Venice: Palazzo Loredan - The Bowls of
Toots Zynsky exhibition. In the
suggestive setting of Palazzo Loredan, until December 8th, the
beautiful exhibition, The Bowls of Toots Zynsky, a project by
Caterina Tognon, Venezia.
"My
current technique, which I named Filet-de-Verre, has evolved from more than
thirty years of utilizing all other known methods of glass forming (including glass
blowing, Pate-de-Verre, fusing, slumping, casting, etc.)
Filet-de-Verre
involves first pulling (by special machine) large quantities of glass thread
from larger colored Italian glass cane from Murano. This then becomes my raw
material.” Writes glass artist Toots Zynsky, in occasion of her 2001 catalogue which
accompanied the traveling exhibition at the Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, Denmark and
the Museo Correr, Italy.
"My pieces consist of many layers of threads laid out flat on a heat
resistant ceramic fiberboard. Laying out each piece is a similar thought
process to making a drawing or a painting. When I feel that the piece is
complete, it
goes in the kiln for fusing.
As soon as it is thoroughly fused, I begin immediately transferring it
to a series of preheated molds giving it a basic deep round form. Constantly
taking it in and out of the kiln to reheat it, I then begin free forming it
by
squeezing and pulling. Sometimes briefly laying it upside down over a simple
cylinder to allow it to drape down giving it more natural flowing curves
following the folding I have already predetermined at the edges.
Then like any
hot glass it needs to cool down slowly - for up to two days. The pieces are
basically finished in the kiln. When they come out – hopefully intact - they
are brushed and washed and touched up with diamond files and …Voila."
Concludes Zynsky.
Palazzo Loredan - The Bowls of Toots Zynsky
Palazzo Loredan. The Palazzo Loredan in
Campo Santo Stefano, now houses the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti,
which is an academy whose aim is "to increase, promote and safeguard
the sciences, literature and the arts".
Above. The entrance hall to Palazzo
Loredan hosts the Panteon Veneto, a collection of marble busts and medallions
depicting “men who, in ancient times, had distinguished themselves in politics,
the use of weapons, navigation, science, humanities and arts who were born or
who had long lived in the Venetian Provinces.