Silvia Levenson believes her work is an expression of her soul. She uses glass not for its natural beauty, but for its potential as a narrative medium.  Born in Argentina, Silvia has been living in Italy since 1981.  She received the Rakow Commission Award from The Corning Museum of Glass in 2004 and in 2008 she was a shortlisted nominee for the Bombay Sapphire Prize.   Her work has been exhibited around the world and is a part of the collections of The Corning Museum of Glass (United States); New Mexico Museum of Art (Santa Fè); Fine Art Museum of Houston; Museo Rigaulleau, (Argentina); Musee Atelier de Verre de Sars Poteries (France) and Glas Museum Fraueneau (Germany).

Silvia presents a dark and comic vision of modern life in her kiln-glass sculptures.

In 1994, when she mounted her first solo gallery show, the reception to the work was immediate and favorable.   Many viewers, familiar with glass only through the Muranese blowing tradition, had never seen kilncast work before. More than a few of them asked Levenson if she had invented the technique.  Looking back, the artist says she believes she happened into her art career at an opportune time, when the art and craft worlds were conspicuously straddling a divide between materiality and conceptualism.  At the time she was—as she continues to be—interested in exploring themes for one- to two-year periods, developing her ideas exhaustively, then moving on to new, but related, topics.

Throughout her explorations she has remained fascinated by the ambiguity of glass: its familiarity among the accoutrements of daily life—mirrors, windows, spectacles, stemware—and simultaneously its sharpness and ability to harm. With an irony that manages to feel more empathetic than smug, she has built a style around an uncanny ability to suggest the danger in beautiful things and the beauty in dangerous things.

The aim of this workshop is experimentation in cast glass, incorporating screen printing and decals as part of a “bigger” project in kiln forming. Students will be lead in making their own images and combining them with open faced moulds in order to experiment mixing forms, textures, images and texts. In five days we will have a survey about how to combine these different techniques. The workshop is oriented to develop new approaches in seeing our own work by exploring innovative ideas and concepts. During the workshop the focus will be on:

• analysing the work of other artists who use transfer images
• transferring images (screen printing, decals at high and low temperature)
• mould making
• casting glass using the open face casting method of production
• firing schedules

Students will make 3 final pieces of work including: one billet cast object incorporating text; one object reproducing textures (examples, baby clothing or leaves) and one solid block using sheet glass and images. All materials are included in the workshop fee.