Eyes on Glass

19.09.28 Eyes on Glass

SM Sarah McConnell

AS: Audio Sample

RR: Robin Rogers

JP: Jutta Page

RS: Ray Stratton

SB: Sam Blanchard

MN: Marcia Neblett

00:00:00

AS Good morning, glass blowers! Is everyone ready to play with fire? Game on!

SM This is Blown Away, a reality competition TV series that premiered this year on Netflix. It features 10 glassblowing contestants vying for a sixty-thousand-dollar prize and an artist residency at the Corning Museum of Glass.

AS: If they can survive our fiery competition, theyíll win a life changing prize package that will establish them around the globe as best in class. Glass breaks, it's what you do next that's important. I'm going to restart the whole thing. Glass blowers ñ one hour.

[music]

SM Glassblowing involves inflating molten glass into a bubble with the aid of a blowpipe, and it's having a resurgence. From Virginia Humanities, this is With Good Reason. I'm Sarah McConnell. Robin Rogers is a glass artist and program director of the Perry Glass Studio at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia. He also works with his wife, Julia, another glass artist. He speaks here about his love for working with glass.

RR So I remember the first time I ever laid eyes on molten glass. It was in a community operated studio in Columbus, Ohio, called Glass Axis, and it was one of the strangest things I'd ever seen before. It was glowing, it was moving, and it was inexplainable. And I was immediately intrigued. It really just started to infiltrate my life. It was something that I was thinking about, dreaming about. It was working its way into my psyche. I would actually have dreams about them - about glass, about molten glass, about working with glass. I would have good dreams about it, where it was fun and rewarding. And I also have dreams that would come back every now and again where things weren't going right and the equipment wasn't quite hot enough and they couldn't get the material to do what I wanted it to do. Sort of a struggle dream, if you will. But it was always - it was always there. The first piece that I made that's kind of sticks out in my mind, would probably be this glass hammer that I made as a gift for my brother. We had a family holiday gift exchange and I had got him. He happened to be a roofer. And I wanted to make something special that that he might appreciate. Not your typical piece of blown glass, not a cup or a bowl or something, but special to him. So working on that project, the glass hammer, actually was kind of a shift in my attention to the glass, because up until that point, I had been following steps. When you make a bowl or a cup, you have a series of steps that you're taught and you kind of go through those steps and work on perfecting them. But in this instance, I knew that I wanted to make a hammer, but I had no idea how. And rather than ask for help, I just kind of figured it out. And it was - what I think was fairly successful, he seemed to enjoy it, it was a colorful and a little funky and delicate looking, but it kind of started me on the path that I've taken, which is more focused on sculpting glass, rather than blowing functional wares.

[music fades]

So sculpting glass is a challenge. It is - it's a liquid material. It's moving. It's flowing. But as it cools off, it solidifies. So generally, when I'm making something, I start with a basic form, like a sketch and get the basic proportions. And then as the glass cools, I'll get it progressively less and less hot and add detail. And actually, one of my favorite sculpting tools is a common butter knife that you'll find in your kitchen, because when you're doing texture on the surface or adding little details, a butter knife is one of the absolute best tools and simplest tools there is. I get the burning question a lot - have you ever been burned? And it is a it's - a it's a valid question. And certainly, I have been burned. Typically, it's a metal tool that creates a burn. The glass is very hot, I know that and I'm not going to touch it. But I might use a tool, set it down on the bench and then a few moments later accidentally touch a spot that's hot. But in all my years of working with glass, I've only ever had, you know, minor cuts and burns. Knock on wood. And I'd say it's no more dangerous than working in the kitchen. The temperatures are a little bit hotter.

[music]

So my wife and I make collaborative work and we have a number of series that we - we work together on and we happen to have two pieces of our work on view, as a part of the permanent collection at the Barr Art Museum. One of these is from a - a series that we call Architecture of the Mind, which is where heads are being transformed into buildings, typically more human on the bottom and then near the top of the head there might be a roofline. We've made skyscrapers that have antennas on top and tenants living in the apartments below. The particular piece that's on view at the Barry is a Victorian style roofline of a home with an attic window, which is right in the forehead. And if you peer through the window, you can see there's a little dresser in there and sort of a - a bedroom setting in and the title of that piece is Victoria's Hideaway. That particular piece, Victoria's Hideaway, was initially inspired by an illustration by Shel Silverstein. If you've ever seen A Light in the Attic, one of his early books - on the cover there's a man whose head kind of turns into a roof and there's a - a window on his forehead and you can kind of peer inside. So it was very heavily inspired by that Shel Silverstein illustration. Of course, both Julia and I grew up with those - those books and those amazing poems by - by Shel. I think there's always been something very cool about working with glass throughout the ages. But that certainly continues today. The way the material moves, and glows is just something that it really is riveting. And then once you're able to actually work with the material and have a little bit of success creating something, that's it - you're hooked.

