2014 JohnLeighton (FLIPPINGBOOK)

I’m interested in “place-savers”. Sculptors see poetry in utilitarian objects by separating the utility from the form. I sometimes use glass in much the same way a museum conservator might use some kind of epoxy to replace miss- ing sections of an ancient artifact. By replacing the “business end” of an imagined metal or stone farm implement, with a fragile, pellucid casting, for instance, the viewer is given pause to reflect on the form, rather than the func- tion of the object. Barrel wrights, wheelwrights, wooden boat builders, carriage, wagon, coach, chariot, and all other builders of wooden, horse-drawn transport have my admiration and respect.

I have referred to glass as a non-user-friend- ly material, but wood is my dear old friend. My studio always feels best when there are shavings on the floor and the Fed Ex guy says, “it smells terrific in here”! In my recent work, I have used wood reductively, carving, grinding, sanding etc., and I enjoy researching time-hon- ored methods of joinery, traditional non-ferrous metal fasteners and making somewhat crude efforts to fit wooden elements together. The use of glass in my work helps create dis- tance. Viewers have the opportunity to discon- nect these objects from any utilitarian purpose. Cast and mold-blown glass objects present (as opposed to represent) familiar textures and

forms as new, not-so- functional objects. The translucency of the material simultaneously denotes or outlines their implied original use and connotes a more transcendent or perhaps even a poetic purpose. They don’t exist merely as copied objects; they reference the past like a kind of visual quotation.

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