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Talking Out Your Glass podcastAuthor: Shawn Waggoner
Former editor of Glass Art magazine Shawn Waggoner interviews internationally respected artists and experts in hot, warm and cold glass. For questions or comments shawntelroyale@yahoo.com Language: en Genres: Arts, Visual Arts Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Jeremy Sinkus’ Geologicalized Glass
Episode 23
Friday, 15 November, 2024
Current work by Jeremy Sinkus includes his Contemporary Art Nodules, inspired by collecting and focusing on the top 10 attributes that the artist and viewers found intriguing about glass objects. Simultaneously ancient and from the future, his Nodules combine texture and form with transparent windows that allow the viewer to explore unknown inner worlds. A former mineral collector and digger, Sinkus put down his chisel and picked up a torch when he realized his fondness for minerals and natural history was all encompassed in glass. Sinkus says: “Glass is geological. The material bit me hard in the late ‘90s and opened a future of infinite expression for my fascinations of the subterranean world. I constantly dream about finding objects beneath the surface of either the sea or the earth – the feeling of finding something exceptional and spirit engaging. Maybe that is what spending all this time in the studio is? Digging, searching, revealing important concepts from deep inside myself. Intentional forms should be both something to recognize and something to ponder or be awakened by.” Sinkus now works out of a 2400-square-foot studio in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. It is entirely powered by a waterfall on the nearby Deerfield River and functions as a green energy studio. He uses flameworking, metal fuming/deposition, cold working (lapidary), welding, woodworking, laminating and casting techniques to manipulate the glass daily. “Minerals have always captivated me with their color, clarity, and infinite geometric permutations. Of all the images, objects and art I have seen, still it is these natural crystalline forms that strike me. They express something enormous that is otherwise almost impossible to voice. Akin to the felt language underlying a resonant piece of art, minerals speak precisely of their making. They require no interpretation. I am fascinated by the sheer fact of their existence and circumstantial nature of their variety. Human participation was absent but nonetheless, I wanted to be part of it.” The opportunity to experiment with hot glass came in 1998 at a studio in central Massachusetts. The roaring furnaces, smell of burning bees wax and graceful movements impacted Sinkus. He admired the team aspect of glass blowing but needed a more independent approach to satisfy his ambition. In 1998, he began flameworking borosilicate glass as an obtainable approach to working glass on his own. He studied with Milon Townsend, Sally Prasch and Emilio Santini as he developed a body of work inspired by scuba diving, ocean conservation and ocean arts and evolved into a professional working artist. In 2015, Sinkus began his journey in cast glass, studying with Daniel Clayman. This allowed him to apply the techniques necessary to make more authentic and precise mineral designs and increase the scale of his designs. The use of familiar tools and techniques for working stone from his gem cutting years connected him to glass sculpting. Sinkus says: “These tools allow me to venture into the deep process and experience of what made the mineral world so appealing to me creatively. Cast glass has taught me patience and channels a version of a 100,000,000 year geological process. This body of work gives me human participation in a form that would otherwise only be a geological event. My geological designs have reconnected me to the gem and mineral world. Though realistic, they are seen as art. In the art world they are seen as contemporary.” In 2025, Sinkus will have an exhibit of his recent works at the Sandwich Glass Museum in Sandwich, Massachusetts, and launch his new designs at a couple of U.S. galleries. He’s also designing a class that combines casting, flameworking, coldworking, surfacing and adhesives in the creation of glass art sculpture.
