Glass: 2001

Featured artist Toots Zynsky

Born in Boston Massachusetts in 1951, Toots Zynsky's first, and immediate fascination with glass began in 1969 at the age of eighteen, when she walked into the glass shop at Rhode Island School of Design and was instantly intrigued: "That day, in the glass studio, they were making a film. The furnaces were roaring; hot glass was swirling around everywhere; music was playing." The energy was infectious, and since that moment, Zynsky has enthusiastically explored and experimented with the possibilities of glass in all its forms - molten, cold, blown, slumped, cast, shattered - and pushed it to the limits of its and her own creative potential.

In 1971, Zynsky was among the original group of glass artists who founded the now world renowned Pilchuck Glass School. She received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1973. In 1980, following many other creative ventures, moving to New York City, she went on the contribute her considerable energies to the founding and development of the second New York Experimental Glass Workshop (now called UrbanGlass). There she began to further explore and work with hand pulled glass threads, fusing them separately and combining them with blown forms. The origins and evolution of her current work can be directly traced back to these experiments with glass thread in the early eighties, and the pieces she created at that time.

By the end of 1982, with her guidance, a thread pulling machine was designed and built for her by a friend and colleague, enabling her to produce larger quantities of longer and finer thread, in as many colors as she chose. It was at this time that she started being able to make pieces that were entirely comprised of thousands of glass threads. Zynsky gave a name to this technique that she developed: "filet-de-verre" (or fused and thermo formed glass threads).

In 1983 with the aid of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, Zynsky devoted more time and focus on her own work. She moved to Europe and was invited by the legendary VENINI company of Murano, Italy, to design a special series of unique pieces to add to its line, (examples of which were recently featured at New York's American Craft Museum exhibition Venetian Glass: 20th Century Italian Glass from the Olnick Spanu Collection and the accompanying publication of the same name). Zynsky was offered yet another unique opportunity, this time drawing on her love of music, taking her to West Africa, where she participated in a special recording project of Ghanan music for half a year. Upon her return from West Africa to Europe in 1985, her experiences in Ghana were quickly evident in her subsequent work, with a bolder use of color and form.

Today, Zynsky is known internationally not only as one of the most innovative voices in the American Studio Glass Movement, but also for her distinctively unique sculptural glass vessels she currently creates using her "filet de verre" technique. In the words of philosopher Arthur Danto, "In an age in which the relevance of beauty to art is widely questioned, Zynsky's work is uncompromisingly beautiful. It is however what the poet Andre Breton would have called convulsive beauty. The intensity of adjoined color, the tactile vitality of fluted walls, the swirling energies of shape and pattern are transformed into a luminous whole through the interaction between glass and light...Her (vessels) are among the most beautiful objects made, but their beauty is a product of the material and processes of artistically transformed glass."

Zynsky's works are found in the world's most prestigious public and private collections. She was the first contemporary glass artist to have a piece directly commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her work was also selected for the first White House Collection of American Crafts in 1993. Most recent acquisitions include the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Koganezaki Glass Museum in Japan.

Zynsky continues to share her knowledge and enthusiasm as her exhibition schedule permits - traveling and lecturing throughout the world. After living in Europe for 16 years, Zynsky recently has returned to reside in the United States. She now divides her time between her studios in Providence, Rhode Island and Amsterdam, The Netherlands.