[PA-NJ Glassblowers] Matt Szosz shatters expectations to win Borowsky Award for glass art

[Tony Patti]

http://www.phillyvoice.com/university-arts-borowsky-award-glass-art-matt-szo
sz/

 

Ampere's Law Matt Szosz

 

Glass artist Matt Szosz with his "Ampere's Law" piece.

 

Iceberg


Szosz's 'Iceberg' glass piece. The piece constantly drips water and is
suspended three feet in the air. (Handout Art / Matt Szosz)


 

 

retiarius


Szosz's "Retiarius" piece, which is currently on display at the Museum of
Fine Arts in Boston. (Handout Art / Matt Szosz)


 

 



Matt Szosz shatters expectations to win Borowsky Award for glass art


UArts to reward Washington-based artist Nov. 12


BY  <http://www.phillyvoice.com/staff-contributors/brandon-baker/> BRANDON
BAKER 
PhillyVoice Staff

 

Seventy-five percent of what glass artist  <http://matthewszosz.com/> Matt
Szosz makes fails.

Yes, 75 percent.

"[Glass art] is a lot of trial and error, and every time something fails I
learn something new -- even if it's what not to do," Szosz told PhillyVoice.
"If something works perfectly, then I didn't really learn anything I didn't
already know."

In other words, it's almost a let-down for Szosz when a project is
successful, making his work more about the process than the product. It's
that innovative and constructive (not to mention humble) approach to making
glass pieces that earned him University of the Arts' third annual Borowsky
Award, a $5,000 prize for glass artists named after  <http://www.uarts.edu/>
University of the Arts trustee Irvin Borowsky, a printmaker and enthusiastic
collector of glass art. The award was handed out by a jury of six people
that included last year's winner, Bryan Wilson. 

As part of the award, Szosz, based out of Washington, will be in
Philadelphia to deliver a speech
<http://www.uarts.edu/events/2015/11/borowsky-prize-glass-arts-lecture-recep
tion-matthew-szosz> this evening about the significance of process when
making art, as well as to create art in Hamilton Hall with students and any
local artists interested in observing. 

Szosz, who studied glass at the  <http://www.risd.edu/> Rhode Island School
of Design, has built a reputation nationally as a more experimental glass
artist than most. Eschewing the Venetian glassblowing tradition, he instead
manipulates glass using techniques from his background in industrial design
-- using a kiln and flat glass to stretch and inflate.

Alex Rosenberg, an assistant professor of crafts at University of the Arts,
who sat on the jury for the Borowsky Award, describes Szosz as exemplary of
a "new breed or generation of glass artists."

"He took what glassblowing was, and the skills he had, and took industrial
processes and melded those things together to make something unique,"
Rosenberg told PhillyVoice. "One of the main goals of the prize is to offer
exposure and support for glass art that's something a little different than
people might expect to see."

Szosz said he approaches his work with no end-game in mind.

"It's kind of like setting up dominoes, not knowing what the final outcome
will be," Szosz explained. "There's a lot of planning and preparation, and
you set these things up that you think are going to interact with each other
and you figure it out and see what happens. And then you make your next set
of dominoes based on that."

Much of his glass, in a very literal sense, ends as a pile on the floor.

His fascination with the medium, meanwhile, stems from its transient quality
compared to metals and woods.

"For me, glass is almost something that's not there," he said. "It's a very
delicate thing. It's fragile; it's transparent. It's very heavy and very
solid, but in other ways very delicate. And historically, unlike pottery,
you don't find that much of it around. It doesn't tend to survive very
long."

That's why he's also taken to recording much of his process -- particularly
since so many of his materials end up thrown out. He hesitates to call these
videos "performances," instead referring to them as "events."

Szosz will perform one of these demonstrations in the days ahead, alongside
University of the Arts students. He hopes to leave something behind but said
he often has a high fail rate when working in studios that are not his own.

At 41, Szosz has had his work featured in the  <http://americanart.si.edu/>
Smithsonian American Art Museum, the  <http://www.mfa.org/> Boston Museum of
Fine Arts, the  <http://www.zanebennettgallery.com/> Zane Bennett
Contemporary Art gallery in Santa Fe, Calif., and countless other museums
and academic institutions across the country.

But he's not a guy who, in truth, cares much about traditional success or
lives for accolades like the Borowsky Award -- though he certainly
appreciates them when they come along, and embraces the validation. Instead,
he seeks out the that comes with learning new techniques, watching glass
mold into shapes unexpected and taking his passion for glass to both
students and the masses.

"I think that, in general, people don't acknowledge how much glass is in
their lives and how many different areas of the world it gets into," Szosz
said. "The basic component of glass is everywhere from your iPhone to your
windows."

 

 


Tony Patti
  
 <http://www.glassblower.info> www.glassblower.info
  
 <mailto:gaffer at glassblower.info> gaffer at glassblower.info

 <http://www.glassblower.info/qr-code.html> QR Code for Tony Patti -
www.glassblower.info

 

 

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