SM The Barry Art Museum, where Robin and Julia have their glass artwork on display is thanks to a 35-million-dollar gift to Old Dominion University from glass art lovers Richard and Carolyn Barry. The museum opened its doors last fall, and the director is internationally acclaimed glass curator Jutta Paige.

JP My interest in gas actually goes back to my elementary school years. I grew up in Cologne, in Germany. So there were lots of Roman artifacts and the famous archeological museum. So looking at these ancient glass vessels was just fascinating. There was one particular one that has never left me, which is known as a cage cap. It's a beaker that you could drink out of, in theory, but it's enclosed in this very delicate cage of glass. It seems to hover within that. And it still fascinates scholars today, how they were actually made. But the magic of that particular glass has always stuck with me, but that wasn't really the reason why I got into it. I was offered a job at the Corning Museum of Glass.

SM It's so interesting. We know the word Corning and we know that we associate it with dishes that we use in the kitchen, but Corning, where? Tell me about Corning.

JP Corning is a city - a smart city in upstate New York. That is the home of Corning, Incorperated, which is a large corporation that makes all sorts of things. But the museum that was founded by the corporation, 1951, has become the largest glass museum in the world - with blowing facilities, lots of things to do. If you've never seen glass being blown, I strongly recommend visiting a studio, getting a sense of the heat and the immediacy that it takes to create a blown vessel. It's a performative art.

SM How often do things go awry when an artist - a glass artist is making something beautiful?

JP Something can go awry at any moment, even for well skilled artists who have been working for decades in their trade. I've seen Lino Tagliapietra, who is in his 80s and probably the most skilled Venetian glass artist today, has created works that did not work out and got smashed.

SM Is it also dangerous? I mean, that much heat and molten glass?

JP It's certainly a dangerous trade. No, it's not one of those crafts where you can touch it. You don't have any feeling for it. Everything has to be done hands-off.

SM How are most artists manipulating the glass to make their structures?

JP Very skilled artists who have been working with assistants for a very long time don't need much of communication with words, often just a nod or a wink or emotion tells the assistant what's needed. And it's that kind of interplay of individuals who are together creating something that has to be borne out of the moment, you know, itís just mesmerizing.

SM Because there is not time to further shape it later.

JP No, you can never go back, you know, with wended work, you can always add another rim, you can add a spout or handle later on. With glass it is very, very difficult.

SM What do you think were the first human encounters with glass art? How do you think we first realized this is a terrific medium and found it useful or decorative?

JP Well, we don't quite know when and where it started. We think it started more than 4000 years ago in Mesopotamia and the objects that were created there were very small, but they were also brightly colored. Many of them were initially used as decorations. You know, we know that they are entire columns and temples covered in small glass dots and tiles and squares to create patterns that were brightly colored. And this gleaming aspect of it in light, of course, is an important aspect of any viewing of glass. The fact that you can see through it and you can see something on the other side that picks up the environment, glass is absolutely a mesmerizing material.

SM What about glass blowing? When do you think that began?

JP Well, we think that glass blowing probably started in Israel - what's modern Israel. The earliest pieces have been found in Jerusalem in the middle of the first century BCE, before the Christian era.

SM I've heard of Bohemian Glass, which are sold all over Central Europe. What exactly is that?

JP Well, Bohemia is really just a description of a locale. You know, it was the largest part of what's today the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic has always been a center of glass making. One of the best-known artists was the sculptor. Stanislav Libensk˝, the head of the glass program and sculpture program at the Art Academy in Prague.

SM What about for collectors. Do collectors have a problem with fakes in glass art, as they do with some of the other media?

JP I've seen that more with historic pieces where fakes, especially of art nouveau coming out of countries like China and Romania that are really beautifully made and very difficult to tell. I've seen a kitchen table in the Czech Republic that was covered with 18th century, very tall, carved goblets that once they were taken out of that context, you would have a hard time telling the difference between the original and the one that was made yesterday.

