Glass Multiples
with Christen Baker & Priscilla Lo
GLASS 651 001 | 3 credits | $350 Lab Fee
June 9 - 22, 2024
This introductive and investigative class will explore the creative possibilities for making multiples in glass through casting. We will learn three methods of glass forming: low relief hot casting, high relief kiln casting, and hollow form hot blow molds. In addition to these casting techniques, students will learn basic glass blowing methods including gathering on rods and how to utilize tools to press hot glass. Using these skills and techniques students will learn to reproduce surface, texture, and form and will be encouraged to creatively consider repetition and pattern through glass. Looking at the work of Beth Lipman, Layo Bright, Fred Kahl, and Thaddeus Wolfe will facilitate discussions in critical theory and artistic practice, as it applies to mold making in glass. In addition to assignments designed to gain understanding of the casting techniques focused on in the course, students will propose a final project to be installed at Ox-Bow and shared with the community. This course is open to students of all levels.
Christen Baker is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the complex relationship between the economy of attention and desire, and information architecture. In exploring the intersection of technology, media, and visual art, Baker utilizes glass, neon, photography and 3d scanning to create a new visual lexicon that speaks to the subtle and often indirect ways in which attention and desire shape our perception of the world around us. Baker earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics from the Kansas City Art Institute and a Master of Fine Arts from Tyler School of Art and Architecture. She was a lecturer in Ceramics and Kiln-Formed Glass at Kansas City Art Institute and has completed residencies at UrbanGlass Window Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, Belger Arts in Kansas City, MO, and the International Ceramics Studio in Kecskemet, Hungary and was awarded the Leroy Nieman Fellowship in Glass at Oxbow School of Art and Artist Residency. She currently lives and works in Philadelphia, PA, where she continues to explore the geographies of public spaces and objects, real and imagined.
Christen Baker, New! And Impervious to Natural Elements, installation View with HDPE _O_ ,2023, glass, cement blocks, hand painted sign, osb plywood, rope, tape, 24 x 69 x 102 in.
As a child of a Chinese immigrant family in North America, Priscilla Lo was perpetually reminded to be practical about her future. But after over a decade as a health care professional, she began to feel dissatisfied with the direction of her life. Priscilla turned to creative outlets to find a voice and explore her identity as a woman of color. She is drawn to glass because it is constantly in a state of fragility and permanency. Using this paradoxical nature of glass and pop culture icons of her childhood, she considers her individuality though the lens of her cultural upbringing. Through her work, she aims to spark discourse about socially fixed racial frameworks. She is also interested in incorporating new technology like 3d rendering, digital processes, and different glass techniques in her artist practice. Priscilla has shown her work in various galleries internationally, and at the Chinese American Museum in Chicago. She has a degree from Sheridan College and an MFA from Illinois State University and is currently the Resident Artist and an adjunct professor at Rochester Institute of Technology.
Priscilla Lo, Kitty Constraints, Unbearable Wearable Series, 2022, Digitally enhanced glass and bronze, 6 x 6 x 4 each in., Photo by B. Fortuné