11 August 2012

Bringing Light To The Dark Side

Novie Trump is a world renown ceramic artist, working from Flux Studios, located right next door to the Washington Glass School. Her poetic sculptural work often involves depictions of nature - presented in unexpected and captivating ways. 
Novie Trump Escape Installation of porcelain butterflies and ceramic book
Ceramic, Acrylic Rods, Steel 
60” x 60” x 24”(variable)
Novie is working on a commissioned artwork piece that came to her via Project 4 Gallery: to create large scale installation that will be located in the new Farmers & Fishers restaurant now being built at the Georgetown waterfront.
Her artwork design calls for many porcelain bees to be clustered around illuminated hives are various locations. The design of the beehive has brought her to the glass studio - and it is a chance for the glass artists to bring Novie over to the dark - or rather - the glassy side.
Erwin Timmers offers some adventurous suggestions to Novie, but from the expressions on both her and Tim Tate's face, they seem unlikely to be incorporated. 
A sample of Novie Trump's porcelain bees
Novie chose to work with illuminated glass - creating a pattern of cellular hive divisions with frit powder fused to glass, and slumped over a tapered form. The WGS fritmaster - Michael Janis - offered Novie some pointers on how to manipulate the powder.
Novie Trump and Michael Janis share a laugh as they work
Novie sifts glass powder onto a sheet of glass
Manipulating frit powder is a delicate operation
Novie Trump and Michael Janis evaluate the glass' progress prior to loading the layer in a kiln for firing

After fusing, the samples are compared by Novie Trump for her preferred selection of color and texture combination 
Novie made many studies of the color and textures and tested the samples with light source alternates.
The glass will later be slumped and a housing for the lighting made in the glass school's welding shop. Novie will be making the rest of her porcelain swarms and fusing the glass in the next few months, and she promises to send us photos of the finished work.

1 comment:

Artmonger said...

Congrats, Novie! That will be stunning.