2.2 The Terms of an Engagement
I make a brief study of the hierarchical nature of the narratives that may entangle a glasswork as viewers attempt to engage it. I address the question: is it possible to subsume a craft narrative, based in material and technique, within the counterbalancing narratives of identity and genre?
Thirty-Nine Portraits
I use two bodies of my own glasswork to exemplify this thesis. The body of work related to Section One consists of thirty-nine portraits all connected to studio glass by medium, by subject matter and by my technique. The subjects of these portraits are practitioners, curators, gallery directors, or collectors connected with Australian studio glass. I interviewed all the subjects of these portraits as part of this thesis. The portraits’ relationship to this section of the thesis is that each holds the potential trigger for a range of narratives: The portraits represent conversations with a community. They are individual stories with associated histories revealed through physiognomy, posture and gesture as interpreted by me at a point in time. They represent an artistic genre. They are reverse painted on glass.
These narratives come to the fore individually and in clusters, as they mutate and expand in the interpretation by the viewer. These portraits approach Australian studio glass through multitudinous narratives – cultural, subjective, historic and technical. Triggered within the work these narratives are available to expand from the work in the process of the viewer’s interpretation. These portraits array narratives through a glass form.
Although triggers for these narratives are contained within the works, it is not necessary, and it is unlikely, that viewers are aware of, or could engage with every narrative. Yet these narratives layer down through the work whether they are recognised or not, and engagement with those different layers will occur in the context of the viewer’s understanding and interest.
Portrait as a Means of Engagement
As social creatures we are inherently interested in portraiture. Portraits engage as representations of lives. Portraiture is an accessible art form.[1] The general public visit galleries to view paintings of the famous and not so famous and pass judgement on their representational effectiveness.[2] With a late self-portrait by Rembrandt we look at a subject painted over three hundred years before our birth and judge that portrait’s validity by the humanity and presence it brings before us.[3]
Our emotional engagement can be unknowing in our passive acceptance of narratives that we unconsciously absorb. We unquestioningly accept or unconsciously feel threatened by the layers of story that come with any art, or with the gallery space a work occupies. With portraits it may be that constrictive narratives inhibit us less. Each portrait is open to a viewer’s interpretation of meaning. In this engagement the viewer can establish relationships – both with the sitter and with myself as the artist.[4]
Layers of Narrative
An obvious point of engagement is the portrait subject, which has its own suggestive power as it prompts questions of identity and character. But the portraits exhibited as part of this thesis are glass art by medium and technique. They are reverse painted using fired enamels.[5] In keeping with Australia’s local and international outreach, techniques are readily available in this country. The process brings advantages, for example the thickness of the glass effects colour and can add clarity and freshness to the image. But these qualities come with attachments. With a medium and a technique there comes a history – painting on glass is a long and distinguished tradition and in the late twentieth century international artists such as Czech Dana Zámečníková and American Judith Schaechter expand this tradition with their imaginative figurative imagery. In Australia, outside our own strong tradition of stained glass painters, contemporary artist Deb Cocks used the reverse painted technique to create her own idiosyncratic imagery.
Although conscious of technique, I reverse paint with vitreous enamels not because I am interested in histories or in technique, but because it is a way to embed imagery into the glass. It facilitates the spontaneity of my gesture. My approach to technique is idiosyncratic and I ignore the craft conventions of painting on glass as I push against the resistance of this technical process. That resistance forces me into new mark making as I met the challenge of interpreting each sitter. These portraits become collaborations between the medium and myself. Synthesis occurs in this collaboration such that I could not have created these works in another painting medium. Engagement with these works requires no prior knowledge of glassmaking on the part of the viewer. Viewers might admire my skill, but I regard skill as supplementary to the concept of portrait, which is supplementary to the sitter’s presence, and I hope this presence will facilitate the narratives constructed by the viewer.
This body of work is plain evidence for the function of narratives in shaping the context of a reading. These are narratives seeded in identity, genre, technique and artist – the identity of a sitter, the genre of portraiture and technique that is gesture exposing the artist (myself). In generating the narratives of the sitters these portraits simply demonstrate engagement through representation, and the work is open to a general public informed in their interpretations by long-term access to portraiture.
Another Collaboration
There is a consistent method in my making of these works. I interview the subject of the portrait and I focus on establishing an informal conversation. While I am doing this artist Marina Bishop discretely takes numerous photographs. At the start of these sessions the subjects of these portraits are possibly self-conscious because they are being photographed, but as the conversation continues their enthusiasm for their practice does take over. They relax and their gestures become more natural and reveal characteristic mannerisms. I am intuitive in seeking something of the inner person. Whether these readings are the result of my own projection, or actually genuine character traits is not as important to me as the sincerity of my reading of the subject at that point in time.
