We have had a pretty exciting week, this week. Laura Murdoch an accomplished art glass artisan, who is a good friend of our gallery and studio, was filmed for a promotional commercial for a major coffee company, here in our Robert Held Art Glass studio. The production crew arrived after our glass artisans finished their day and set up for a one minute promotional interview and shoot. The shoot took approximately 4 hours, and over 12 people to create.
Let us introduce you to Laura Murdoch.
Laura Murdoch is a Canadian Glass Artist who was born in Vancouver, BC. Her family moved to the Yukon when she was 8 years old, which was difficult for her at first, but was pivotal to her love and appreciation of creativity – color, light, patterns and designs. She was shaped by the remote, rugged, quiet beauty of the land, and developed an appreciation of the rich, moody light that results from the sun being very low in the sky in the winters there, with seemingly extended dawn and dusk. She was mesmerized by the unusual and intense color in the surroundings, and in the brightly colored parkas worn by the natives. Due to her northern lifestyle, by the age of 12, Laura had worked many types of craft mediums, including resin-casting, weaving, ceramics, calligraphy, silk-screening, mosaic and loom-beading. The process of constructing things and the transformation of many simple elements to make a whole, cast a spell over her. It became an integral part of her life, and an obsession. It has been vital to her development as a glass artist, and is obvious in the intricate complexity and myriad of processes in her work.
Laura Murdoch and art glass:
On a whim in 1997, Laura applied to the Pilchuck Glass College. An acceptance to the college was offered through a lottery, and with thousands applying and only a few getting acceptance, Laura was fortunate in gaining acceptance to such an impressive art college. There, she became obsessed with the artistic medium of glass, the transformation of sand into something beautiful and the process of getting it there. Laura says “It’s a tough medium, the nature of glass shapes the artist, not the other way around. There is a lot of trial and error in achieving the right look of each piece.” Laura has spent hundreds of hours, and even
years on a glass piece to perfect her artistic vision. “Sometimes glass can be
very uncooperative, it can feel like there is a dialogue between the artist and the glass, when deciding when the piece is finished, the glass almost always wins.”
Artistic style:
Laura’s love of pattern translates into her glass pieces with fluidity and abandonment. She photographs and gleans patterns from everywhere and anywhere to inspire her glass work. Laura loves how both the patterns and glass have movement, which when put together creates something moving by the viewer. “It is my goal to captivate the viewer’s eye as he/she contemplates the mystery of how it was made, and the harmony of balance between proportion, color, symmetry, and pattern. If I can make one person’s heart leap upon seeing a piece I have made, then I have succeeded.”
Laura’s glass works are made up of several layers of sand carved glass blown one on top of another creating a window to each patterned layer. The exteriors of her pieces have an archival look due to the rough textural effect Laura gives them with either acid, diamond grinders or sand blasters. The beauty and patterned interiors juxtaposed against the rough textural exteriors creates something visually and texturally stunning.
Laura uses layers of clear glass with color applied to each, combined with sand- and hand-carving, various types of painting, acid-etching, drilling, and multiple polishing techniques to produce a work filled with the quiet, luminous exuberance that has come to be a hallmark of her work. Blowing the piece is only the beginning of a long, labor-intensive process.
If you wish to read more about Laura, check out http://www.murdochglass.com/index.htm /or contact the artist directly at
Laura@murdochglass.com.
The next time you sit down at your favorite local coffee spot and notice a video on their t.v. of a glass artist, it may be Laura Murdoch, and our Robert Held Art Glass Studio.Take a little time to enjoy the show.
Robert Held Art Glass Gallery 