Hollister Weber

Confluence, Culture, and Conversation: Vestibule 102 - Perry Glass Studio, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA - December 5, 2019-January 5, 2020: My cast glass piece, "Curiouser and Curiouser," won the People's Choice Award at the Virginia Glass Guild Members Show in March 2019. I am honored that my award was to have a solo show at the Perry Glass Studio.

Here is a link to my show with photos and descriptions:

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMAZv4P7Yi9Lg7nIoaOkqPzG9_DmbEAAPtZyB2oD2ku4tGLgzUr3_ur0uBE5_A5lQ?key=d3NKaExTN1B3ZUw3c2p3ZGFXOEdULXpzcGtLY3h3

The later images here represent where I began and are relatively small figures made of porcelain clay. This material doesn't lend itself well to sculpture because it is "unforgiving" by nature. However, I was determined to use it for its purity, smoothness, and malleability, and I am pleased with my results. 

I began with contemporary Japanese dress patterns and then moved on to the Yoga-inspired frog pose in the first photo, shown against some woven glass. I also love modeling and carving, leading to more abstract figures and works inspired by Edward Weston's beautiful photographs.

Later, I began to create larger dress figures and, ultimately, more abstract female forms with colorful underglaze designs.

As seen here, these are works in porcelain which became very sculptural and carry the Asian arts influence throughout. They are a pleasure to create and though I love the purity of those in vitrified porcelain, I also love the way the glazes break on the textures. 

When I began working with kiln-formed glass, I relied heavily on design and my enduring interest in Asian art. Shown here are works in fused and slumped glass, along with cast and slumped glass using pate de verre colorations in the kimonos and pate de verre in the cast glass koi.

Drawing on the inspiration of sumptuous, exaggerated perspectives of nudes in photographs by Edward Weston and Bill Brandt, their images have here been transformed into glass sculptures, by first sculpting the images into relief sculptures in porcelain clay, and then into glass using the lost wax glass casting method. In 1926 Edward Weston wrote in his diary, “The camera sees more than the eye, so why not make use of it?” In post WWII London, Bill Brandt wrote, “My new camera saw more and it saw differently. It created a great illusion of space, an unrealistically steep perspective, and it distorted. When I began to photograph nudes, I let myself be guided by this camera, and instead of photographing what I saw, I photographed what the camera was seeing. I interfered very little, and the lens produced anatomical images and shapes which my eyes had never observed. I felt that I understood what Orson Welles meant when he said, ‘The camera is much more than a recording apparatus. It is a medium via which messages reach us from another world.’”

Creating lost wax castings of my porcelain figurative sculptures became of great interest to me. As I progressed, I wanted to enhance their significance by creating an environment by adding fused glass elements to their landscape. My journey in casting in glass began with a clay sculpture of the koi, a plastilena sculpture of the small head, and a wax sculpture of the figure on sea coral. 

These are examples of techniques in kilformed glass. The first images are my more recent work in a more complex exploration of the properties of glass, using gravity to move the glass in its molten state before creating the design.

My earlier work began by experimenting with positive and negative design elements in the pieces about Marimekko and Matisse. Working with the concept of dialog, I created the two parts, "Marimekko Meets Matisse" and "Marimekko to Matisse: "Matisse, It's Not Like You To Be So Negative," which was purchased and installed the private collection of Carl and Mary Johnson.

The three pieces, the figurative two-part “Inner Strength, and “Figuratively Speaking,” reflect my interest in the figure and design space.

ARCHITECTURE: I have tried my hand at some challenging architectural designs in glass using fusing and slumping techniques. The first is "Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Installation View of Ellsworth Kelly: A Retrospective (1996-1997)”, 2016. The second is "Hundertwasser Visits Whoville", 2014. Both received Honorable Mentions at the Virginia Glass Guild Annual Juried Exhibitions.

LANDSCAPE: As a landscape painter, I began to explore what I could create in glass that would represent abstract elements of landscape. I worked from sketches and was inspired by the Austrian architect Friedrich Hundertwasser and Japanese woodblock prints.

In 2023 and 2024, my work in ceramics went in a new direction. During Covid, I turned to creative writing and gardening. Redesigning a tired flower bed led to rabbits eating many new plants, so I began to make sculptures for the garden. Always a painter at heart, I explored working with ceramic underglazes and my new work evolved with birds and rabbits, and more organic forms to sculpt and paint. I never seem to know what’s inside of me just waiting to come out.

I attended a week-long class with renowned glass artist Susan Taylor Glasgow, known for her sewn glass and figurative cast glass chandeliers. I began with a basic chandelier base and added my elements of choice to the work. I filled a glass teapot with fused glass tea leaves, which I used for the bobuchets, along with my grandmother’s crystal goblets and a glass slipper (without the stems). The brass crown and other elements were found at an old antique lamp shop. Assembling it onto the rod and wiring it was challenging.

I've always loved the tales and speculations about the lost island of Atlantis and visits to aquariums throughout my travels always fascinate me. What I love most, is the movement of underwater life, so I am experimenting in how to create that sense of movement and life out of malleable materials which process into rigid forms.

When my son was married, I created several pieces of glass for their garden, and for friends and family. I love the way the garden glass pieces accentuate the beauty of their surroundings.

My first two-dimensional love is landscape painting and drawing. These are examples done in acrylic on large canvases. They are inspired by my life in the San Joaquin Valley of central California, Plum Island in Massachusetts, and a trip to Kenya, East Africa with my mother. They all belong to my family. Just seeing them posted here, makes me want to paint again!

My own back yard is a constant source of reflection from our lake to the tree tops. The tulips in the spotted planter are from the Netherlands, of course. Then there is the lush greenery of the Pacific Northwest, Lake Tahoe, and who doesn't enjoy capturing the color and movement found at the aquarium?

While I don't consider myself a photographer, I do enjoy capturing the things that truly inspire and amaze me. I have been fortunate to have traveled to a large extent during my lifetime. Represented here are just a few photos taken "From on High," in London and New York City. I also love what I observe from museum views.

These photos, all taken from ground level show my interest in architectural complexities, from the photo of a reflection in a series of glass panels overhead, to a hidden skateboard area in London, to Chinatown in New York City, to the views inside the glass pyramid entrance to the Louvre in Paris, it's truly amazing what engagements surround the viewer at all times.

Museums are an endless source of captivation. Here, I love to show my observations of being "With Viewers Like You"...the viewers looking through the grand clock of the former train station in Paris that is now the Musee d'Orsay, across the Seine to the Louvre; viewers inside the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; viewing Monet's fabulous water lily series in the L'Orangerie in Paris; inside the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; viewers in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; and some reflections of people walking through a passageway in Battery Park, in New York City.