The resultant fifty plus casual photos taken of each subject are there to provide source material, which I compose as the image I intuitively feel best represents the personality I have engaged with over one or two hours of conversation. In this thesis I am not concerned with the nature of the portrait photograph as such. From the range of those photos I seek distinctive postures, gestures and expressions that I feel are personality tells – that is, that reveal an individual and his or her story. I use these tells as the basis for my portrait. In working with a photographer, I continue the studio glass tradition of collaboration.
One Artist’s Intention
In terms of the generation of a spontaneous reaction by the viewer it is pertinent that these works are presented as portraiture. As part of my analysis of narrative, I situate a glassmaking technique in a traditional and engagingly accessible Fine Art genre. I intend that through an applied narrative, the glass object will expand to become a presence. I intend each portrait to radiate the aura of a specific individual. The subjective interpretation of a face is a contextual improvisation on our part, just as our speech is contextual improvisation. Our engagement is spontaneous and occurs without intellectual deconstruction. Because engagement with a portrait is reliant on what is instinct, this genre carries the potential to break down categorisations determined by the medium used. It is significant that as portraits, these works are open to interpretation by the viewer when the sitter and artist are gone and the portrait alone still exists as a thing in the world.
Artist Intention Does Not Determine Context
As the artist, my intention does not control engagement beyond the point of my making the work. The platform of presentation is one more element of process, and this thesis has made the point that process carries varied narratives.
I do not intend material and technique to present as the primary narratives of my portrait work, but in the context of a premier glass prize the craft narrative would be an issue whatever the prize’s stated aspiration to support wider contemporary practice in glass. My artist statement for the portrait, Jess Loughlin,[6] in essence, expressed the hope that the work be engaged as a portrait. However, the critical appraisal of the work[7] that appeared in Craft Arts International placed it firmly within the craft narrative. The portrait was praised for its technical virtuosity, described by its technical process to the extent that there was a specific reference to it being an ‘autonomous panel’ (firmly placing it within the context of work on glass in a stained glass tradition), and it was criticised for the looseness that is the mark of my gesture. No mention was made of the sitter, or of its effectiveness as a portrait. The portrait of Jess Loughlin was submitted and accepted as a finalist for the 2010 Ranamok Glass Prize, and a second portrait of Stephen Payne, which was submitted and accepted as a finalist in the 2011 Moran Portrait Prize. The review for Jess Loughlin would imply that those familiar with glass are capable of building their own cultural enclosures. However, when a number of these portraits were displayed at the 2011 Ausglass conference, I received responses from many viewers that made reference to these works as representations of known personalities – none made mention of technique, or medium. Even though this conference had the theme of glass, to responding participants these works were each accessed as an individual presence with an intriguing story linked to the viewer’s own history. However, perhaps these responses to me, as the artist responsible for the work again reflect the consideration of our creative community, or from a darker perspective perhaps, within the hierarchy of technical processes within glass, painting on glass was a technique that did not warrant technical comment at a professional level. Whatever the response, my intention is to find a fluid engagement that loops between work and viewer (between object and subject/viewer) in an improvisation enabled by the embodied skills of the viewer and unencumbered by cliché or inhibition.
Postscript
When I exhibited these works in a commercial gallery, the engaging pull of skill was not to be denied. The fact that this gallery (The Glass Artists’ Gallery) specialises in presenting glasswork would certainly influence the response of viewers. Questions were asked about the technique used in these portraits, and viewers were engaged because they were intrigued by the approach. A consistent response from those who spoke about these works was in the form of an enquiry as to how the works were done. If there was praise it often centred on my ability to effectively create these portraits while painting in reverse.
These responses return to the nature of engagement with studio glass. Assumption leads to the acceptance of our unrecognised preconceptions, and if work is pre-emptively classified by its medium, that assumption may leave the work subsumed by a limited technical process narrative that terminates at the admiration of demonstrated technical skill. Yet skill provides a major element for engagement with my work, even though this is not my intention. To deny this connection with the viewer would be petulant, and it works against the viewer’s connection to the work. It is more productive to accept that evidence of skill is integral to the viewer’s engagement with both the work and the artist: that is, I should not deny its significance as a narrative that the viewer understands, values and respects.
