A Body in Motion
Helen Lee
1 week course || GLASS 647 001 || 1 credit hour || Lab Fee: $150

This technical course will establish a firm foundation in glassblowing skills, emphasizing a detailed understanding of how to use one’s body to work with this changing state of matter. This course will bring to light common bad habits and poor physical practices common to glassblowing. Nontraditional methods of understanding movement and proprioception in the hot glass studio will be employed, including video analysis apps and audio-augmented tools. Reference will be made to Nicolás Salazar Sutil’s text Motion and Representation: The Language of Human Movement, movement models as illustrated by Oskar Schlemmer and The B-Team’s glass choreography. Through daily demonstrations, drills, and practice time, students can expect to move swiftly through a basic introduction or review of hot glass, with acute attention paid to the underpinnings of common pitfalls. Over the course of the week, students will produce basic blown forms with increasing proficiency and efficiency. 

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FACULTY

Helen Lee
Alphabit
Glass murrine, Low-Iron Float Glass,
Stainless Steel, Aluminum, Acrylic, LEDs
36” x 18” x 48”
2018

Helen Lee is an artist, designer, educator, and glassblower. Her work utilizes the amorphous properties of glass to speak to the changing nature of language—through form, over time, and across cultures. She holds an MFA in Glass from the Rhode Island School of Design and a BSAD in Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her work is in the collections of the Minnesota Museum of American Art, the Corning Museum of Glass, the Chrysler Museum Glass Studio, and Toyama City Institute of Glass Art. Her recent exhibitions include Em Space Engram (Watrous Gallery, Madison, WI), and Carried on Both Sides (Knockdown Center, Maspeth, NY). She is currently an Assistant Professor and Head of Glass in the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.