Shayna Leib

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My brother forwards me 5-10 items from his Google Reader a day. Some of those are really just time-sucks like a chicken coin purse, puppy pictures, etc. others of them are awesome like a recent one from Colossal about Shayna Leib. Shayna won immediate favor with me because of her really informative website with great images of her work – they are awesome.

The above piece, Stiniva 2/5, was the first one on her site that caught my eye. These are made of pieces of cane glass, set in motion by how she creates a whole out of many parts similar to many of the obsessive, repetitive artists I’ve written about here.

Malvinas, above, is quite a large piece, 42 inches high by a foot wide and 6 inches of depth from the wall. I like the patterns she forms while still keeping each individual element so unique.

As a Bostonian I appreciate the work above, The Nor’easters. What’s crazy to me is that you really do glean that from the image. While there is order in the way that the pieces are arranged, their aggregate whole is quite chaotic and reminiscent of a doppler radar, a roiling sea’s foam and a white out storm. It just makes sense. Shayna herself is based in Madison, WI by way of San Luis Obispo, CA and has had a long standing relationship with glasswork.

Arctic Ray above…I just can’t believe she pulls all her own cane. What a painstaking process, one to truly appreciate. Recently my mother made a table of smallish sticks that looked like they were all in a bundle, which took her eons and could be attacked with a sander quite easily – I can’t imagine going through the process of lining up all of these individually cut pieces that are so fragile as well.

Crivetz, amazing. I really like when they break out of the border of their frame. To me, who looks at a lot of work that reminds them of the water, I see a lot of sea foam in these.

One of the other things I like it that these are monochromatic generally speaking. Most of the pictures I’ve shared here are from her Wind & Water Series – the above two are representations of winds in various regions.  You’ll see on her site too that she also works with metals, which seems pretty normal to me. Most places I’ve worked with glass, there has also been a metals shop adjoining the space. Very cool to see awesome people doing all sorts of hot shop-based works.

I really love them all – you can read / see some of the process of making the cane on her site too. To see the close up of some of the cane, look in the image below of her work, Indigo Breeze, you can see the final piece and a close up of the right side’s cane below. It’s incredibly dense construction and amazing movement to come out of a static medium.

She also works in non-cane glass as well.

I’m not sure what she means when she called this series, Remnant, but while they are vessels that couldn’t necessarily hold anything, their milky quality is something else. They remind me of some artifact you could find scuba diving.

More Remnants, stunning. Again, there are even more, awesome pictures on her site. If you like these check hers out – they are phenomenal.

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  • Kathryn

    These just blew my mind. I love how you can see so much movement and action through the patterns. This just expanded my love of moving linearity, thanks for sharing!

    Reply

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