With this installation 1 present the viewer with thirty-nine portraits centred on a creative subculture. As a group, these portraits are intended to poetically signify the rich and multiple narratives of a community of individual voices. In these portraits each maker, gallery director and collector offers individual engagement through their own range of narratives. As people dedicated to their vocations they deserve individual consideration and, if they are makers, they deserve to have the objects they create considered for what they are, rather than be pre-empted by cliché and denied fuller engagement. If a technique or a medium can draw the viewer into that engagement it should not be denied. The craft narrative should be accepted, and then if the conceptual power of the ideas that drive the works is articulated strongly through the very elements that carry the craft narrative, then those concepts can subsume the craft narrative and be carried to the viewer as interpreted meaning.
[1] Peter Ross, Let’s Face It. The History of the Archibald Prize, Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2005,108. In reference to the Archibald Prize for portraiture, gallery director Edmund Capon observed, it “is the one show that allows the public to feel an involvement and ownership they can’t feel about other exhibitions”.
[2] Ibid., 93. Contemporary art curator, writer and critic Elwyn Lynn wrote in 1988 “Every one knows what a portrait should be and everyone is wildly vocal when the Archibald breaks out”.
[3] Edmund Capon, Cherry Hood, Paul Newton, Andrew Sayers and Gene Sherman, “Archibald, Image & Identity: A Portrait Forum”, Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2010, Sayers spoke of a good portrait’s ‘vitality and presence’.
[4] Edmund Burke Feldman, Varieties of Visual Experience, 3rd ed., New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987, 264-267. The gesture of the artist can facilitate a reading of that artist, for example see the captioning of traditional portraits.
[5] Finely ground glass particles with coloured oxides and fluxes (creating a low melting point) added to a medium to assist application and fixed by firing between 500 and 600 Celsius. I have completed painting on glass workshops with stained glass conservator and artist Gerry Cummins and with artist Deb Cocks. I was at Sydney College of the Arts when American artist Joseph Cavalieri recently undertook a residency sharing his approach and idiosyncratic imagery in painted glass with students of its glass workshop.
[6] Wayne Pearson, Ranamok catalogue. Ranamok Glass Prize, 2010,54.
[7] Clare Bond, ‘The Ranamok Glass Prize 2010’, Craft Arts International no. 81, Sydney: Craft Arts Pty Ltd, 2011, 99. As part of the public coverage of this exhibition the articles in which these appraisals appear are usually supportive reviews complimenting the standard of the exhibition.
I make a brief study of the hierarchical nature of the narratives that may entangle a glasswork as viewers attempt to engage it. I address the question: is it possible to subsume a craft narrative, based in material and technique, within the counterbalancing narratives of identity and genre?
Thirty-Nine Portraits
I use two bodies of my own glasswork to exemplify this thesis. The body of work related to Section One consists of thirty-nine portraits all connected to studio glass by medium, by subject matter and by my technique. The subjects of these portraits are practitioners, curators, gallery directors, or collectors connected with Australian studio glass. I interviewed all the subjects of these portraits as part of this thesis. The portraits’ relationship to this section of the thesis is that each holds the potential trigger for a range of narratives: The portraits represent conversations with a community. They are individual stories with associated histories revealed through physiognomy, posture and gesture as interpreted by me at a point in time. They represent an artistic genre. They are reverse painted on glass.
These narratives come to the fore individually and in clusters, as they mutate and expand in the interpretation by the viewer. These portraits approach Australian studio glass through multitudinous narratives – cultural, subjective, historic and technical. Triggered within the work these narratives are available to expand from the work in the process of the viewer’s interpretation. These portraits array narratives through a glass form.
Although triggers for these narratives are contained within the works, it is not necessary, and it is unlikely, that viewers are aware of, or could engage with every narrative. Yet these narratives layer down through the work whether they are recognised or not, and engagement with those different layers will occur in the context of the viewer’s understanding and interest.
Portrait as a Means of Engagement
As social creatures we are inherently interested in portraiture. Portraits engage as representations of lives. Portraiture is an accessible art form.[1] The general public visit galleries to view paintings of the famous and not so famous and pass judgement on their representational effectiveness.[2] With a late self-portrait by Rembrandt we look at a subject painted over three hundred years before our birth and judge that portrait’s validity by the humanity and presence it brings before us.[3]
Our emotional engagement can be unknowing in our passive acceptance of narratives that we unconsciously absorb. We unquestioningly accept or unconsciously feel threatened by the layers of story that come with any art, or with the gallery space a work occupies. With portraits it may be that constrictive narratives inhibit us less. Each portrait is open to a viewer’s interpretation of meaning. In this engagement the viewer can establish relationships – both with the sitter and with myself as the artist.[4]
Layers of Narrative
An obvious point of engagement is the portrait subject, which has its own suggestive power as it prompts questions of identity and character. But the portraits exhibited as part of this thesis are glass art by medium and technique. They are reverse painted using fired enamels.[5] In keeping with Australia’s local and international outreach, techniques are readily available in this country. The process brings advantages, for example the thickness of the glass effects colour and can add clarity and freshness to the image. But these qualities come with attachments. With a medium and a technique there comes a history – painting on glass is a long and distinguished tradition and in the late twentieth century international artists such as Czech Dana Zámečníková and American Judith Schaechter expand this tradition with their imaginative figurative imagery. In Australia, outside our own strong tradition of stained glass painters, contemporary artist Deb Cocks used the reverse painted technique to create her own idiosyncratic imagery.
