Across the void

Blown away series 3 episode 2

Photo Credit: Blown Away Series and Marble Media Official.

Did you know that 2022 was declared the International Year of Glass by the United Nations? This challenge asked us asked us to contextualize the importance of this announcement by creating an artwork inspired by the impact of glass on the world. The guest judge for this episode was Chris Clarke, an amazing artist and key figure in the glass community as the Director of Studios and Technology at the Pittsburgh Glass Center

'Across the Void!' is intended to illustrate the variety of the impacts that glass has had through different elements within the piece. The first idea that the piece touches on is the impact of the cell phone, the so called "black mirror" is intentionally the size of a cell phone and held by both hands as if they were texting or scrolling. The decoration on the "mirror" is intended to reference Venetian glass, one of, if not the most prominent, cultures of glass both historically and contemporary. While the idea of getting lost in the void of the "black mirror" is present, we know that this technology has had a positive impact as well- bringing people together (which became incredibly apparent during the pandemic), represented by the two different skin tones of the hands.

To clarify, I put this piece together hot, because I am most comfortable doing this and absolutely not the best cold worker 😂
Honestly there is no way I would have been able to make this piece without the amazing Ian Macinnis on the pipe. We were definitely down to the wire putting this piece together and he pretty much blindly trusted me through every aspect of it as I did a shit job of explaining anything to him about the process!