Shape Sorter (gasp)
Metal, blown glass
30 x 30 x 30 cm
A body that handles an object simultaneously influences and transforms it. The same applies to reading and communication: the reader shapes a text through interpretation, and in turn, the text shapes the reader. A child learns to recognize shapes by holding, sorting, and fitting them into openings. People first explore language through physical acts, by forming sounds with their mouths. Reading and understanding are not purely intellectual processes, but are rooted in touch and bodily experience.
The series ‘Shape Sorters’ reflects this sensibility. The abstract forms recall children's toys but also resemble punctuation marks — visual symbols of language structure. By choosing glassblowing as a technique, one of the most fundamental of bodily actions-- breath, is captured. This invisible, ephemeral force becomes visible in the fragile transparency of blown glass. The object is shaped by the body, ánd becomes a record of it. Just as a reader shapes a text through interpretation, and is in turn shaped by it.
Metal, blown glass
30 x 30 x 30 cm
A body that handles an object simultaneously influences and transforms it. The same applies to reading and communication: the reader shapes a text through interpretation, and in turn, the text shapes the reader. A child learns to recognize shapes by holding, sorting, and fitting them into openings. People first explore language through physical acts, by forming sounds with their mouths. Reading and understanding are not purely intellectual processes, but are rooted in touch and bodily experience.
The series ‘Shape Sorters’ reflects this sensibility. The abstract forms recall children's toys but also resemble punctuation marks — visual symbols of language structure. By choosing glassblowing as a technique, one of the most fundamental of bodily actions-- breath, is captured. This invisible, ephemeral force becomes visible in the fragile transparency of blown glass. The object is shaped by the body, ánd becomes a record of it. Just as a reader shapes a text through interpretation, and is in turn shaped by it.