Although conscious of technique, I reverse paint with vitreous enamels not because I am interested in histories or in technique, but because it is a way to embed imagery into the glass. It facilitates the spontaneity of my gesture. My approach to technique is idiosyncratic and I ignore the craft conventions of painting on glass as I push against the resistance of this technical process. That resistance forces me into new mark making as I met the challenge of interpreting each sitter. These portraits become collaborations between the medium and myself. Synthesis occurs in this collaboration such that I could not have created these works in another painting medium. Engagement with these works requires no prior knowledge of glassmaking on the part of the viewer. Viewers might admire my skill, but I regard skill as supplementary to the concept of portrait, which is supplementary to the sitter’s presence, and I hope this presence will facilitate the narratives constructed by the viewer.
This body of work is plain evidence for the function of narratives in shaping the context of a reading. These are narratives seeded in identity, genre, technique and artist – the identity of a sitter, the genre of portraiture and technique that is gesture exposing the artist (myself). In generating the narratives of the sitters these portraits simply demonstrate engagement through representation, and the work is open to a general public informed in their interpretations by long-term access to portraiture.
Another Collaboration
There is a consistent method in my making of these works. I interview the subject of the portrait and I focus on establishing an informal conversation. While I am doing this artist Marina Bishop discretely takes numerous photographs. At the start of these sessions the subjects of these portraits are possibly self-conscious because they are being photographed, but as the conversation continues their enthusiasm for their practice does take over. They relax and their gestures become more natural and reveal characteristic mannerisms. I am intuitive in seeking something of the inner person. Whether these readings are the result of my own projection, or actually genuine character traits is not as important to me as the sincerity of my reading of the subject at that point in time.
The resultant fifty plus casual photos taken of each subject are there to provide source material, which I compose as the image I intuitively feel best represents the personality I have engaged with over one or two hours of conversation. In this thesis I am not concerned with the nature of the portrait photograph as such. From the range of those photos I seek distinctive postures, gestures and expressions that I feel are personality tells – that is, that reveal an individual and his or her story. I use these tells as the basis for my portrait. In working with a photographer, I continue the studio glass tradition of collaboration.
One Artist’s Intention
In terms of the generation of a spontaneous reaction by the viewer it is pertinent that these works are presented as portraiture. As part of my analysis of narrative, I situate a glassmaking technique in a traditional and engagingly accessible Fine Art genre. I intend that through an applied narrative, the glass object will expand to become a presence. I intend each portrait to radiate the aura of a specific individual. The subjective interpretation of a face is a contextual improvisation on our part, just as our speech is contextual improvisation. Our engagement is spontaneous and occurs without intellectual deconstruction. Because engagement with a portrait is reliant on what is instinct, this genre carries the potential to break down categorisations determined by the medium used. It is significant that as portraits, these works are open to interpretation by the viewer when the sitter and artist are gone and the portrait alone still exists as a thing in the world.
Artist Intention Does Not Determine Context
As the artist, my intention does not control engagement beyond the point of my making the work. The platform of presentation is one more element of process, and this thesis has made the point that process carries varied narratives.
