Beth Lip­man
beth​lip​man​.com
She­boy­gan Falls, Wisconsin.

Beth Lip­man is a Wis­con­sin based glass artist. She received her Bach­e­lors of Fine Arts in Glass from Tyler School of Art in Philadel­phia, PA. Her early works were recre­ations of tra­di­tional still life paint­ings from the 17^th cen­tury. By ren­der­ing these paint­ings in glass she pre­vents the viewer from truly own­ing the images. Her cur­rent works are no longer inter­pre­ta­tions of paint­ings but of her own cre­ation pay­ing homage to the still life tra­di­tion. Her work can be found in the per­ma­nent col­lec­tions of both the Brook­lyn Museum of Art and the Corn­ing Museum of Glass.

Curbs and Stoops: Your sculp­tures were once three-​dimensional recre­ations of Dutch (usu­ally) still life paint­ings. How did you choose which still life to recre­ate? Did the his­tory of the paint­ing play a role in the work?

Beth Lip­man: There is an abun­dance of amaz­ing still life paint­ings. The his­tory of the still life tra­di­tion was the impe­tus for the series, not one spe­cific paint­ing. I chose spe­cific paint­ings based on their con­tent, sym­bol­ism, how its sym­bol­ism has evolved over time. Amer­i­can still life paint­ings from the Peale fam­ily and Sev­erin Roe­sen are also incred­i­ble. I am greatly inspired by Raphaelle Peale, his work and life.

Curbs and Stoops: How do you feel the still life changed when the paint­ing was trans­lated into glass, and what led you to your deci­sion in choos­ing glass?

Beth Lip­man: The use of clear glass reduces the still life com­po­nents to abstract forms and its translu­cency eludes visual com­pre­hen­sion on some lev­els. You are not able to own what you see and your desire to own, thwarted. Glass pro­vides a way to express/​refresh some of the key ideas of still life — the fragility and tran­sience of life, cap­tur­ing a moment in time, the power and his­tory of every­day objects. The beauty of the mate­r­ial is a use­ful tool to cap­ti­vate. I am trained in glass work­ing so it is the mate­r­ial in which I am most fluent.

Curbs and Stoops: What influ­enced the shift from recre­at­ing painted scenes to cre­at­ing them from your imagination?

Beth Lip­man: At some point I real­ized that using spe­cific paint­ings was a lim­i­ta­tion. It was the next log­i­cal step.

Curbs and Stoops: There is a lot of sym­bol­ism in your work, mim­ic­k­ing the Chris­t­ian iconog­ra­phy of the paint­ings. How do you feel these sym­bols remain rel­e­vant in today’s society?

Beth Lip­man: We are sub­merged in Chris­t­ian ide­ol­ogy in the United States. One of the aspects of the still life tra­di­tion I like most is that objects hold many lay­ers of sym­bol­ism, the­o­log­i­cal but also eco­nomic, med­i­c­i­nal, moral, scientific.

Curbs and Stoops: The paint­ings depend so much on their col­ors, can you explain your choice of using trans­par­ent glass as opposed to col­ored glass. What does this choice sig­nify in rela­tion to the intended mean­ing of the piece?

Beth Lip­man: I touched on this above. The elu­sive­ness of the mate­r­ial alludes to life’s transience.

Curbs and Stoops: For those who are unfa­mil­iar with glass as a medium could you describe the process of mak­ing one of your sculptures?

Beth Lip­man: I cre­ate a large num­ber of com­po­nents prior to begin­ning a sculp­ture. This is done using a vari­ety of tech­niques– blow­ing, sculpt­ing, lam­p­work­ing, and kiln form­ing. When I blow or sculpt glass, I usu­ally work with a team of artists — it is not absolutely nec­es­sary for mak­ing every­thing but it very help­ful. Glass is gath­ered out of a fur­nace that holds sev­eral hun­dred pounds in its molten state. The mate­r­ial is shaped using a vari­ety of tools includ­ing metal, wood, paper, and grav­ity. Lam­p­work­ing is a tech­nique in which glass rods or tubes are melted and shaped over a torch. Usu­ally smaller objects are made with this tech­nique. In kiln form­ing, glass sheets are cut and fused and/​or shaped over/​into a mold in a kiln. The fact that you can­not alter or “fix” the work after it is made is how I cap­ture the moment in time.

After the com­po­nents are cre­ated, I begin to com­pose the work. At some point it becomes appar­ent what is miss­ing and I go back to the hot shop (to blow or sculpt) or to the torch or to the kiln. Some­times I break objects to fin­ish them. I should say that I don’t judge or curate whether an object is wor­thy to include in a com­po­si­tion. They all have their place at some point.

Curbs and Stoops: Cre­at­ing glass sculp­ture is a team effort. When you were recre­at­ing still life paint­ings, how was the work del­e­gated? What role did this col­lab­o­ra­tion play in the work?

Beth Lip­man: In the past, I gave pho­to­copies of the paint­ings to each per­son on the team and told them they could make what they wanted but they could only try to make the object twice and if it fell and broke (which hap­pens!) I used it. Work­ing in this way was lib­er­at­ing and excit­ing. It increased my vocab­u­lary in the mate­r­ial by allow­ing oth­ers to cre­ate things in ways that I never would. It is also fas­ci­nat­ing to see how other peo­ple work in glass, which is a very chal­leng­ing mate­r­ial. Every fin­ished object is an expres­sion of that moment in time for that individual.

Curbs and Stoops: Can you describe the pub­lic art­work you did with the Brook­lyn Arts Council?

Beth Lip­man: I blew func­tional objects and gift-​wrapped them. The gift card read: To You, from a Brook­lyn Artist, the Brook­lyn Arts Coun­cil and Depart­ment of Cul­tural Affairs. At the time I was liv­ing in Brook­lyn so I went to dif­fer­ent loca­tions that I vis­ited or walked past often and left the gifts on the street. This was prior to ⁹⁄₁₁! I don’t believe I could do this today.

Curbs and Stoops: What are you work­ing on now?

Beth Lip­man: Cur­rently I am work­ing on sev­eral pho­tographs, in which I com­plete the com­po­si­tion solely for the pho­to­graph and then destroy or recy­cle the glass after­words. The pho­tos are printed directly on Plex­i­glas and scaled to the size of one of the objects.

Addi­tion­ally I am work­ing on a com­mis­sion for the Nor­ton Museum of Art (Florida), which will be on view Jan­u­ary 2012 and a wall­pa­per instal­la­tion for Cade Tomp­kins Projects (RI), where I will be hav­ing a solo exhi­bi­tion in Novem­ber. My col­league, Ingalena Klenell, and I just fin­ished Glim­mer­ing Gone, a col­lab­o­ra­tive instal­la­tion on view at the Museum of Glass (WA). It is on view until April 2012 if you are in the area.

Curbs and Stoops: What can we look for­ward to in the future?

Beth Lip­man: I will be work­ing on an instal­la­tion for the Weis­man Art Museum in Min­neapo­lis, MN, that is in response to their Mars­den Hart­ley collection.