 and welcome to Gallery Works. We have a special treat for you today. We have glass artists and award-winning famous, internationally famous glass artists, Beth Lipman with us today. Hello Beth. Hi. Thank you for coming. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's a pleasure. And I am just, you know, I saw an article in the newspaper about you a few weeks ago and I read it and I thought, who is this gal? I've got to meet this gal, you know? And the fact that she lives right here in, you know, Sheboygan where I live and everything, you know? And so then you were so gracious, you know, to set the date with me and everything. And then since then, to find out that you've won this huge award, a $50,000 grant. And you're one of 52 people out of how, what was it, like 2,000 or something like that? It actually wasn't that many, but it was about, it was a little over 300 people are nominated nationally and then those nominees apply. So you have to be nominated and apply to be selected. That's fabulous. That really is. It's pretty amazing. I'm still pinching myself, yeah. Yeah, I mean, and I talked to you on the phone earlier so I know you're a mommy. How do you juggle all that? Yeah. Well, I actually, I have a super supportive husband. He is the studio and business manager for my art. So we're working, we're both working full-time, basically in the studio. I don't know, I wouldn't be able to do it without him. His name is Ken Sager. And so we split the days, half the day I'm in the studio making my work and then the other half of the day he is doing everything besides making the work. So whether it's studio maintenance or packing and shipping or even making some components for the work. And then whenever one of us is in the studio, the other one is with the kids because they're under three. So are they twins? Yes. So I'm sure once they start preschool, we'll have a different schedule, but that's what we've done for the last two and a half years. It'll be a little bit easier once they start preschool. I can just see that that could be a little, breathing very, little breathing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now tell me, how did you get started with this particular form of art? Well, I went to art camp when I was 15 and I took a glass blowing class. It was called Horizon's New England Craft Program and the process looked interesting to me at the time. I was a teenager, I was very artistic growing up. My mother is an artist and a crafts person. So my parents were both very supportive of me looking towards the arts or practicing art when I was young. And when I said I wanted to go to this program, they were really enthusiastic and sent me there. And there was a variety of different things being offered at that camp and I just happened to choose both glass blowing and also textiles. And that really kind of piqued my curiosity and I ended up going to art school for glass and fibers afterwards. So. And now the article that I read didn't mention anything about fiber work. So you have drifted over to the glass and have stayed with that. Yeah, although I have to say there's a lot of my process that I think is inherently more kind of aligned with a fiber process. I make all of my work on templates, brown piece of paper that become templates and that idea of kind of assembling a pattern and constructing in that way from multiple parts is pretty historically, yeah. Yeah, I see. It's historically more of a fiber way of approaching making. So it's there. It's just kind of deeply embedded in the process. Yeah. And you have been at John Michael Kohler Art Center in residence, right? Yes. And was that once or twice? I was there in residence in 2003 in the pottery. And yeah, there was really a life changing moment for me. That's how I ended up here in Sheboygan Falls because in 05, the position overseeing that residency program became available and I took that position and moved back here. Oh, really? So I worked as an arts administrator for over 10 years, essentially. I've only recently been practicing my work full time, so. Well, you have done some really major things. The Norton Museum, I believe, and many others. And you know, tell us a little bit about that. How do you, I mean, the average person would have no idea. What happens, does the museum call you up and say, say, I saw something of yours? Yeah. Yeah. I would probably recommend that most artists don't contact a museum and say they want to do a commission. As you know, Kitty, it doesn't really happen. Right. But I was, so the new director at the Norton Museum of Art, Hope Alswang, was the director of the RISD Museum in 2008 and I was invited to do an installation there at that time. And when she left the RISD Museum and landed at the Norton Museum, I just kind of kept in touch with her and she called me out of the blue and said, oh, you know, we'd love for you to do something. We have an amazing still life collection. So the process took probably over a year when it was all said and done of just having a dialogue, visiting the site, seeing what they had in the museum. I have a primary, my primary gallery is Heller Gallery in New York. I also work with Katie Tompkins projects in Rhode Island. So Heller Gallery negotiated the contract. And so I had kind of a general idea of what I thought I might do for them. But when I really actually visited the site last year, almost exactly a year ago, actually, well, you know how inspiration comes. It's like this thing that almost gets channeled in from the outside or something. So usually when I go to visit sites, when I'm looking to do something site-specific for someone, I almost feel like I have another sensory thing that's happening that I just am open to, you know, I know that I'm there for a focus. Exactly. And I've been fortunate in that I haven't been left high and dry to date, that I usually get some understanding of what needs to happen when I visit that site. It's the same way with a painter. There's a point where the canvas actually tells you what it needs. And as long as you're open to that, it's a deep sense of a connection, a spiritual connection with your work and the creative process that makes that happen for you. I know it's really wonderful. It's hard to describe as well, but I think it just takes a lot of solitary time. I think a lot of puttering around as well, kind of allowing the problem to percolate in the peripheral vision of what's going on in your life. And it's like when you forget something and you can't remember it in that moment that