Ron Desmett, Lidded Trunk Vessel #22 (“The King”), 2009. H 28, W 19, D 19 in.
Artist and co-founder of the Pittsburgh Glass Center Ron Desmett has presented to the Corning Museum of Glass one of his striking black glass sculptures that stand in counterpoint to the shine and gloss one associates with glass art. The museum’s acquisition of Lidded Trunk Vessel #22 “The King” (2009) (pictured at left) is the first work by Desmett to be included in the museum’s collection.
Desmett’s “Lidded Trunk Vessel” series is an ongoing body of work developed over the past nine years. In it, the artist trained as a painter, produces opaque, organic work that is striking in its very indifference to typical concerns of symmetry and perfection in glass. Using black Fenton Glass, Desmett uses hollowed-out fallen tree trunks as his molds for creating these eerie, organic, and unsettling forms. Acid etching and applied finishes give his work an almost fabric-like finish.
Using a composite of smaller trunks to create the “lid” of the vessel, Desmett creates an entirely aesthetic object assembled by the space created by natural decay. The results are highly personal, abstract forms that have sinews and gnarled shapes that are layered with meaning and possible association, almost like some sort of metaphysical Rorschach test.
Desmett will be continuing his blowing into fallen-tree molds during his upcoming residency at the Museum of Glass from September 1st – 5th. The work created in Tacoma will be shown in the artist’s upcoming exhibition at BE Galleries in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania that opens on October 14th.