SM So how'd you get to know so much about glass art in the first place?

JP I learned about glass hitting the ground, running. My background was in metal work. You know, I always loved objects, but glass was a foreign thing to me. I knew a little bit more about stained glass. You know, the beautiful windows in churches. But looking at the collection there, I had no idea how varied glass can be in its different formations. And the beginning of the 20th century, you know, you have this fantastic art nouveau style with very florid vessels that have leaves and emulate nature. And you have the same kind of expression, you know, in a gate that was made for a villa in France, that echo in Tiffanyís vessels, for instance. There's an overarching interest in nature in that period. And you only learn about that really if you see a number of different kinds of media.

SM Right. I forget that glass art would have been part of the movements over the years. Name some other art movements that are reflected in glass art of the period.

JP Well, the most important movement really started in the early 1960s here in the United States, where we can pin down, you know, that glass as a medium for making art, got its foundation in that period, when artists were able to take the technology that was reserved for industry, after that point - you are making beakers and tableware and so forth - and creating things that were only nice to look at.

SM Tell me about the Barry Art Collection. How is that formed?

JP Carolyn Richard Berry are in Norfolk natives. Very familiar, of course, with the Chrysler Museum, which is one of the great museums in the United States and has both a historic and a contemporary collection of glass objects. They began collecting themselves in the 1980s and 90s and are still adding to the collection. So the Barryís decided to donate their collection, as well as made building to Old Dominion University to showcase that particular collection.

SM I have to believe there's a lot of light in glass.

JP The museum is an unusually bright and light building. We have a fountain made of glass in the center of the building that informed the entire design of its interior. The glass collection has a little bit more than 100 objects. Most of them are displayed in galleries where they can be lit properly because lighting is very important for displaying works in glass.

SM What are some pieces that you have not acquired for the museum, but that you sort of have your eye on that appeal to you?

JP Work by a Dutch artist who uses glass with a very fluid aquatic feeling, to which she also added oyster shells and seaweed. Yu know, to capture an aquatic environment. We've presented in that particular vessel.

SM It sounds as though there are many women artists represented in the field. Was that always the case?

JP Initially, there were very few women, but the very early pioneers working in glass such as Ginny Ruffner, Toots Zynsky, who came out of the Rhode Island School of Design studying under Dale Chihuly. And one day actually, they made their mark on the field very early on by developing their own techniques and continue to do so today.

SM What do you think your biggest challenge is in terms of bringing the public in to see what you have at this new museum, the Barry Art Museum?

JP I think our biggest challenge is to let people know that we are there. We are so brand new. Our museum is free to the public so anybody can walk in and just enjoy it. As a new art museum on a campus, we are seeing a lot of visitors who have never set foot in an art museum before. Students are very smart, and we have found that many of them have discovered us as a refuge. You know, from exam time especially, we see students with their laptop sitting on the benches working rather than in a library or in their dormitories. And we truly welcome that. The music students have discovered us because ñ and that's not by design, we have a great acoustic inside the museum. So, we had a clarinet choir and flute choir, so it is great to see them come in and poking their heads into the galleries and getting drawn in. You know, which they did not expect before.

[music]

SM Jutta Page, thank you for sharing your insights with me and With Good Reason.

JP Thank you, Sarah. It's been a true pleasure.

00:17:40

SM Jutta Page is the executive director of the Barry Art Museum at Old Dominion University. Coming up next, to 3-D or not to 3-D? As technology advances, 3-D printmaking is getting a lot of attention. But Ray Stratton has been a 3D print maker his entire career. And he doesn't involve a high-tech printer. Ray is a professor of art at the University of Virginia College at Wise.

[music fades out]

RS As a kid, I didn't think of myself as an artist, it was just something I did, all through school, through high school. Once I get into college, it actually took me a while. I thought I needed to do something else. And then finally came back around to being an art major. But I decided I needed a job, so I would be a teacher. But I was really probably in grad school when they basically said, no, you're here to be an artist. You're not here to be a teacher. You're here to be an artist.

SM Was that intimidating?

RS Yeah, that was very intimidating. And I had always wanted to do that, because I'd never been out of the country and I finally managed to save up enough money to do that. And one day the light bulb went off and said, well, if I'm this excited about a month, why not apply to schools over there? So, I did. And it was, you know, scary, fun, you know, some of the best times of my life.