I do not intend material and technique to present as the primary narratives of my portrait work, but in the context of a premier glass prize the craft narrative would be an issue whatever the prize’s stated aspiration to support wider contemporary practice in glass. My artist statement for the portrait, Jess Loughlin,[6] in essence, expressed the hope that the work be engaged as a portrait. However, the critical appraisal of the work[7] that appeared in Craft Arts International placed it firmly within the craft narrative. The portrait was praised for its technical virtuosity, described by its technical process to the extent that there was a specific reference to it being an ‘autonomous panel’ (firmly placing it within the context of work on glass in a stained glass tradition), and it was criticised for the looseness that is the mark of my gesture. No mention was made of the sitter, or of its effectiveness as a portrait. The portrait of Jess Loughlin was submitted and accepted as a finalist for the 2010 Ranamok Glass Prize, and a second portrait of Stephen Payne, which was submitted and accepted as a finalist in the 2011 Moran Portrait Prize. The review for Jess Loughlin would imply that those familiar with glass are capable of building their own cultural enclosures. However, when a number of these portraits were displayed at the 2011 Ausglass conference, I received responses from many viewers that made reference to these works as representations of known personalities – none made mention of technique, or medium. Even though this conference had the theme of glass, to responding participants these works were each accessed as an individual presence with an intriguing story linked to the viewer’s own history. However, perhaps these responses to me, as the artist responsible for the work again reflect the consideration of our creative community, or from a darker perspective perhaps, within the hierarchy of technical processes within glass, painting on glass was a technique that did not warrant technical comment at a professional level. Whatever the response, my intention is to find a fluid engagement that loops between work and viewer (between object and subject/viewer) in an improvisation enabled by the embodied skills of the viewer and unencumbered by cliché or inhibition.
Postscript
When I exhibited these works in a commercial gallery, the engaging pull of skill was not to be denied. The fact that this gallery (The Glass Artists’ Gallery) specialises in presenting glasswork would certainly influence the response of viewers. Questions were asked about the technique used in these portraits, and viewers were engaged because they were intrigued by the approach. A consistent response from those who spoke about these works was in the form of an enquiry as to how the works were done. If there was praise it often centred on my ability to effectively create these portraits while painting in reverse.
These responses return to the nature of engagement with studio glass. Assumption leads to the acceptance of our unrecognised preconceptions, and if work is pre-emptively classified by its medium, that assumption may leave the work subsumed by a limited technical process narrative that terminates at the admiration of demonstrated technical skill. Yet skill provides a major element for engagement with my work, even though this is not my intention. To deny this connection with the viewer would be petulant, and it works against the viewer’s connection to the work. It is more productive to accept that evidence of skill is integral to the viewer’s engagement with both the work and the artist: that is, I should not deny its significance as a narrative that the viewer understands, values and respects.
With this installation 1 present the viewer with thirty-nine portraits centred on a creative subculture. As a group, these portraits are intended to poetically signify the rich and multiple narratives of a community of individual voices. In these portraits each maker, gallery director and collector offers individual engagement through their own range of narratives. As people dedicated to their vocations they deserve individual consideration and, if they are makers, they deserve to have the objects they create considered for what they are, rather than be pre-empted by cliché and denied fuller engagement. If a technique or a medium can draw the viewer into that engagement it should not be denied. The craft narrative should be accepted, and then if the conceptual power of the ideas that drive the works is articulated strongly through the very elements that carry the craft narrative, then those concepts can subsume the craft narrative and be carried to the viewer as interpreted meaning.
[1] Peter Ross, Let’s Face It. The History of the Archibald Prize, Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2005,108. In reference to the Archibald Prize for portraiture, gallery director Edmund Capon observed, it “is the one show that allows the public to feel an involvement and ownership they can’t feel about other exhibitions”.
[2] Ibid., 93. Contemporary art curator, writer and critic Elwyn Lynn wrote in 1988 “Every one knows what a portrait should be and everyone is wildly vocal when the Archibald breaks out”.
[3] Edmund Capon, Cherry Hood, Paul Newton, Andrew Sayers and Gene Sherman, “Archibald, Image & Identity: A Portrait Forum”, Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2010, Sayers spoke of a good portrait’s ‘vitality and presence’.
[4] Edmund Burke Feldman, Varieties of Visual Experience, 3rd ed., New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987, 264-267. The gesture of the artist can facilitate a reading of that artist, for example see the captioning of traditional portraits.
[5] Finely ground glass particles with coloured oxides and fluxes (creating a low melting point) added to a medium to assist application and fixed by firing between 500 and 600 Celsius. I have completed painting on glass workshops with stained glass conservator and artist Gerry Cummins and with artist Deb Cocks. I was at Sydney College of the Arts when American artist Joseph Cavalieri recently undertook a residency sharing his approach and idiosyncratic imagery in painted glass with students of its glass workshop.
[6] Wayne Pearson, Ranamok catalogue. Ranamok Glass Prize, 2010,54.
[7] Clare Bond, ‘The Ranamok Glass Prize 2010’, Craft Arts International no. 81, Sydney: Craft Arts Pty Ltd, 2011, 99. As part of the public coverage of this exhibition the articles in which these appraisals appear are usually supportive reviews complimenting the standard of the exhibition.