NEW DESIGNS BY JAMES CARPENTER STEUBEN CLASS

NEW DESIGNS BY JAMES CARPENTER STEUBEN CLASS

NEW DESIGNS BY JAMES CARPENTER STEUBEN GLASS

Close-up of base of the fused Crystal Ball Bowl on page 6

James Carpenter is a young artist who employs the medium of glass-a medium aesthetically unique, worked as a hot liquid and becoming cold, hard, and clear, as immutable as steel. Collaborating with Steuben's artisans, Carpenter has succeeded in creating completely new crystal forms, ones particularly suited to the qualities inherent in Steuben. Using innovative methods to blow glass, he has designed totally original contemporary images-forms never made by Steuben before. In them, Carpenter often positions a mysterious shape within a functional form, so that the mind questions what the eye perceives. This interior shape frequently lifts up the refractive area to the center of the design, giving greater reflective force to the piece. To Carpenter, glassblowing not only depends on, but makes evident, many natural phenomena such as gravity, centrifugal force, heat, air. It is these natural events, controlled by the skill of designer and artisan, which shape the glass. "By disclosing its own nature/' Carpenter says, "glass lets you know what's happening in the universe." Most of Carpenter's Steuben designs are voluptuous containers of considerable mass, vases and bowls with inner volumes that seem manifest, almost palpable. These are forms which can be achieved only through hand blowing of glass, utilizing procedures which require enormous skill. Two of Carpenter's Steuben designs-oriental BowL and PAIRED H EARTs-have been chosen for the international contemporary glass exhibition, " New Glass," which will tour major museums in the United States in 1979 and 1980 before being seen abroad. 3

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Double Cone Diameter 8" Length 5 Yi"

1\'It)1 u-.\ d ~ t\'.t.d ll.1111\\)\\'i ] 1,l llh' l l' I I I 1 1 1\ight) 1 u.cd l\.. t.d ll.1ll l'l.1t l\'1 1 )1,111\\'l l ' t' I 11 I 7

Left) Heavy Walled Bowl Diameter 71lz " Right) Heavy Walled Platter Diameter 11"

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Left) Double Volume Vase Height 111;4" Right) Double Volume Bowl Diameter 10" 11

Left) Oriental Vase Diameter 11%" Right) Oriental Bowl Diameter 12 Y,,"

Born in 1949,J ames Carpenter is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. He has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rhode Island School of Design European Honors Program in Venice. A naturalist and botanical illustrator as well as an artist, Carpenter has traveled extensively in Colombia, Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia to collect specimens. Several of his Super 8 film cassette loops on nature themes have been shown at the Modern Art Pavi lion of the Seattle Art Museum and at the John Gibson Gallery in New York. Carpenter has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design; the Gerrit Rietveld Akademie, Amsterdam, Holland ; Ohio University, Athens, Ohio; and the Pilchuck School, Stanwood, Washington. His work is represented in the collections of the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York; Musee du Verre, Liege, Belgium ; Museum Bellerive, Zurich, Switzerland; Museum fi..ir Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, West Germany; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington; and numerous private collections. Recent exhibitions include : 1979 New Glass International Exhibition: Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York; The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio 1978 John Gibson Gallery, New York, New York The Clocktower, New York, New York 1977 Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington Landesmuseum, Kassel, West Germany Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 1976 Alessandra Gallery, New York, New York Museum fi..ir Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, West Germany Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island Kunstgewerbe Museum, Berlin, West Germany 1975 Western Australian Art Gallery, Perth, Australia University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island The Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia 1974 San Francisco Art Museum, San Francisco, California Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Santa Barbara Art Museum, Santa Barbara, California Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York 1973-1971 Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York Museum Bellerive, Zurich, Switzerland United States Embassy, Rome, Italy

STEUBEN CLASS a part of Corning Glass Works since 1918 FIFTH AVENUE AT FIFTY- SIXTH STREET NEW YORK. N.Y. 10022 TELEPHONE (212) 752-1441 Photography by Joyce Fay 1979