Material Made Over

It’s an interesting thing, to think and write about the culture of our field during a worldwide pandemic. No matter who we are or what our work is or where we’re located, engaging issues within the framework of glass amidst such a hefty backdrop has revealed one constant variable as we move a little deeper into this globally historic moment as glass practitioners: that the one thing we can all be most certain of, continued uncertainty.

In terms of glass making, exhibiting, teaching, or learning, there’s been a lot of unforeseen obstacles that have gotten in the way of how we’d normally do what we do because of the pandemic. But, whether we’re at the beginning of our career as a student or an established professional within the field, these obstacles have also made way for some really interesting discoveries in response to new constrictions placed upon our usual way of doing things, seeing things, or pursuing things. There’s something unique about limitation (for better or for worse) in that it obligates us to be resourceful. And, if never before, perhaps we’re beginning to understand that success as an artist isn’t measured by what one can do, but, especially in times like these, measured instead by how one can adapt.

And one of the most impressive examples of a masterfully adaptive studio practice is the one of Juli Bolaños-Durman.

Resourcefulness isn’t a mere tool in her relationship to glass as much as it has been the cornerstone in which her extensive body of work is built upon. Things like intuition, elasticity, and improvisation has naturally been hard-wired into her modus operandi as a maker far before COVID-19 intervened, culminating in a critically acclaimed body of work that makes new use of found and discarded glass objects in whimsical assemblages that live as both artifact and arti-fiction.

A Costa Rican artist and designer currently living and working in Scotland, Bolaños-Durman collects, modifies, and repurposes glass both industrially manufactured and made by hand. Anything that the world considers useless, broken, empty, or “wrong”—anything ultimately bound to find its way to the bin—is full of untapped sculptural potential from her vantage point. Whether an emptied bottle or jar, an abandoned antique at the secondhand store, a cast-away blown object that didn’t meet the glassblower’s expectations, or a peculiar cut off from the cold shop, these seemingly trite, overlooked, and/ or unwanted glass specimens are not only resurrected, but revived in the most exotically spectacular of ways.

Take, for instance, a recent acquisition into the permanent collection of the National Glass Centre, “Bird of Paradise” from Bolaños-Durman’s WILD FLOWER Collection (in collaboration with independent Edinburgh-based fragrance brand, Jorum Studio).

Segments of made and manufactured glass items are cut, ground, and assembled in ways that build seamlessly from one glass foundling to another. Various deviations from symmetry in the occasional lean of a component ground at an angle provide structural sass to its stature.

Salvaged glass shards emulating plumage act as a tactic in which Bolaños- Durman visually garnishes its form. Very carefully, here and there, a modest integration of colored foundlings are interjected within this assemblage; an exuberant punctuation mark to its verticality while the components at the bottom balance that language of extravagance in their shapely profile whispered in clear. Even though playful and vibrant, there’s a lot of serious consideration subconsciously informing her decision making.

Deeper dives into her various bodies of work indicate a broad arsenal of formal strategies to transcend the predictable arrangement of sliced and diced glass bodies: vessel orientations switched upon assembly, even turned askew; sections of a truncated vessel body stacked in ritzy arrangements; glass components elegantly adhered in a variety of off-centered ways; structures built with tasteful wonk through proficiently engineered lilts and leans… these are just a few of the compositional tools in Bolaños-Durman’s toolbox that give these repurposed glass specimens an unforeseen and delightful charisma once unified.

It also appears that no surface of her glass foundlings remains unaltered. Without really having a plan mapped out, Bolaños-Durman sees the engraving process as a documented conversation between her and her foundling, an interactive call and response notated by way of her lathe. Patterns and textures cut into each component’s surface are a method of improvised mark-making to further lend voice to each component’s transformational arc from something manufactured into something magical. Rubbish, in turn, has never looked so glamorous.

It’s worth mentioning that the notion of upcycling in Bolaños-Durman’s work is certainly part of a conversation that considers a glass practice through the lens of sustainability. As a making methodology that is sensitive to environmental concern and an Earth in crisis, it is also a means to a broader humanistic consideration.

Even though creative activity directed upon inanimate objects, there is a sense of sympathy at the heart of Bolaños-Durman’s vision. Hers is a making practice that emulates a life philosophy about bringing the best out of everything around us; of giving objects an opportunity to be more than what we thought they were; an interest in salvaging and second chances; a creative impulse that comes from a place of warmth, respect, and consideration.

All conversations about trying to leave a little lesser of a carbon footprint in the world aside, the idea of repurposing discarded glass enables Bolaños-Durman to humanize material, to care for it by giving something back to it: a life anew. From her point of view, everything is useful. Especially that which has been abandoned…and the human desire to matter—to feel like we belong, to be seen as having value—is the anthropomorphic lens in which she looks at these glass foundlings through, prompting a making practice that is as provoked by compassion as it is distinguished by uplifting whimsy.

I expect that we will not be the same artists we were before the pandemic took hold of the world. The way it locked us down, locked us out of our studios, and kept us from our usual resources and ways of generating work. But, if we’re able to adapt our making practices to, instead, a practice of “making do” we might possibly come out the other side of this moment transformed.

Different artists, but still artists nonetheless. Ones who were forced to take an interesting detour from what we would normally do and, quite possibly, gaining new recognition in a practice that deviates from what we were originally all about or normally known for.

There’s something kind of magical in anticipating just what that might be or how it might unfold. After all, the job we as artists are truly tasked with (especially in the presence of constriction) is to make something meaningful out of any given moment, whether that be with things or circumstances. In the case of Juli Bolaños- Durman, her work and her practice indicate a masterful handle of both…and one worth taking note of.