SM It really stretched you.

RS Oh, yeah. I've flailed a lot. Glasgow was very much conceptually based. You know, most the work was about the idea, rather than the work itself. And for a while, I tried to do work that I thought they wanted, and that's not good. One of the tutors said, why do you do prints? Why? Why would you do that? Well, because this is my thing. This is - this is what I do. What do you mean? Why do I do this? Another thing another instructor said was, OK. You've done that, what are you gonna do next? That one especially is really stuck with me. And probably part of why my work changes from series to series, is that OK, I've done that. Move on to the next thing.

SM Was it in Scotland graduate school that you really discovered your passion for three-dimensional paper?

RS Ah, yes. Traditionally prints are flat, matted, framed, hung on the wall. And I really wanted to do something more three dimensional. You know, I did some low relief things where I did multiple prints, cut them out, layered one on top of the other. Probably the biggest one that I did was these small little pyramids. Each pyramid was about four inches and the entire assemblage of them was about ten foot by about 40 foot.

SM What did you start to see in that? What kind of feedback did you get?

RS The thing I got out of it is - since I decided I was going to embrace printmaking, that was part of what I was doing, was the repetition and the process of it. Because that's part of what prints are, you know, you make a plate of some sort that you apply ink to and you run it through a press and then you re-ink it, run it through a press, and you can make as many as you want, or as many as you've got time to make. Once I had these units, so to speak, then I could take them and do something else with them. You know, I spread them out, I concentrate them together, I jumped up on down on some of them, put them on the wall, tried all kinds of different things. People have a tendency to see their work as very precious and sometimes maybe too precious.

SM Right.

RS And you're scared to go - you know, to do much with it. So, once I started taking scissors exact-o knives to the paper, it's very freeing. Then I can go make - I can go prints more if the screws up.

SM A lot of the work must have seemed very repetitive, but in a good way.

RS It does become kind of meditative after a while, once you start doing something, these multiple things, but you just kind of zone out and get into the groove of it, I guess.

SM At one point you get sick of itÖ

RS Well, sometimes you get frustrated. Yeah, you know, I've heard plenty of stories about artists burning their work or doing something else. Yeah, I jumped up and down on some of it.

SM On your pyramid's crushing them?

RS Yup.

SM On purpose to see what it would look like? Or just mad?

RS I think the first one was actually accidental. They had some on the floor and I accidentally stepped on it then it's like, you know, I'm going to put some together, do it on purpose. It'll, you know, relieve some frustration. And also, I'll get to see what it looks like.

SM You've been doing work lately on the theme of communication. What are you thinking? Tell me about that.

RS Well, I see a lot of miscommunication. I did a series that I called What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate, that what you hear is not necessarily what that person said, but it also had come from before where I did have some pieces about thought memory and about how they change over time and things like that.

SM What were you thinking about? Thought and memory?

RS Well, two things. One thing was that - this idea that somebody - somebody asked me if this is where I thought I'd be at this point in my life. And for some reason, it struck me that they were asking about two different things, about a thought and a memory. And I started trying to figure out the difference between the two, and how to express that visually. Another thing is a quote that I remember hearing as a kid that always struck me. I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure that you understand that what I said was not what I meant. Or something to that effect.

SM How do you represent that in art? Right?

RS Right. That whole idea of like I said, that miscommunication of both the struggle to express a thought and the translation of OK, once that thought is filtered through somebody else's brain, how that changes.

SM What have you been doing most recently?

RS Some of the most recent work I've been doing. Been taking this paper pulp - to make paper pulp, you put it in a beater. And the - how much pressure you have on the beater and how long you have it in the beater will change the properties of the paper. These fibers, when you overbeat them like four, eight or more hours, really shrink up when they dry. There's something about the texture of a stack of paper and the edges of the paper that I really enjoy.

SM Yeah, sort of like with wood. This popularity of what they call the live edge wood.

RS Right. Make one large sheet and turn it into small forms and kind of fold it up. And I've been sewing them onto a canvas because of the type of pulp, some of them are a little lighter or some a little darker in color. And sewing them to a canvas in these rows, to me, they kind of represented the idea of this information that's been lost through the ages or through just a lack of understanding. Because a lot of this paper, once it's, you know, shrunk and wrinkled, it looks kind of like ancient parchments. And this idea, like I said, this idea of knowledge that's been lost.

SM Why is that idea of knowledge that has been lost, something that resonates with you right now.

