I have always admired Silvia Levenson’s work - but today’s lecture and slide show really hit home for me how important and talented she is as an artist.  I’ve tried to think of another artist working in glass whose work has the potential to change the viewer - not only at the moment when they stand in front of the art - but long after they have left and, perhaps, even forgotten the work. 

And the amazing part is that this relationship between viewer and art usually starts with a laugh at the wit in almost all of her work.  But if you linger past the humor you will find there is always a deeper message - somewhere between commentary and observation - that is touches at some of humanities deepest pain points.

Someone at the conference made the comment that art is a kind of visual poetry.  If that is true (and I think it is), Silvia’s works are each a visual haiku - pleasant at a glance, yet so dense with meaning that you feel only after many return visits and readings can you start to understand what the work communicates.

Here’s one example:

There is something ludicrous in hanging glass knives. 

But when you consider the scene - a sort of sketch of an unremarkable living room - and you realize that the knives, ghostly clear in glass, are the shadows of past horrors - horrors within the should-be-safe home - the scene immediately loses its humor.  When you cannot be safe at home where do you go?

This, for me, is the most remarkable kind of art.