Studio Visit: Renee Radenberg

It all started with a ferry ride. I am a big fan of Renee Radenberg’s glass art and I wanted to learn more about her process and see her studio. As it turned out, my son was visiting from Florida with his bike at the time so we grabbed the ferry to visit Renee and bike on the boardwalk in  Rockaway Park.

Verrazzano Bridge

Renee’s studio is the entire lowest level of her home, rebuilt after being destroyed during storm Sandy. I’m sure it was impressive before but now it’s a showplace of her work, tools and supplies.

 

Renee in her studio

 

This assortment of glass welcomes visitors on entering the studio highlighting the color and unique quality of glass. What becomes immediately clear is that she has tools! I have never been in a studio space so decked out…but then I'm more likely to frequent drawing and painting studios with few requirements for tools.

 

 

I was immediately drawn into the work she had on her tables.Each piece goes through a number of steps in the process to completion: sawing, layering and distorting. If you are interested in working with glass, she does offer classes.

Glass has such unique qualities of color; think stained glass windows. Translucence is obviously an important characteristic but glass can also be opalescent with it's own appeal. As with any material it has its own language. That language certainly speaks to me.

This piece is made with glass frit (crushed glass) and then fired which forms a ‘Lacey’ look.

This piece is layering of glass with textured glass (fired so you can feel the glass but it is fused to the top layer of glass. We call it a Tac fuse) on the top layer. The materials used are glass powders, glass enamels, frit and small pieces of sheet glass.

More Tools

Did I say tools?

For sawing glass

Set up for photographing her work

We had a wonderful visit, saw some amazing art and had a nice bike ride and ferry ride home.

Be sure to check out her work at the BWAC Makers Market. There are many lovely pieces in a wide range of prices.

Renee's website 

Renee's Instagram  She does a great job including video of her work in progress

I look forward to more studios visits with BWAC members. Let me know if you are interested.

Kristin Reiber Harris

krharris46@gmail.com

Art in the City: Maya Lin's Ghost Forest at Madison Square Park

Art in the City is a new series that will be running on the BWAC Buzz from time to time. Do you have a suggestion for an exhibit worth seeing? Let me know.

Artistic genius takes a lot of time and hard work. Maya Lin is well versed in both.

I have a special fondness for trees. I recently completed an animated short CityTREES, part of my Anim8Nature series of short documentaries. So when a friend told me about Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest at Madison Square Park I had to go…immediately. I am a huge fan of Maya Lin’s work. I have visited the Viet Nam Memorial many times and engaged with various of her installations over the years.

Ghost Forest has a lot to unpack. It speaks on so many levels. I am still watching videos, perusing the Madison Square Park website and generally collecting information, but I wanted to put down my reaction the day of my first visit (a number of weeks ago).