RS Right now especially, I was actually kind of experimenting with this idea when I lost my mother. I lost my mom last fall. And, yeah, that's - you know ñ I - the knowledge she had, the - you know - the things she could have passed on to meÖ I no longer have access to that. So, you know, I wonder about what I know, what all I missed out on.

SM You know, when I lost my mother, my youngest daughter said to me, where do you think her memories went? And I thought it was such wonderful curiosity. Where do our memories go? Because it's so essentially us, right.

RS Right. If you don't mind, I might borrow that for some work.

SM Right. But I totally appreciate you saying, you know, where - where does that wisdom go? Where does that accumulated life that is in the soul, the mind - what did that lead you to?

RS Well, I've just started this this series of sewing this paper onto the canvas. And so it's something I really want to continue to explore. One thing I was asking my dad, if my mom had any old buttons. Since I'm sewing this paper onto the canvas, what would it look like if I sew a button in the middle of it? And how will, you know, visually - how will it dry around it? Part of me now is relating it to that, OK, where do the memories go? It is a visual process, so I kind of need to see it first and then see what if I think that's going to work or not.

[music]

SM Ray Stratton is a professor of art and a visual art coordinator at the University of Virginia College at Wise. This is With Good Reason, we'll be right back.

00:27:50

SM Welcome back. From Virginia Humanities, this is With Good Reason. When they were first invented, computers were serious business. But today they play a primary role in production of art, music, film, design. Sam Blanchard is a professor of visual art at Virginia Tech and he's a sculptor. But he doesn't use marble and stone. Instead, his work uses computer processors, 3-D design software, video images. Sam, when do you think you became interested in using parts of computers and technology as actual sculpture?

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SB Well, I suppose I was probably making sculpture, but I wouldn't have called it that. My mom would entertain my visions, constructing things in the basement, and I could kind of tinker with things, I was a big taker-apartner. So, the early years was a lot of that - just exploring. And the toys, they would have like a lifespan. And, you know, this was the era where everything had some batteries and a motor in every little toy. My - my brother and I, we really would try and figure out how to, like, hack these apart and make our own toys, you know, make our own sort of movements or sensors and things like that.

SM Did you and your brother do any films?

SB Yeah, we did. When my mom first got a camcorder, I was probably in the sixth grade and my brother was probably in the fourth grade, something like that. And we're kind of latchkey kids, you know, and we had a lot of freedom, and we had a few hours after school before my mom would get home from work. We would make a lot of - looking back on it, very sort of experimental films. My favorite is a me sitting on things just around the house and my brother being sort of the producer and the camera person, just like two second clips of Sam sitting on things. So, from the front stoop, to the refrigerator, to the banister, to the couch, to the back porch, just like really sort of dry humor films. And yeah, I - I think we've probably made a few of those over - over the years. I think that's the most memorable one for sure.

SM There's so many of your pieces now where I see the dry humor at play. Tell me about the one where you are high atop a platform, being shaved in a very scary fashion by robotic arms that are super long and coming crazy close to skin.

SB Yeah. You know, a lot of my work is trying to share an experience, trying to have people maybe empathize. And the time I made that I was maybe 32 and sort of losing my hair. And when you start to lose your hair, haircuts don't become that much fun. So I decided to make a piece about it. So, you know, how do you translate the anxiety or the uncomfortableness that you have on this very personal moment in your life in a barber chair? What I typically do is, I'll take something that sort of more universal as like a fear. So, for instance, like a fear of heights, right. So, in that case, that piece is a - it's a barber chair that's been extended to 13 feet tall. And so I would sit on that barber chair and from down below I would get like a haircut with all the implements on - on big, long poles that would just sort of like smack against my - my head or - or give me a little cut.

SM Did you get a cut?

SB Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure. It's probably not the first time I've been hurt by the by the artistic process.

SM Let me talk about some of your other works and see how you got your inspiration. So, let me start with the virtual reality kayak. I think it's called the Maui Kayak?

SB The Maui Simulator.

SM Yeah.

