purchased on her honeymoon in Mexico on the late 1930s. I always thought of those paintings whenever I thought of my grandmother, and was thrilled to have them in my home. It was only after they were on my living room wall that I realized how much they must have influenced my work from a very early age. The faces look like faces I would draw. The figures overlap and are both people and a textural element within the composition. I seem to have subconsciously absorbed lessons from those paintings that helped me to define my own work. I just wish I knew the artist who painted them.
GLASS: Do you have any upcoming exhibitions you can talk about?
Lisabeth: I just shipped some work to Ken Saunders Gallery in Chicago that will be in a show called “Her Story” that will run from February 4th through March 31. It’s a group show with KeKe Cribs, Ulrica Hydman-Vallien, Carmen Lozar, Catharine Newell, Amy Ruffert and me (Lisabeth Sterling) We are all women who tell stories with our glass, but there is something less definable that we have in common.
I once took a group of collectors on a walk around the exhibition space at CGCA’s glass weekend, I was to show them my favorite works on display. I moved from piece to piece explaining what I liked about each one. I had nearly completed an entire row before I noticed that I was showing them almost exclusively the work of women. I think there is a feminine sense of ethics. Is it a softness, an attention to detail or simply the feminine perspective? I’m not sure what is. Maybe someone who sees the show can get back to me on that one.
My work can also be found at Schantz Galleries, Habatat in West Palm Beach, Florida, Hawk Galleries, and De Twee Pauwen in Den Haag, Holland.