you needed. And then after a period of time it comes to you, I think it's the same. Right, exactly. It's inherent in the creative process. I totally agree. And I've been really fortunate in that the last several years in my work, I've had many opportunities come to me that allow me to evolve and change as an artist. And I'm being given the opportunity to do this and being compensated for it. Following my muse now I'm able to have, thankfully, a number of people that have responded to my work that are giving, affording me the opportunity to kind of continue to create work. Right, and so now you're at that point where you really feel validated as an artist. I do, especially the last several years. I feel like, OK, what I'm doing is worthwhile. Certainly getting the USA grant, United States Artist Grant. It's a fellowship, essentially. It's just even more than the money, it's a form of validation that what you're doing matters, especially in living in this society where there is really not a lot of condonement from the government, that the arts matter or anything like that, that it's really... Well, there's not... There's more private support than public support. I personally feel that things seem to be so impermanent. Everything seems to be so in the moment that's like, oh, well, that's so five minutes ago, or something like that. I mean, I don't know that, and that kind of bothers me, but I think that really good art transcends that. And that's why it's important that the artists continue to create that really fine art, too. Transcend that throwaway, whatever is the latest fad-type mentality that I think we as Americans a lot of us have, just my thoughts. No, but I think it's also completely in keeping with the age of computers as well and social networking and everything is a nanosecond now, every single thing. Everything's just moving so fast. Yeah, so when you make something, it is permanent. It does have a permanence. And we need that. In the fleetingness of life or in trends, as you said, that kind of thing. Right, I agree. Now, we have some pieces here in front of us that you have brought. These are components, some components, for an installation that you had at the studio. Because naturally, your installations, you can't bring them in there. I could, but it would take a bit of time, more than a half hour of time. But can you just take these pieces that you have on the table and move them around a little bit and just give us an idea of your thought process, if you can verbalize that? Sure. I mean, well, what I do is I amass objects like this in my studio. They're made with a variety of different techniques. Sometimes I work with different people as well to create works. So not only am I the one making components, but other people help me. And I think that broadens my vocabulary, actually, in the making. So I amass a certain number of objects. And then I start to reduce. And like I said, I work on a table with a blank piece of paper. And I'll just start to put together things that it's a very formal exercise. I try to arrange things in a way that begin to form a dialogue with the different objects. I mean, it's an age-old practice. The still life genre has been around since the early 1600s. And even prior to that. Yeah. And I also think that it is really in keeping with our practice in the domestic realm as well, in the interior. It's very much about that nesting thing. So it might take me months to really resolve a composition, but I essentially move things around a lot in my studio practice. I call it puttering around. I'll come in and basically I'll listen to what the work needs. And I'll just try to figure things out, see how they fit together, what the relationship is in between different objects is interesting to me. This kind of opening that happens and this is a broken. I use things that are broken as well. I am essentially non-judgmental about the objects. So the objects, for me, are really kind of capturing a moment in time with whoever made those objects. So it is not in my place to take this object and say it's good or bad. It is an object that exists. So there's a place for everything in my work. And I basically figure out where things are supposed to exist in relation to other things. So this is a broken goblet that I know is going to have exactly the right place in some composition. It's going to really click together into a puzzle in the way that it absolutely is a sentence. You know exactly what I'm talking about, obviously, because you also practice. So these are artichokes. These are solid sculpture. What I do, what I will say about when I work is I do try to keep in mind very common, formal parameters. If something is heavy and solid, I'll try to pair it with something that's lighter and more delicate. There needs to be height, varying heights within the objects. They need to relate to one another. Some things are very thin and delicate. Other things hold a different kind of weight. So this is not my most ideal. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, so for instance like this, and I also try to play with almost the impossible, like what happens if this knife were to be balanced within this bowl of bananas in some way. So the impossibility of the composition is also kind of important to me. And that's also in keeping with the still life tradition, where you're seeing perhaps objects on one table that would never have existed on one table during the 1600s. And I think the parallel that I think about now in relation to that idea is just the amount of access that we have in our lives, and what we choose to collect and own, and what it says about us is all very interesting to me. So the work tends to be pretty excessive. So anyway, I could do this the entire time essentially. So I'll stop now. So it just, yeah, I try to give myself enough time, whatever the deadline is, that I try to work backwards with enough time to know that I need that time to have things come to me, which is what we were just talking about. I think it's just fascinating. And you must have a kiln and blow the glass. But the thing that I'm curious about is do you ever work with colored glass? Oh, yeah. I rarely do. I find, because I'm working in historically decorative material to begin with, that the color for me is a little bit too decorative, actually. And also when you add color, even if it was a transparent color into the material, it does change the way that your eye moves through the material, as well as having the material reflect back at you. So it's