SB So I spend a lot of time in my office. I'm an artist that works with computers a lot. A lot of curtains drawn, staring at a screen. A few years ago, maybe a couple of years ago, I discovered these YouTube Live cameras. They're all over the place, you know. There's one in Hvar, Croatia, that I loved. That was just this beautiful panning across this little sea town, this little perfect port city. And you'd see people walking across and, you know, right - walking home from dinner and things like that. And something struck me about like how real that was, that I could - I was there right now and that the computer was less of a screen and more of a window at that point. One of the other favorites on that YouTube Live is a humpback whale sanctuary in Maui. It basically just - just looks out on this little piece of ocean and just sort of pans across. You just - just see the waves lapping just one after the other. There's nice audio. You can hear him just one after the other. It's very relaxing. With the Maui Simulator Project, I wrote a program that analyzes that Maui YouTube Live feed. It analyzes the waves as they come in and translates them to a series of motors that actually move a kayak, that you can ride along the waves in real time in parallel with the waves lapping in Maui.

SM It's really compelling if you look online at the video of the Maui Simulator. You see a woman in a kayak and the kayaks motion is sort of with the waves. You can just imagine the kayak undulating. And around her on many sides, or looking through a screen, she's seeing the very experience that she's feeling in her kayak.

SB Yeah, I hope it's very meditative. There's something very romantic about the idea of those waves, you know, traveling across an ocean and then terminating on the shore in Maui. And then - that image - that sort of movement being translated all the way from Maui over to Blacksburg, Virginia. That - the way that the sort of geography sort of shrinks our universe. You know, it doesn't necessarily need to be someplace that you've been and you miss. You know, I can - I can hope to be there. You know, I can still hope to go to Hvar Croatia and, you know, have dinner walk down that boardwalk.

SM One of your most recent works is more overtly political. It's called authorized personnel only.

SB Yeah, I'm always doing work that's about what's on my mind. And I think most artists will probably say that. And how can, you know, our are sort of political climate not be on your mind today? That piece, it's a flagpole with an American flag on it, that's about 25 feet tall. And every 30 minutes, it will reorient itself and find a new trajectory to point towards randomly. It's an analog for, you know, just waking up watching the news in the morning. Something new, lets - the country's going over here. Something new - the country is going over there. And just this this sort of constant change.

SM One of your recent works was using crowdsource sculpture. What is crowdsource sculpture?

SB Well, I guess it's a name that I came up with by taking the three most searched sculptures on Google. You know, your big hits right, your Michelangelo's David, Rodin's Thinker, Venus de Milo. So what I would do is I would take one of those search terms like Michelangelo David, type that into Google. Then I would grab about the first 100, 150 images that I would find of tourists visiting that statue. You know, maybe doing a selfie with the statue behind them, or just like any - any viewpoint that they might have. Then taking all those photos that I would collect via that search; I could put them into some software called photogrammetry software. It would recompile - it would find triangulate points on that sculpture and recreate a three-dimensional form within the computer. So a 3D model - virtual 3D model. Incomplete and flawed 3D model, but still very much representative of portions of the sculpture. And then 3D printing those out in a nylon plastic. So the end result, you see, for instance, the Michelangelo, David, you get about two thirds of the sort of front sculpture.

SM Because nobody's ever taking the picture from behind.

SB Exactly. Nobody's ever taking a picture of the top of the heads so you don't have the top of the head. The Rodin Thinker is - is a great example of that. Usually when you see a sculpture like that, you know that the - the thinker being that the guy with the elbow on the knee. Usually you see those on plinths, right? Pretty high up. And because of that, you don't see a lot of people taking pictures of the back of the head because you'd have to be, you know, in a helicopter flying over the thing, right. So the back of the head in the Rodin Thinker piece is just totally absent. Like, it's almost complete all the way around, except for that top portion.

SM What did you get out of it?

SB So there's two things about it. I guess one of them simply is you understand what people are looking at, or at least what they're taking pictures of. The other thing that I think that particular project really resonated with me because it's a model for what could be in the future. That is to say, like I read a study that three billion photos are shared openly on searchable databases every day. And I think that article is like three years old. So today you can only imagine - and the quality of the pictures gets better, so you getting way more way higher quality. At some point out in the future, you will have enough data that's out just floating in the ether of the Internet, to actually get a ñ a - enough information to get like a real photorealistic version of those things or of, you know, a 2002 Honda Civic or Starbucks coffee cup, that the information is out there, it just needs to be collected and translated in the right way. We're actually working - I'm working with some colleagues at Virginia Tech in engineering and - and we're sort of making a machine that does all of those things all at once. And so we can sort of make a print of something today, like we can search Michelangelo David today, and we can get a certain type of quality of rendering. We can do it three months from now. Logic would dictate, it's gonna be more accurate. We can do it six months from now, even more - more so. And then, you know, at some point out in the distant future, it will be perfect. Right, it will be very much photorealistic.

