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By Ted McIrvine, Hendersonville Times-News
October 21, 2007
Finding the Artist
When a young woman announces that she has decided to be a
creative artist, there has usually been a lot of advance warning for the
parents. They have seen the talent, watched the development of skill
and observed the monomaniacal intensity with which a young artist
devotes herself to practicing her art or craft. The parents likely have
given the young person a lecture stressing the uncertainties and perils
of following a career in the arts.
If you have talent and work hard in most lines of work, the parents
explain, you are able to earn a living and also to get some recognition
of your accomplishments. But some lines of work are exceptions, and
the arts are one. To eke out a living and gain any recognition as an
artist, you need not just talent but a great deal of talent. And even with
talent and very hard work, you also need luck.
Randi Solin, whose blown glass art is found at the Silver Fox Gallery,
followed a different path that probably confounded her parents. An
outstanding academic pre-collegiate career had not included any hint
of desire for a future in the arts, so the parents had no cause to deliver
the above-mentioned lecture. Expecting to major in political science,
she spent a weekend at her chosen school, Alfred University in
Western New York. While on that visit, she entered a large studio
building late in the day. In the near-dark, she witnessed a glass artist
at work and "liquid light being poured from a catwalk into a mold." She
reported to her astonished parents that she had found her calling:
Creating art works in glass.
A late start in the arts is not easy. Alfred University is the nation's
premier higher education facility in ceramics, both functional and
artistic, and the standards are high. Solin reports that after her first
year, struggling to learn all the basics of design, drawing, art history
and the like, she was given some grades of D and told by the school
that they would give her another year "to get it together or to get out."
The school's forbearance was her needed piece of good luck. Clearly
she got it together. She now operates Solinglass Studio in Brattleboro,
Vt., employing two hot glass assistants and a "cold worker" who
polishes the finished pieces. Her work is in the collections of the White
House, the Prince of Dubai and Harry Belafonte, among others.
She applies glass layer by layer, using all forms of glass from fine
powder to large frits. Her individualistic style produces very thick
pieces that have a two-dimensional appearance, with great attention to
color, and can be likened to abstract expressionist painting. In her
recent "Window" series, the optical properties of the front surface are a
part of the art.
Solin was limping at a recent artist's talk due to a third degree burn
from her knee to her ankle, one of the hazards of keeping 400 pounds
of borosilicate glass constantly molten in your studio. Commenting
that "one serious accident in 21 years is not bad," she displayed the
same kind of intensity that must have initially inspired her to devote
herself to the creation of fine art through glassblowing. She was
justifiably excited at her recent work. The spectacular piece Cintura
sold almost upon arrival at the Silver Fox Gallery, 508 N. Main St. in
Hendersonville, but other Solinglass pieces such as the very fine
Earthtone are still available.
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