ArtPrize 2013: glass as lace

Last Saturday we went as a family to the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park to see their ArtPrize exhibit, which features glass. I love glass as a medium anyway so I was greatly anticipating  this show. It is amazing to see the wide range of work that artists are turning out using glass. Do not be expecting a row of vases!

This piece, Cascade by Kait Rhoads of Seattle, Washington, is made up of small rings of glass that are woven together using wire and then formed in such a way that it reminds me of a draping piece of lace… or perhaps an octopus! I just love the way a solid like glass can be formed to look like a liquid or even a sea creature.

This piece, Silva Rerum (Forest of Things) by Anna Skibska of Seattle, Washington, is one of my very favorites of ArtPrize thus far. I adore it when I see a piece that is so very different than anything I have every experienced before. Thin, delicate rods of glass are fused together and then grow upward, forming ghostly tree-like shapes. It reminds me of a spiderweb, clear, so thin but simultaneously strong.  The lighting itself is another important element of this piece, adding a magical and mystical fairytale presence to the piece.