a Voyage in Glass - the art of Rik Allen

a Voyage in Glass RIK ALLEN

SCHANTZ GALLERIES Stockbridge

The Explorer - RIK ALLEN

by Jeanne Koles

Captain Kirk once said “Genius doesn’t work on an assembly line basis. You can’t simply say ‘Today I will be brilliant.’” The sentiment rings especially true for an artist. Art is the anti-assembly line. Artistic brilliance is a gift but it takes dedication to nurture it. Creative genius is tenuous, but once harnessed can be transformative. Glass artist Rik Allen has spent years honing his craft, exploring the depths of his subject, and conjuring stunning works of art from his mind and hands.

After attending Pilchuck Glass School, Allen got his start as a studio assistant to Dan Clayman in Providence. He then spent twelve years on William Morris’ sculpture team, specializing in engraving, cutting, and finishing in an effort to make glass look like organic material. In 2005, he established a glass and sculpture studio with his wife, Shelley Muzylowski Allen, on their property in Skagit County, Washington. He has taught in the United States and abroad, had countless exhibitions, and is widely collected. Some notable collectors included Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon), Elon Musk (founder of Paypal, Tesla, and SpaceX), and Eugene Roddenberry (of Star Trek family fame).

With classic science fiction as his muse, Allen employs crafts, rockets, scientific apparatus, and cosmonauts as a vehicle not for space exploration but for inner contemplation. His view is not glossy or futuristic, but nostalgic, timeworn, experienced. Star Trek meets wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic of transience and the beauty of use. The antiquated and chimerical feeling of the work belies its sophisticated construction, allowing the viewer to revel in a simple narrative of personal exploration. His dynamic amalgamation of metalwork and glasswork, in which imperfections like oxidized joints and bubbled glass are not only welcome but encouraged, creates a harmonic balance between weight and lightness, opacity and transparency.

Rik Allen with “Seeker”, his fifteen-foot glass and steel sculpture.

Works such as Caorlìnan Deepseeking Plasmodriver and SEE Watcher (both from 2015) recall Allen’s earliest artistic explorations making phasers and communicators out of scotch-tape and cardboard. Like with many of his works, these vessels combine an anthropomorphized, bug-like quality with a mid-1960s vision of the future. As viewers, we feel the quiet and comfortable solitude of being inside that rocket. We want to climb in, take off, and see where the ride takes us.

When a glass artist incorporates metal as a structural element, it also allows him to achieve feats impossible with glass alone. Some of those feats are mental ones, because the pace of metal working is so much slower and more contemplative than the exigent speed of working with hot glass. His largest work, Seeker, which was on display at the Museum of Northwest Art, is a fifteen-foot glass and steel construction standing on graceful attenuated legs.

A slender ladder invites viewers on a metaphorical climb into the glass-andsteel hull. Inside sits a small red chair and a telescope—the ideal props for both inward and outward looking.

Inspired by the conception and creation of Seeker, Allen is himself seeking new opportunities to create large-scale, multi-media installations of his work.

In many ways, space exploration is a metaphor for the artist’s development, as he too seeks new frontiers in his art form. As viewers of the work, we too can be transported—backward to a time when life was easier and Americans had big dreams of conquering space, forward towards something unknown and maybe even better, and inward to a more complete understanding of ourselves.

Jeanne Koles is an independent museum professional with a focus on cultural communications.

Seeker, 2013 Steel and glass, 180 x 66 x 66”

Private Collection, shown here at the Museum of Northwest Art

Hexadial Perceptipod Blown glass, silver, steel

Bollicine Relativity, 2013

Blown glass, silver, steel 23 x 15 x 16�

Floater Five Cosmonaut, Blown Glass, Silver, steel 23.5 x 16 x 8.5�

“By incorporating elements that appear worn and experienced, as well as vestiges of an earlier era, I hope to give the work a sense of experimentation, invention, and exploration.

My intent is to open up the imaginations of viewers whose own narratives shift as their minds move from exterior perspective of these vessels to inner possibilities.�

Rik Allen

SEE Watcher, 2010

Blown & cast, glass, steel, Silver 22 x 19 x 8�

Tonkon Tannker, 2012

Blown Glass, Silver, steel 15 x 19.5 x 13�

Exploration: the action of traveling in or through an unfamiliar area in order to learn about it.

CaorlĂŹnan Deepseeking Plasmodriver

Ocularama Coppolus, 2013 Blown glass, silver, steel 18.5 x 13.5 x 11�

Trireme, 2007 Blown glass, cast aluminum 16 x 9 x 9�

Previously exhibited at the Science Fiction Museum in 2007-2008

Harconan Goldspier, 2013 Glass, silver and Steel 16.5 x 16 x 8.5�

Rik Allen working in his hot shop assisted by student, Jenni Sorsa.

Since 1996, Rik Allen has had exhibitions of his sculptures throughout the country, including solo shows, Seeker at the Museum of Northwest Art in La Conner, WA and Innersphere at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. His work has been featured and reviewed in American Craft Magazine, Glass Art Magazine and Launch Magazine. He was a member of the William Morris Sculpture team for 12 years. In addition to being an artist, Rik and his wife, Shelley, have taught internationally at the Toyama Institute of Glass In Toyama, Japan, and the International Glass Festival in Stourbridge, England, throughout the US, including Penland School of Craft and Pittsburgh Glass center and summer of 2009 at Pilchuck. Together they share glass and sculpture studios and their home in Sedro-Woolley, WA. SELECTED COLLECTIONS Elon Musk, Los Angeles, CA Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA Eugene Roddenberry, Los Angeles, CA Spark Museum of Electrical Invention, Bellingham, WA Blue Origin Aerospace, Kent, WA Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, Montgomery, AL Boeing World Headquarters, Chicago, IL Toyama Institute of Glass Toyama, Japan Jeff Bezos Collection, Seattle, WA Flying Heritage Collection, Everett, WA

Freddie F-103 Firehawk, 2008 14 x 17.5 x 17.5�

a Voyage in Glass An exhibition of works

by Rik Allen at Schantz Galleries SUMMER 2015

2015, a Voyage in Glass Rik Allen Š 2015 Schantz Galleries Stockbridge, Mass.

(413) 298-3044 Silver City Design Essay: Jeanne Koles Photos: Portraits by Russell Johnson Artwork images by KP-Studios.com

Schantz Galleries

c o n t e m p o r a r y a r t 3 elm street, stockbridge, ma

www.schantzgalleries.com