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Artist finds a torch, not the traditional furnace, a cool way to create her glassworks
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Eunsuh Choi works on creating a piece for her exhibition at the Pittsburgh Glass Center. -
"Housed Barrier IV" a flameworked, borosilicate glass sculpture is among Ms. Choi's works on view at the Pittsburgh Glass Center. -
Eunsuh Choi works on creating a piece for her exhibition at the Pittsburgh Glass Center.
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Korean native Eunsuh Choi was a reluctant convert to glass.
Now she sacrifices to pursue her dream, fashioning intricate sculptural works using the painstaking method of flameworking.
An exhibition of her work, "Consciousness," opens with a free public reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday at the Pittsburgh Glass Center, Garfield.
Ms. Choi has been artist-in-residence at the center since fall where she created a centerpiece for the exhibition. "The Limited Barrier III" features a landscape of tree and clouds within a complex three-dimensional latticed grid that both exalts and contains the interior scene. The work, which comprises hundreds of individual joined pieces, is 38 inches tall by 25 inches wide by 11 inches deep, quite a departure from the small works generally associated with the flameworking technique. She worked on it "70 to 75 hours a week for three months straight. No Sundays off, no vacation," Ms. Choi said. "For one piece!"
Where: Pittsburgh Glass Center, 5472 Penn Ave., Garfield.
When: Friday through June 16; opening reception 6 to 9 p.m. Friday. Hours: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fridays through Mondays.
Admission: Free.
Information: 412-365-2145 or www.pittsburghglasscenter.org.
Her work is about aspiration and the symbolism that permeates her sculptures attests to that. Trees, for example, reach upward, as do ladders. Trees also symbolize human beings. The reaching limbs, as graceful as a ballerina's arms, end in small rounded buds at the ready to blossom into fulfillment. "Humans also kind of have seasons," Ms. Choi noted, cycling the relationship back. And, unlike ladders, she writes in an artist statement, "this is an object that lives and breathes, has the capability of growing and is equally capable of dying."
The confining spaces of the boxes reflect "how I feel about living in a foreign country," Ms. Choi said. They represent "limitations; invisible barriers to achieving my own dreams. Some day I can break the boxes and reach the clouds. When I reach the clouds, I know my dream has come true."
Other works in the exhibition have been shipped in from Rochester, N.Y., where she lives, and from galleries elsewhere that represent her, the last piece expected to arrive from Florida on opening day.
That may seem nerve-wracking, given the seeming delicacy of the sculpture, but Ms. Choi said the pieces are amazingly resilient. They're made of borosilicate glass, the material of commercial products like Pyrex, and they're packed well in tailor-made containers. She's sent her work across the U.S., to Korea and Europe. They generally make the trip unscathed, she said, but the whole production is costly.
Ms. Choi, 37, was born in rural South Korea but grew up in Seoul. She completed her undergraduate work in Korea, beginning with an associate of fine art degree in textile design. As is customary in South Korea, she transferred to another university to continue her education with the intent of exploring jewelry design. An instructor suggested she try glass through a program that was new to the school and to Korea.
She applied and was accepted. "I think it was my destiny," Ms. Choi said. But that wasn't apparent right away.
"I'm a neat person," she said, and her work with textiles required exacting measurements. "Glass is totally different. You get dirty. The first semester I had a hard time. I hated it." She told her parents and they were supportive, but her father suggested she try one more term. The class offered was glass beads and the instructor was a flameworker. That changed everything.
"When you cast glass, you have to wait one or two weeks before you know what is going to happen. With flamework I can see the color, size, shape in front of my eyes right away. I can relax. Focus on one spot. I can do it by myself. For glassblowing, you need assistance. It's physical labor. I could not endure the heat, which made me sick every single time." In flameworking the heat is concentrated, a 3,000 degrees blend of glowing propane and oxygen that hovers at the tip of a torch. Wearing specialized eyeglasses with Didymium lenses, Ms. Choi can monitor every movement in the glass rods she manipulates.
By the time she earned her master of fine arts in Korea, she had surpassed what was being taught there in flameworking and learned by experimentation. She next attended Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, to study English and to earn another master's of fine arts concentrating on glass. She liked that RIT taught both concept and craftsmanship. She liked even better its proximity to Corning Museum of Glass and its teaching facilities where she took summer intensive courses in The Studio from some of the finest flamework practitioners. Her largest piece, a 13-foot tall ladder, is in the Corning Museum permanent collection.
But that journey was just a beginning, and since then Ms. Choi has worked to evolve her sculpture, formally and conceptually, and to expand her reputation in a gloomy global market.
She's represented locally by Morgan Contemporary Glass in Shadyside. She also shows in galleries in Korea and across the U.S., including prestigious Habatat Galleries, Michigan, and Hodgell, Florida.
She stays in the states because she perceives a bigger market than in Korea, with more possibilities. To support herself, she has held adjunct faculty positions at RIT and SUNY Brockport, and has instructed at glass hot spots like Penland School of Craft, North Carolina; Pilchuck Glass School, Washington; and Pittsburgh Glass Center.
One can't expect everything to be easy in life, Ms. Choi acknowledges with a pluckiness that underlies her reserved exterior, and one senses she'll persevere with the same determination, precision and clarity that are evident in her work. And she wishes no less for everyone else.
"It wouldn't be accurate to consider me as a spiritual spokesperson, nor should my work be considered prophetic," she writes in her artist statement. "However, there is an undeniable internal and contemplative aura within my work that resonates with our human desire for and pursuit toward something 'higher' and 'bigger.' From my work, I would like to give viewers a chance to identify their own dreams."
First Published January 30, 2013 12:00 am