SM It's really exciting to hear that you're working with your colleagues at a school like Virginia Tech, which is so renowned for its engineering, math, science, STEM areas that - that there can be this creative outlook for people to come together and make art and - and surprising items of whimsy and possible usefulness.

SB I do work with a lot of engineers and some brilliant people in all sorts of, you know, technical fields that are well beyond my understanding. The reason that these projects come about, you know, in the gallery, in the museum, even - even a failure can be a result. Right. Whereas in these really definitive fields, that bridge either works or it doesn't work, right. So the perfect example is what we just talked about, the Crowdsource Sculptures. Right. So those are not realistic versions of Michelangelo's David, right. But what it does do is it - even in the flawed result that's presented, it's the idea that's there, that's present. And - and it's only - you're only aware of it because of the flaws. If it was photorealistic, if it was actually perfect, we would just think it was something from a gift shop, right. It's what attracts a lot of people in fields like engineering and computer science to - to work with artists, I think, is because the outcomes aren't quite as defined.

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SM Sam Blanchard is a professor of visual art at Virginia Tech. Coming up next, turning blocks of wood into fantastical works of art.

00:40:45

SM Marcia Neblett has been a woodblock printmaker for nearly three decades. Neblett carves fairy tale scenes and human animal hybrids into wood, rendering her fantasy images in ink. Marcia, who is an assistant professor of fine arts at Norfolk State University, recently traveled to India on a Fulbright scholarship and taught drawing and printmaking in the city of Chennai. Marcia, growing up, did you always know you were going to be an artist?

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MN I did. I was fortunate to grow up in a family where my mother was an artist, an art teacher. So really, from age five, I recall telling people I wanted to be an art teacher and an artist, and I haven't strayed from that.

SM So your mother was an artist and art teacher. Did you paint and draw with her?

MN I did. And she's still active, actually, as a professional artist and as a child, at the age of nine, I attended the 92 Street Y with her, at one point where we were sculpting from a nude model. Just a couple times, but it was probably my most special memory with her that we did together back then.

SM Sort of daring as a mother, right?

MN Yeah, definitely.

SM What drew you to woodblock print making specifically? How did you learn about that and know that was something for you?

MN I had been pursuing painting and sculpting which were always in the hierarchy, sort of the more important or popular arts to study. And the printmaking course was required. And immediately I fell in love with the material.

SM Remember what it felt like when you first sort of put a knife to the wood and went, oh, this is for me.

MN It almost felt so natural, there wasn't even this feeling. It was like, of course - it was like breathing. You know, if you were to dive into a - you know, into a swimming pool and the temperature is perfect, I knew it instantly. And it's such a blessing, thinking about that, I don't know how and why that is. But art - art making as a craft, so whatever medium an artist is using, if they love it, they're excited by not just how it looks, but how it feels. Maybe even how it smells and sounds. And that's where I get excited with the wood. See, there's this chipped chip chunk, you know, and then the sound as you're rolling the brayer of ink across the print. I compare that to a thunderstorm ñ a distant thunderstorm on the horizon in an ocean. There might be a splash or a slither of ink. And I never tell my students to taste their art materials, but I joke about it. And I compare art making and the materials to something delicious, maybe like fudge. And so, when I'm carving the wood, I think about the taste also.

SM What's the process like for woodcut prints?

MN Woodblock printmaking is a subtractive process where on a plank of wood you carve away what you do not want. So a drawing is made first on the wood and then the light spots are what's left in the wood - this is the way I do it, you carve away those parts you do not want. So, the raised or the part remaining on the wood, is what is actually printed and inked. So, it's a little reverse of other printmaking forms, and also the way one might think of drawing and painting, where you draw and you paint and the mark is what you see. In the printmaking and the relief printmaking of the wood, in order to get the image, you have to remove the parts around those lines. So that's kind of exciting, and that's the mystery and the mind twister, if you will, of making a woodblock print.

SM What makes for a great woodblock artist?

MN Patience, excellent design skills, research, prepping, studying for imagery and then the managing of the tools; how you're holding them, how you're angling them. I use very detailed tiny woodcut tools and I have a lot of them sharpened and ready to go. I take care of them as I would my artwork, too, because the tools you use are just as important as what you make.

