GASNEWS INTERVIEW WITH DAVIN K. EBANKS Far Left: Untitled Black (“Some I love who are dead / were watchers of the moon and knew its lore; / …Pierced their ears for gold hoop earrings / as it waxed or waned.”) [Excerpt: Full Moon, Robert Hayden] Kiln-formed (Thermoformed) Glass, Gold / 24H x 24W x 5D, inches / 2021 Photo Credit: Jamie Hahn Left: Ground Basket Pair (“Drunk with rum / Feasting on a strange cassava / Yielding to new words and a weak palabra…”) [Excerpt: Conversion, Jean Toomer] Blown & Silvered Glass / 10H x 12W x 12D inches each / 2021 Photo Credit: Jamie Hahn
GASnews: Through the many facets of your professional career as an artist, educator, technician, scholar, community member (…etc.) you have to assume quite different roles. Do certain roles take precedence over others? Davin Ebanks: OK, here’s the deal: if you’re going to be an artist in academia at a research institution, you’re going to have three main duties: Research, Teaching and Service. Depending on the school, they might be specifically in that order. That should mean that I prioritize research, which for artists is just a fancy word for making work. However, the other duties—teaching, maintaining equipment and service, committees, etc.—are all scheduled for you like a normal job (this isn’t counting emails, by the way, which can take up an inordinate amount of your day. My advice is to take a professional workshop on how to manage digital communication before you get into academia…Seriously.) To be clear, I love GASNEWS
SUMMER 2021
teaching, and I find studio maintenance and equipment fabrication extremely satisfying. Watching a new glass student fall in love with the material is deeply fulfilling, and working in a smooth-running studio is a thing of joy. That stuff gives you immediate positive feedback. Making my work is much more emotionally challenging. Even after all these years of knowing how important it is for me to make art, scheduling studio time can still feel selfish, even self-indulgent. Intellectually, I know it’s not—my job literally depends on it—but making art is always difficult, and it’s made even more so by the fact that there’s always something more urgent (but probably not as important) demanding attention. GN: There is a typical story in our community of discovering glass and being swooned by its muse-like allure. What drew you to the material and how has that transformed through your career? VOLUME 35, ISSUE 1
DE: Symmetry. When I was a kid, I would sit and watch my dad throw pottery on an old kick wheel. It was mesmerizing. When I discovered glassblowing in college it was the same feeling. I happened to attend the only school in Indiana that had glass (at that time) and even though I was a Graphic Design major I took every glass class I could. As I got involved with the material, I realized that it was seductive on many levels. There is the sheer spectacle of it—its glow, its physicality, the intensity of the colors—but it can also be fiendishly difficult to make artwork from it. There’s a satisfaction in simply getting it to do what you want. Also, glass does things that other materials can’t do (or cannot do as easily). In the hot shop sculpting or blowing glass, you have this very direct manipulation. Unlike other materials where I would have to create the impression of fluidity or tension, with glass that is part of its essence. That brings me to color.
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