luminosity, I think. Yeah, there's something. For me, the clear is really the essence of the object, or the essence of the idea. I do also work in black and occasionally white. But usually the black is really kind of in keeping with Victorian decorative arts, which I'm really quite interested in. So for me, it's a very more funerary or kind of a morning decorative art, when I'm using the black, it is heavily symbolic in that way. Although I will also say in the Asian cultures, white is also a symbol of mourning and death. So that's also very interesting in keeping with the still life tradition of Vanitas as well. So yeah, I don't really use color. I don't have a need for color. I think that's marvelous. I think that's marvelous. You're the only glass artist that I have ever seen that works with clear glass. Not that I've seen that many, but I know quite a few people that work with glass. And I just think that's marvelous. I mean, I can just, I think it's luscious. I'd like to show some photos of installations, of completed installations that you've done, and have you tell us about them, OK? This first one, what can you tell us? Well, I just finished it. Month ago, it's called One in Others, and it is a commission for the Nord Museum of Art. It's going to be installed at the end of January and be on view through the spring there. And this, what you kind of can't see in the image, but the piece is actually essentially sitting on a casket. So the casket is to my dimensions. So I consider this a composite portrait between myself, the Nord Museum, and their permanent collection holdings, because a lot of the objects found on this composition are in reference to a lot of the still life paintings in their collection. Additionally, the Nord Museum is built on an early settler's grave site. Oh, my. And there is a man in the basement that was a pineapple grower. So the entire piece is covered with pineapple plant parts. So that's the pervasive kind of overall message. No, it's not a message. It's like a persona. It's the thing that's consuming the composition. So yeah. So that's what that is. Yeah, it's beautiful. And now this one here, this really touches me. I think this is just absolutely gorgeous. This is Pitcher with Vine. I also just completed this piece this year. And in fact, this is the shot from the back of this piece. You enter the piece from the front where the vine just barely creeps over the front of the table. But several years ago, I started really studying kudzu vine and also the kudzu plant, which many people know is growing invasively in this country. And so I'm interested in the manifestation of the natural imbalance or a moment of excess within nature that is somehow connecting with the still life, which also talks about a certain abundance or excess or can. Not everyone chooses to work in that way within the still life tradition, but that's something that has been a thread in my work for the last 12 years or something. So at this point, these two ways of being kind of imbalanced or excessive in the world come together, the natural and the human made. It's beautiful. Thank you. And now, is this installed someplace, Bride? It's in my barn right now. But it will be installed actually in Oklahoma this coming summer. Wonderful. Yeah, the Oklahoma Museum of Art in Oklahoma City. And Bride is a piece I made last year. And what you kind of maybe can't tell from the image, but essentially, there is a certain amount of order and formality at the very top of the work. And then it kind of descends into chaos towards the bottom of the work. So it's beautiful. Yeah, beautiful. And now, this one is of the black glass that you were talking about earlier. Yeah, this is candlesticks, books, flowers, and fruit. And this piece actually is going to the De Young Museum. They just recently acquired it. And where is that? San Francisco. Wonderful. So it's marvelous. Yeah, I'm very excited about it actually. How many museums are you in? I don't know. Not so many that I've lost count, but I don't know. Yeah, I would say maybe 10 to 15. That's marvelous. And out of the United States also, right? Yeah, I've had exhibitions outside of the United States. And some of my work is in private collections abroad, but there's no permanent collections outside of the States that I'm aware of. I'm thinking of it at this point. Yeah, I'm sure. And now this one, this is one of my favorites right here. I love this composition. Oh, yeah. Yeah, this is called candlesticks. Now, this is a print on plexiglass. So in 2007, I started creating compositions for photographs. And so I'd create the composition. I worked with a photographer, Rob Quinn, who is basically my hand. And we take photographs. And then I destroy the composition. So I'll either destroy or recycle the glass within it. So there are additions of eight. Oh, OK, OK. Well, that's a little different then. The print on the plexiglass, that's a rather unique approach, I think. Yeah, I don't know what gave you that idea. One of those things, once again, I was sitting in dialogue with a curator about one of my pieces. And it was, we were looking at the photograph and admiring the photograph. And I kind of had this aha moment. Oh my god, it would be amazing to just do compositions for photographs. And then I do, I have those like aha moments every couple of years. You know, a year or two might go by and oh my god, I could do, you know, this is important. And then I just like, you know, then it's just the perseverance, the tenacity to keep kind of exploring those ideas. And we're almost out of time. Real quick, where is your next installation going to be? Oh, OK. Well, it would be at the Norton Museum. One and others is the very next one. And then also that following that is Art Pump Beach, which is an art fair. So my work will be on view there as well. And you also have something at the Milwaukee Art Museum right now, right? Yeah, I do, actually. That is up as we speak. It's called the Tool at Hand. And how long is that going to be there? I believe it's going to be there through April. Marvelous. I'm going to see it. I tell you, all of you go down into the Milwaukee Art Museum and see this woman's work. It's just fabulous. If you could just see it and look at it up close, you'd be amazed. Once again, I thank you so much for being on the show. And so this is Kitty Lynn Klisch for Gallery Works. We've been in the studio today with Beth Lipman, glass artist or extraordinaire. Don't miss the next show because it'll be another great one. Bye-bye for now.