Yesterday was Seattle’s Bemis Building’s Spring Art Opening, and dozens of artists with studios and living spaces in the building opened up their spaces for touring visitors. Glass artist Ethan Stern was one of those artists. Despite having a slightly out-of-the-way gallery, Stern creates work that is instantly compelling. It is some of the most exciting art in the building, and frankly, some of the most inventive and technical glasswork I’ve seen in the Seattle area for quite some time.

Stern’s work, including the pieces above, undergo a vigorous creation process from start to finish. First, he puts layer upon layer of colored glass to create unique, hollow shapes. The outermost colored layer is then delicately cut away in a cold shop, with various diamond and stone wheels. The process of cutting away portions of the outer layer reveal additional hidden colors and patterns underneath. And while every piece has a pre-determined concept, they evolve naturally through the process of cutting; the above pieces, for example, are meant to be reminiscent of maps and coastlines. Stern, a former ceramics artist, leaves these glassworks in a semi-polished state to give the pieces a more pleasing-to-the-touch feeling of richness.

www.ethanstern.com

For four more days, the works of Paula Stokes will be on display at the Shift Studio! A glass artist as well as printmaker based in Seattle, Stokes likes to explore human nature and psychology in her pieces, using the relationships among line, color, form, and texture in bold and interesting ways.

www.paulastokes.com
www.shiftstudio.org

Most of us have probably been to craft fairs. They’re usually the same ol same ol rehashing of vendor after vendor setting up on fold out table after fold out table. Raised in Craftivity, curated by Maria Buszek, features crafty art that is less practical and more exciting. Whether it be embroidery, woodworking, beadwork, ceramics, or knitting that artists like Elaine Bradford, Orly Cogan, Maggy Rozycki Hiltner, and KnittaPlease embrace, literally every one of the artists on display are ridiculously inventive with their creations. Raised in Craftivity is a long-running show for a reason; it not only tells, but shows visitors that crafts can result in much more than tea cozies and aprons.

The show is on display from now until March 7th, 2009, at the Wignall Museum in Rancho Cucomonga, California.

Elaine Bradford’s Locked Antlers features yarn and buttons wrapped around real deer heads.

Orly Cogan creatively embroiders naked beings over pre-printed fabric in Butterfly Song Triptych.

www.chaffey.edu/wignall/upcoming.shtml

Industrial artist Reis Niemi makes some interesting art. He welds his own guns, makes embroidered underpants, and creates images of wigs serving as hair for cellphones. It seems only natural that he would purchase handkerchiefs from a 100 year old man’s garage sale and attempt to make art out of it. His newest show, Invisible Forces, will begin on display at the Punch Gallery on First Thursday, February 5th, and will feature fabric sculpture, forged ironwork, and painted liquor bottles — all guaranteed to be pieces that are slightly curious.

www.punchgallery.org
www.riesniemi.com

Jeff Koons is a man with a plan. He makes installation pieces that are not only artistically sound, but thought-provoking as well. They are modern art pieces that have They make you wonder how he created them and what prompted him to make them. Twenty days ago, a modern art exhibit at Versailles ended, and on display there was a giant glass balloon animal, as shown above. We’ll come back to more about Jeff Koons later on, but for now, people in Berlin can be lucky enough to catch his work at the Neue NationalGalerie, through February.

www.jeffkoons.com

Dale Chihuly is from Seattle, and as a result, his works are seen fairly often around the Pacific Northwest. To first time viewers, Chihuly’s works are striking and eye-catching… to those who have seen many of his pieces, however, the lack of diversity becomes a little stifling.

I’m in the boat as one who has seen quite a bit of Chihuly’s work, and I was subsequently a bit hesitant to discover his newest exhibit was in town at the deYoung gallery. I simply expected an extension of work that I have seen much too much of already. Not to mention the additional $5 price tag and the line you had to wait in in order to actually see the exhibit…

To my pleasant surprise, however, due to creative installation trickery and fancy lighting, the exhibit was amazing (and yes, well worth the $5). Chihuly’s glassworks made a showing, of course, but his sketches and drawings did as well. Personally I found them to be less eye-catching, but I’m sure someone enjoyed their relatively abstract and rough natures.

Neon glass pieces greet us upon our entering.

Chihuly’s “Persians” series. The work was great, but the descriptions were painful at best. To loosely sum it up, the description of these pieces touched upon how the pieces seemed foreign and unique and therefore reminded him of foreign lands… and to him, foreign lands meant things like Asia, like Persia… and as a result, these were called “Persians.” Uhhh, no. No.

A chorus of angels sings.

Exploring the relationship between cold and still, hot and flowing (like magma).

“Reeds” series. By this point I was no longer reading the inspirations, so I couldn’t tell you that part.

Two boats carrying a million glass pieces, floating on a sea of black.

“Chandeliers” series.

More from the “Chandeliers” series.

Nothing much here — just a ceiling of glass. What was really cool about this all-white room were the rainbows cast on the walls from the array of glasswork.

An assortment of odd freaks and fancies.

And more. The end.