SM I have to imagine that these days there are technological tools you can use that would create this for you without all the laborious, painstaking craftsmanship.

MN Absolutely, you can, through the computer, scan a drawing and have a laser etched woodcut made in a matter of - you know, in very little time. And that's where the computer is certainly involved. But then that takes away the joy of carving and chipping the wood. The smell of the pine. It's like giving your work to someone else to do. And sometimes that can be a good thing if you have a need for production, but then since the process is such a part of the love of this medium, taking that away sort of for me would lose the point of making it.

SM What are some of your favorites?

MN Probably my favorite woodcuts would be the Hansel and Gretel series.

SM What drew you to Hansel and Gretel?

MN So it's images, you know, as a visual artist, that one is drawn to - as well, as a story. But I was drawn to the pictures and the images of the forest of the candy house and, of course, of the story. And I saw it as a narrative that would work well from what performed. And I kept seeing these images of Hansel and Gretel in different - different art forms. And it sort of was starting to come together before I began those sketches for that piece. I have always liked the idea that it's one spread - that you can see it. So, when I designed this particular woodblock, I designed it as three parts that could be exhibited separately or all together. And each one is three feet by one foot tall, so that in total length, it's nine feet from start to finish.

SM How long did it take you? There must be intricate detail in those nine feet.

MN There was - at least eight months and I mean full-time. And that's with a pretty small grant. Not a lot of money. So, it is a sacrifice, and also, I used scalpel knives, which I picked up at medical school stores where they sell them for students training in surgery. And I would replace the blades with the tiny scalpel knives. So, it was interesting, to say the least.

SM I also love the story book drawings that you have, the emotional detail and drama. I remember pouring over the color plates and classic books that I had as a child, Grimm's Fairy Tales and others. And I was so drawn in, to the artist's depiction of those fanciful worlds.

MN Those were those were a lot of fun to do. I had to put myself in the role, if you will, of Little Red Riding Hood and then the wolf. And when I drew them, I was really acting both roles, so that my studio neighbors could hear a wolf growling, I'm sharing this now.

SM Have you illustrated any books?

MN So I've always approached my images as fine art to be in a gallery or museum, right. I wasn't thinking of them in terms of mass books or illustrations. But really, there isn't much difference. I mean, Albretch D¸rerís great woodcuts illustrated the Bible. So, I would just shift my thinking if I was going to turn these images into a book.

SM I also love some drawings you have that are beautifully crafted and very imaginatively done - that are half animal, half people.

MN Ah yes, yes.

SM And they're intriguing to me as a grownup, and I can imagine a child just going off on images like that, that would really invite a lot of fantasy.

MN I call them the hybrids or composite creatures. And what's so enjoyable about doing that is absolutely what you say - the fantasy element. You know, think of all the animals that you can combine with a human and it just goes on and on and on. And, you know, there's infinite number of characters to be made. And that's what's so exciting.

SM Describe some of the combinations you've.

MN Yeah. So, I do love to use fish heads on people. And I think fish are beautiful. Maybe something linked to the mermaid, you know, the fish tale with a woman. But I do the fish head on the human body. Also, birds. Birds are beautiful, the feathers, the colors, the intricate patterns. And that's been another animal head that I have plucked on top of human bodies and used as well.

SM What about you for the future? What's the dream piece you may be playing with in your mind now? Anymore epic nine-foot scrolls?

MN So I've been playing with the Hindu monkey God Hanuman. This character, this mighty ape, that inspires us to face ordeals and conquer obstructions, you know, to deal with life and probably in some way to summarize my India travels.

SM Well, Marcia Neblett, thank you so much for sharing your art with me today on With Good Reason.

MN Thank you so much.

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SM Marcia Neblett is an assistant professor of fine arts at Norfolk State University and an internationally known woodblock print maker. She's also the recipient of multiple Fulbright scholarships. Major support for With Good Reason is provided by the law firm of McGuire Woods and by the University of Virginia Health System, connecting doctors and patients through telemedicine, to deliver high quality care throughout Virginia, the U.S. and the world. UVAhealth.com. With Good Reason is produced in Charlottesville by Virginia Humanities. Our production team is Allison Quantz, Elliot Majerczyk and Cass Adair. Jeannie Palin handles listener services. For the podcast, or a transcript of todayís show, go to withgoodreasonradio.org. I'm Sarah McConnell, thanks for listening.