I am returning to Austin (literally – I am writing this from DFW) ready to focus on a series of work – pieces that share a common aesthetic and which explore related ideas. This is something I have wanted to do for a long time but couldn’t quite find within myself – until this week.

How did I get there?

Exceptional feedback and prodding — from Steve Klein and Richard Parrish, residency peers, and some excellent artists who visit – played a huge part.

A world class facility and school staff also had a lot to do with it.

Add to those what we affectionately called “ass time” – just sitting and doing.

More details to come. Join us for slides and more this Friday at the studio at 7 PM. Until then here are some more photos:

It is too late – and I am much too tired – for a long post. I will, though, leave you with this photo of the strip bowl master Steve Immerman doing – you guessed it – cutting strips!

The neon session that ended just before I arrived had to complete a group collaboration as their final project. They decided to do an “animated” neon of Michael Jackson moonwalking.

That may not seem suprising given the events and extraordinary news coverage over the last week The weird part is they finished the piece the day before Jackson died.

As a result, the neon sculpture has become a spontaneous memorial with people dropping flowers and small glass objects at the base.

It helps when you start your day at 7 AM and finish after 11 PM (though the studio is actually open 24 hours a day).

Those kind of hours would be impossible (or at least very, very difficult) with a structured class. This, though, is a “residency” which is less about being taught specific techniques and more about having the time, resources and feedback to develop work and share ideas.

This place, the exceptional people in the residency, the dialog with the program leaders Steve Klein and Richard Parrish, the abundance of materials (in large part thanks to the generousity of Bullseye) and even the food — everything is aligned to support the creative process.

I feel incredibly fortunate to be here.

And a view of Puget Sound.

I’m never leaving.

Read about Pilchuck on Wikipedia.

For my blog readers in Texas, just a early heads-up that I’ll have lots of slides and more this coming Fusing Friday.  I’ll include what I learned at Richard Whiteley’s “multi-point annealing”.  I can see your eyes already dilating with anticipation.

Also, just to tease you, within a week or so we will be announcing our next round of visiting lecturers.  No more details at the moment, but I promise you’ll see some names of people who, while they’ve been regulars at places like Corning, Canberra, and Bullseye, have never taught before in our area.

If you aren’t already on the Helios email list – and you want to know who is coming as soon as we announce – then you should sign up soon.

Helen Stokes has developed am ingenious technique for creating plaster silica mold with less weight, more strength and easier annealing vs solid molds.

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.