Finding Nature: Words + Glass
Joanna Roche and Hiromi Takizawa
2 week course || GLASS 646 001 || 3 credit hours || Lab Fee $300

Taught by a glass artist and poet-art historian, this interdisciplinary, experience-driven class covers the fundamentals of glass working in tandem with writing. Daily walks and journaling around the dunes, lagoon and lake shore of the campus will expand into writing time, followed by time in the hotshop. By responding to local observations and experiences via words and glass, students will develop skills in close looking, focused writing, and transforming their ideas into the poetic medium of glass. The basics of glassblowing in both solid and blown form will be covered, but students are encouraged to experiment. As the course progresses writing and studio time will inform each other, as students move between nature, words, and glass, examining the shared phenomena of reflectiveness, fragility, fluidity and transparency. Emphasis is on artistic concept and the relation of studio practice to seeing and writing, using a range of authors as inspiration, including Junichiro Tanizaki, Gaston Bachelard and Henry David Thoreau. Daily discussion and studio critiques are a fundamental part of this course. Students should expect to produce a collection of writings and several glass pieces, which could be combined into a culminating work that is site-specific or performative.

FACULTY

Joanna Roche earned her PhD in art history from UCLA. She is Professor of Art History at California State University, Fullerton and continues to be inspired by the talent and work ethic of her students. Areas of research include contemporary performance art, assemblage art and the interrelation of memory and artistic process. She is the author of numerous essays and reviews on contemporary art, as well as a book of poetry, Tyrannical Angels.

Hiromi Takizawa was born and raised in Nagano, Japan and lives in southern California. She received an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and is currently an Assistant Professor in Glass at California State University, Fullerton. Curiosity, experimentation, narrative, and materiality are the core concepts in her work. Hiromi has exhibited nationally and internationally including solo exhibitions at Heller Gallery and Urban Glass in New York, and group exhibitions in Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, and Bergen, Norway.