MICHAEL JANIS b. 1959, Chicago, IL; lives in Washington, DC
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
How We Take Care of Each Other is about connection. It speaks to how our current situation prevents connection as we self-isolate and avoid contact with anyone who is potentially infected with COVID-19. This goes against our nature. Humans are social creatures and our relationships have been built and held together by complicated nonverbal language, beginning between parent and child. What epitomizes the height of this pandemic? Emptiness. It’s embodied in the unusual quiet in normally noisy, bustling neighborhoods. Silence—not merely the absence of noise, but also the inescapable presence of judgment, longing, and paranoia. It is the fear that we may be transmitting the virus as we seek the comfort of others. The fabric of society is held together by physical contact, even in its smallest forms. Touch is as important a social condition as anything. It reduces stress. It makes people trust one another. Some of the glass circular panels touch on subjects of how the virus is transmitted, and on how COVID-19 cases are heavily concentrated in the African American population. The imagery in the panels is created by manipulating and fusing finely crushed glass powder, or frit. This painstaking technique is accomplished by scratching through the powder layer— the sgraffito technique. As lockdown restrictions are lifted, we are slowly attempting to make sense of where we are as a society. Social isolation may be the best tool to keep the virus under control, but this clashes directly with our need for social connections, which help us resolve anger and rage while we are at the mercy of injustice and uncertainty. In these conflicts, we need to remind ourselves that rants and accusations will not move us forward; compassion, empathy, and recognition that we are all in this horrible situation together will inspire us.
BIOGRAPHY
After a 20-year career as an architect in the United States and Australia, Michael Janis returned to the United States with a focus on working with glass. In 2005 Janis became the codirector of the Washington Glass School and Studio in Washington, DC. Awarded a Fulbright scholarship in 2012, Janis went to the University of Sunderland and taught at the United Kingdom’s National Glass Centre, where he became an artist-in-residence at the Institute for International Research in Glass. The Fuller Craft Museum in Massachusetts mounted a solo show of Janis’s glass panels and sculpture in 2011. The museum also recently acquired one of his works for its permanent collection. Janis’s artwork is included in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, and Florida’s Imagine Museum, as well as the US Department of State artwork collection at the American Embassy in Bucharest. In 2016 the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities awarded Janis the 31st Annual Mayor’s Arts Award for “Excellence in the Arts.” The American Glass Guild will feature Janis as the keynote speaker for the organization’s 20th Anniversary Conference, held in 2021.
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