DRAWN TO THE LIGHT
glass art
BY MARY JANE PARK
As a youngster, Randi Solin had every intention of making a difference in the world. “I thought I was going to become a senator,” she said. The determined teenager also enjoyed working with film. She built a darkroom in her closet. “I loved photography,” she said. “Photography is all about light.” Solin was 18 and touring Alfred University in upstate New York, considering a major in political science. On a nighttime visit to the art building, she watched a man casting glass. “It was liquid light,” Solin said, “just pouring into the mold. It was an epiphany. “I thought, ‘Whatever he’s doing, that’s what I’m going to do.’ I realized after walking through the art building that I could change people’s lives in a different way.” Solin altered course and earned a BFA degree from Alfred, with a major in glass and minor in education. “I’ve been blowing glass for 26 years,” she said. “I picked something to do when I was 18.” Her creations have been seen in galleries and museums throughout the United States and have been acquired by private collectors and for the permanent collections of the White House and U.S. embassies throughout the world. On Dec. 6, Solin will be in Safety Harbor for a reception and lecture at the Syd Entel Galleries and Susan Benjamin Glass, Etc., where her work will be shown through Jan. 17. “The greatest thing is that your area is becoming this very vibrant area for glass,” she said, mentioning several contemporaries who are well-known locally. The artist established Solinglass Studio in Mount Shasta, Calif., in 1995 and relocated two years later to Brattleboro, Vt., after her son was born. It was a better place for family life, she reasoned. Her creations often are sculptural in nature, although Solin describes herself as “primarily a glass blower. My work is a little like painting; I’m an abstract expressionist painter that works in glass.”
Randi Solin has been blowing glass for 26 years, since being captivated by the art at age 18. Her creations have been seen in galleries and museums nationwide, and are in the permanent collection of the White House. She describes herself as “an abstract expressionist painter that works in glass.” At left is one of Solin’s creations, called Miro.
NOVEMBER 2014
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