Rare Art Using a Cold Glass Process

My neighbors, who are serious art collectors, introduced me to the work of glass artist Jack Storms. One of his sculptures holds a prominent position in their house. It sparkles under generous natural light.

Each glass sculpture by Jack Storms takes months to complete. Using a rare cold glass process, he finely layers pieces of dichroic glass using transparent epoxy. Upon achieving the light and imagery effects he desires, Storms then surrounds the luminous core he constructed with clear glass or crystal. Because the process requires so much precision, Storms uses the Fibonacci sequence or golden ratio to ensure that his work looks natural rather than mechanical.

Storms houses kaleidoscopic forms inside geometric shapes or shapes resembling familiar objects.
         

Preston Singletary: Native American Glass Artist

Preston Singletary is a Tlingit artist who employs traditional forms and spiritual topics in contemporary art. The Tlingit are an indigenous people from the Pacific Northwest, known to themselves as “Lingit” or “People of the Tides”.

Rather than using traditional materials, Singletary uses glass. Glass allows him to use traditional form lines while adding, in his own words, “another dimension to indigenous art.”

Singletary often collaborates with other artists from traditional cultures, which “informs and inspires” his own work. The images shown below include collaborative works with Joe David and Lewis Tamihana Gardiner.

I only feature a small selection of his artworks here. To view more, please visit Preston Singletary’s website and blog.

Nano Lopez: Roxy

Driving to a friend’s house, I saw a picture of this sculpture by Nano Lopez on a banner outside a large art gallery. I couldn’t wait to get home, look up the artist, and share it!

“Roxy” by bronze sculptor, Nano Lopez

Plexiglass Meets High Design

SILIA, Ilaria Balduino Sartori’s luxury adornments company, uses Lucite (commonly known as Plexiglass) to create practical works of art for the home. SILIA pieces range from table settings to chandeliers. In SILIA’s designs, Lucite is often mixed with different materials such as ebony and gold leaf.

Pictured below are a candlestick and two boxes by SILIA. I curated them for their timelessness; they would fit into a home built in 1931 (the year Lucite was invented) as well as they fit into the design collections of today.

Paolo Uccello’s Gothic Night Scenes

Paolo Uccello, 1397-1475 was an Italian artist and mathematician who famously combined Gothic color, design and pageantry with advanced visual mathematics. He was on the forefront of developing perspective drawing methods. At age 10, Uccello became an apprentice of sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti. Later, he studied Geometry under Antonio Manetti.

He did not venture into Classical Realism, which was the fashionable style of his time. Instead, he created his own style. He created no school and had few imitators. His daughter, who was a nun, also became an artist. Today, there are no remaining examples of her work.

Below are three paintings depicting the Battle of San Romano. These are his most famous works. The fourth painting, Night Hunt, is his last known work. All images were provided by the Art Renewal Center.

Olympic Horses: Life-Size Paper Sculptures by Richard Sweeney

Torkil Gunadson’s Hothouse Color Series

 

Torkil Gunadson is a New York based fashion photographer from Denmark. In these photographs, he brought out the colors of the plants using filters. 

Goodwill Find of the Century: A Golden-Age Illustration by Charles Edward Chambers

The other day, my friend and I were out in the middle of nowhere, Georgia. We had to find a restroom, so we went into a Goodwill store. We decided to look around while we were there. My friend found a black-and-white illustration in a decaying frame that he assumed was a print. Since he thought it was a great image, he decided to buy it for $7.00. I loved it so much that he gave it to me.

After taking a closer look, I found that it was an original oil painting on board by the renowned Golden Age illustrator Charles Edward Chambers. He painted it in December of 1900. C. E. Chambers is now trending with collectors and is a Pinterest and blogging favorite. He goes down in history in the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in New York City.

I am sending this painting to a museum so that the public will have access to it. Museums that collect work like this include Society of Illustrators Museum of Illustration, the Art Institute in Chicago (where Chambers went to school), the University of Michigan Museum of Art and the Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art.

Star-Like Paintings by Barbara Takenaga

Fine artist Barbara Takenaga’s paintings are inspired by tessellations, boundlessness, infinitude, and childhood dreams about the origins of the universe. Takenaga grew up in rural Nebraska and got both her BFA and MFA at the University of Colorado at Boulder. 

 

Light Sculptures: L’art De La Radiance by Makoto Tojiki