Drawing with Light: A conversation with Cappy Thompson on her new engraved work

Cappy Thompson, known for her folk-art-inspired reverse paintings on glass that explore contemporary themes, has been experimenting with engraving for the past few years. It's been a departure for Thompson, who is an expert grisaille painter, a process where a first-layer of enamel in gray tones is followed by second firing of brightly colored enamels, to create figurative works. Though grisaille involves the removal of an initial coat of gray color, most of Thompson's work was based on layering enamels onto glass to create densely colored surfaces. But etching into glass had been on Thompson's mind since a 1990 trip to then-Czechoslovakia, during which she was intrigued by acid etching using a resist. "It looked like ice that had been melted," Thompson remembers. The dangers of working with highly corrosive and toxic etching acids kept her from ever pursuing this technique at home. However, while she was teaching at Corning in 2012 with master engraver Max Erlacher, she became entranced by the possibilities of wheel-cutting glass. Her friend and fellow artist Charlie Parriott helped her acquire a lathe from the Czech Republic, and she was able to learn from April Surgent and two Czech master engravers during a Pilchuck residency. The GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet recently caught up with Thompson for a telephone interview as she prepared an artist's talk at Traver Gallery scheduled for this evening to talk about this bold new direction for the work in her current exhibition "Bright Blue Light."

GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet: What's it like going from the additive process of enamels to removing glass using a wheel? How has this change in process affected you and your work?
Cappy Thompson: One of the things that’s so wonderful about making a change, it brings new energy to your work. When I had this opportunity for this show at Traver, I wanted to make some paintings that related to the engraving. I’m not willing to give up enamels, I think they are so incredible. But it was the engraving that inspired the direction of the newest paintings. I stopped wanting to work with black. The black underpainting has been the foundation of my work for 40 years. But somehow I’ve changed. I love this new body of work, it feels different.

GLASS: What's it like holding the medium itself in the engraving process, where you move the glass around the cutting wheel, versus holding the brush to paint on glass? It must be a completely different feeling to etch a line versus paint it.
Cappy: As with everything I’ve ever done, I do a drawing, a pretty loose sketch for preplanning. And then when I get the composition, I block out the figures. I use an india ink to paint the composition onto the vessel, and then it gets covered with shellac, India ink is a water resistant shellac based ink. So I fix the india ink onto the base with the shellac, and then bring the drawing to the lathe, where I cut it, but I can see the drawing, so that is still there in my process. The shape of the wheels will describe the line: a "v "shape will give you a line, an oval shaped profile will give you a round shape, depending on the angle of the curve. But the character of the line is determined by the shape of the wheel. It still has a folk aesthetic because I’ll never have the kind of skill a master engraver will have. But that suits the simplicity and charm of my drawings. For me, I like that emotional quality that comes with folk art, or drawings from around the world that are not studied.

GLASS: Has your immersion in etching gotten you thinking about light in a different way?
Cappy: Definitely. With engraving, there all kinds of nuances you can get. I’m playing with what I have. I don’t intend to become a tight engraver, but I'm fascinated by the different degrees of hardness of the stones , they leave a line or a mark that is in various shades of brightness ...  the different compositions of the wheels can create a combination of different qualities of light, which give the cutting additional visual interest. But I still sometimes add a tiny bit of color in some of my works, where a tiny bit of color on the bottom radiates through the piece.

GLASS: Has this new direction changed your relationship to glass itself? Got you to think about the material in a different way?
Cappy: I don’t know how to answer that question. I'm happy to work in a different way. In a way, what I don’t like about enamels is that they are on the glass, and not of it. It gives me a satisfaction to take such a beautiful material, cutting into it, to make the material more beautiful. With the enamels, I can bring a variety of colors. The variations in the refraction for glass is so underexplored compared to the painting medium. I’m really loving working with the transparent colors in a different way – I’m jazzed about both directions.

What I’ve noticed in just looking at this work, how it's changing, is what’s different and what’s the same. I seem to have repeating themes, they have been similar for 40 years. ... I seem to have an abiding theme, a love thing, I’m trying to make people feel connected to each other and to nature, and to the cosmos.

GLASS: Can you talk about the vessels in particular? The etching seems to really come to life in these forms.
Cappy: With the vessel, the storytelling aspect is abiding as well. In a way, these vessels are little theaters, a stage with a set. Light is such an attractive thing. I’ve always thought the vessel needed light to bring people in, and these little engravings are emitting light. It’s easier to pull people in with them.