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Penland's Annual Benefit Auction: Featured Work

Beth Lipman, Still Life with Bowl of Bananas, glass, wood, paint, glue, 47 x 24 x 20 in.

"Clear glass. Recognizable objects. Nothing special. Wrong. In the world of studio glass, Beth Lipman has literally blown and sculpted a new world. The initial encounter with Lipman’s tabletop three-dimensional still lifes is disconcerting. Some are very large and extravagant; others more personal in size but they all relate to a moment in time that she captures in her brilliant manner. One usually thinks of still lifes as two dimensional paintings, trompe l’oeil technique giving them a perceived three dimensionality, but Lipman presents us with an in-the-round glass sculpture that the viewer may look through and into to provide a pure, colorless experience.

Lipman’s work is about banquets, intimate teas, floral grandiosity and formal Victorian excess. Still life painting has always utilized technique to impress and Lipman is no different. Her work is beautiful, technically stunning but in some ways emotionally sad–overturned objects, fruit that could be rotting–in many ways like coded 16th century European memento mori paintings. The irony of deceptive clear glass is a play on the eye that will be different every time the viewer sees the work. The viewer also brings personal experience and will overlay and project himself or herself onto Lipman’s tableau.

In much of this body of work the Victorian elements hint at chaos, an unknown future or the change that would occur with the sudden presence of humanity. The mystery of the before or what will occur after this frozen moment in time lends excitement to what was and what will be." - Andrew Glasgow

"Still lifes can be contemplated on a purely atheistic level, or they can be interpreted on a political, moral or theological level and are usually influenced by economic or socio-cultural events. Both still life paintings and art from craft processes were considered inferior to other forms of expression.

Mimesis is one of the most outstanding qualities of the still life. Instead of striving for illusionary perfection, I use the craft process of hot sculpting and blowing to record of my ability to control the material- capturing that moment. The use of glass creates a tangible third dimension, capturing the painting’s polished quality; it foils the viewer’s eye; it frustrates efforts to claim and own what is seen. The absence of color captures the essence of an object and offers a counterpoint to trumpe l’oeil (deception of the eye) found in still life paintings. As with painting, glass makes perishable objects everlasting. The compositions are simultaneously in the process of formation and decay." - Beth Lipman

Beth Lipman lives and works in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin. She has exhibited her work internationally at such institutions as the ICA at Maine College of Art, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Milwaukee Art Museum, Gustavsbergs Konsthall in Sweden, and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. Her work is in the collections of numerous museums, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Corning Museum of Glass. She is the recipient of a 2011 United States Artists Berman Bloch Fellowship in Crafts & Traditional Arts. Beth recently completed Glimmering Gone, a collaborative installation with Swedish artist Ingalena Klenell, for the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington, which is on view through March 2012.

Click here to visit Beth's website for more information and pictures of her work.

Daniel Clayman, Tonal Shift, cast glass, 23-1/2 x 23-1/2 x 23 in.

"I am in contact with my work every day. Most days I come to the studio as the "working artist." Other days I come as an observer, to see what the "artist" is doing. The work is a continual, always evolving exploration of simple forms.
Using a vocabulary of extremely simple forms whose scale ranges from three to nine feet, these objects describe volumes in space. Some of the pieces are easily identifiable as vessels and may allude to holding volumes of water. Others are pure abstraction holding only quantities of air and space. By taking away any real solid mass, I am left with just the skins of glass, bronze or graphite that define a measure of capacity. Other objects are identifiable as a ramp that divides space with a simple line or as a wheel that makes the center volume of air as important as the white structure itself." - Daniel Clayman

Daniel Clayman has been involved in the visual and performing arts since the mid 1970s. His first formal training was as a theater and modern dance lighting designer. He began “sculpting with light” as a lighting design student and then as a visiting Lighting Designer for the Dance Department at Connecticut College in 1977. After six years of working with numerous touring theater and dance companies, he enrolled in the Glass Program at the Rhode Island School of Design. Graduating with a BFA in Glass in June of 1986, he made his home in the Providence, RI area where he has maintained a studio ever since. Daniel has had solo exhibitions at the Mint Museum of Art and Design in Charlotte, Fuller Craft Museum in Massachusetts, Habatat Galleries in Chicago, Michigan, and Florida, Imago Gallery in Palm Desert, California, Heller Gallery in New York, and Elliott Brown Gallery in Seattle, among others. His work is in numerous collections, including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, the Museum of Arts and Design, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Corning Museum of Glass, and the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Click here to visit Daniel's website for more information and pictures of his work.

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