These are dry times. Summer slips away faster than you can catch it – a dime down the drain. The sky hangs damp and icy today. Across the globe, powerful little men toy with the world’s future like it’s a game of chicken. Hurricanes have ravaged large parts of our earth. Families will suffer the effects for years to come. Terrorists won’t let London sleep.
This planet can get so ugly. So broken. So disordered. So many of our mirrors are shattered.
There is order in beauty. A divine order, I believe, but whatever your theology you can feel it. The affirmation of disparate parts falling into place.
Jennifer Berkenbosch’s Cultivar matters because the world needs beauty today. We need to be reminded that there is goodness. There is a solid bed beneath this wild river.
Today's artist is Edmonton glassblower Keith Walker.
Walker's new website just launched this week and provides a great showcase for the beautiful work he's been making from his unique backyard studio for the past several years.
You have something to say–why not say it here? Email your blog post idea to dave@bleedingheartart.space and let's chat.
I show up early for a private viewing of LESS IS MORE, Keith Walker’s new show at the Alberta Craft Council Discovery Gallery. My first discovery is that this gallery is upstairs, not downstairs where I thought. There, in the feature gallery, is another show well worth viewing, MASTERWORKS.
My second discovery is that the name LESS IS MORE is misleading. LESS doesn’t factor into this work in any way at first blush. There is plenty going on here, and it’s going to take me a while to digest it all.
You have something to say–why not say it here? Email your blog post idea to dave@bleedingheartart.space and let's chat.
When I decided to start a podcast this year I didn’t know much. I’d never recorded interviews with people. That’s the part that scared me. Still does. Having the right questions. Knowing how to steer a conversation and when to take my hands off the wheel.
I had no idea how much I was about to learn, sitting across the table from other creatives.
I’m just 4 artists in, but here, in no particular order, are some of the best lessons so far.
You have something to say–why not say it here? Email your blog post idea to dave@bleedingheartart.space and let's chat.
"Oh no!" mutters Keith Walker. Or maybe he exclaims something a bit more colourful.
The molten glass is dripping too fast. The weight of the teardrop pulls downward, stretching the droplet too long too soon. It could stop, frozen solid, any second. But it doesn't. It falls into its cradle and breaks. The piece is ruined.
We've been blowing glass teardrops all day for the upcoming installation, Blue Christmas. Despite the repetition of forging 60-some nearly indistinguishable teardrops, every piece is a challenge. Unpredictable. Uncontrollable.
Less than ten minutes later we are back at that critical moment. Another chance to get it right. The heavy bottom of the teardrop sinks fast. I'm tense. I blow on the bottom of the drop with a 'sofietta' to cool it down. Keith torches the stem to melt it faster. He knows when to blow the torch and when to lay back. His mastery shows. We dance with the molten glass until it harden back to its solid state. This teardrop is perfect. Or as close to perfect as we can hope to get.
Tension. Timing. Knowing when to push forward and when to pull back. When to give and when to demand more. This process is packed with metaphors.
Blue Christmas, our first show in our new home, opens December 6. The installation will create a space for grief in a time declared joyful. Grieving needs space and time. Sorrow bears weight. Like a forming teardop, it can be heavy. In its intensity–its immediate heat–that heaviness can pull us down too hard and fast. It can break us.
But we can learn to dance with sorrow. To give it space and time. To know when to close the book and move forward. We can even draw beauty from it.
In grief we all become fragile. For a time brittle. Once passed through fire, stronger. Like this glass teardrop we have made.
I'm still processing much of what I learned in Keith Walker's glass studio yesterday.
You have something to say–why not say it here? Email your blog post idea to dave@bleedingheartart.space and let's chat.
