Like any musician, Milon Townsend understands the need for continuous repetition in order to master a technique. This tuba player turned flameworker inherited his discipline of practice from his early days as a musician, and used that discipline to master the art of
flameworking.
Growing up, the young Townsend was also involved in theater and writing until he set his sights on
flameworking. With a firm foothold in glass, he has begun to revisit his other passions; he’s teaching, writing two books and performing on audio cassette. His Body Language series requires the building of miniature “sets”, which resemble stage sets. He uses live models and is himself a model for some of his glass sculpture.
His first exposure to flameworking came in high school. He was fascinated with the material and process. At 18, Townsend traveled 30 countries, hitchhiking from France to Pakistan. He was heavily influenced by a French artisan with whom he lived, an entrepreneur who made shoes, jewelry, and other items to sell at market. When he returned home, he naturally and easily slipped into a similar pattern of making things and going to market. “It was a way of making a living outside of the 9 to 5 paycheck reality, which never really appealed to me”, Townsend says.
In the beginning, the artist flameworked glass because it was familiar, and it afforded a fairly good living for a young person. He made ornaments, chess sets and glass replicas of peoples’ dogs.
The work he sold at shows, fairs and renaissance festivals has evolved and helped Townsend establish his 3000-square-foot studio in Hilton, New York. While Townsend Associates makes a production line, the studio is known for larger scale sculpture, state-of-the-art techniques and its team approach to making work.
Townsend will address all three subjects at his Glass Art Society Conference lecture on June 15. He will teach at The Corning Museum of Glass Studio, June 18 – 23; at Glass Craft in Golden, Colorado, in October; in Nara, Japan, in December; and he will exhibit work next year in London. His books, “Advanced Flameworking” and “Making and Marketing Better Work” have been available since April.
In the following conversation with Glass Art magazine, Townsend discusses his Body Language series as well as the cutting edge technology and teamwork used to create his large-scale, flameworked sculpture.
GA: When did you begin to feel your glasswork was successful?
MT: There always seemed to be a demand for it, which was nice. In the beginning, I sold work mostly at retail fairs. In the early ‘80s, I moved to Greenwich Village, New York, where I had a retail store there and another uptown. Those galleries did well, so I started wholesaling in a more organized fashion by doing the New York Gift Show, The Buyers’ Market of American Crafts and other major wholesale venues. At that time, I employed 26 people full-time, which was more than I enjoyed. I became an inspector, rather than an artist.
That company still exists today and is selling the same pieces I designed 20 years ago. I did a lot of sculptural dancers at that time; the human figure in motion is a very lovely thing. The human form remains my main interest today.
GA: Your current studio is in Hilton, New York. How did you settle there?
MT: We are located about one mile from the shore of Lake Ontario, 17 miles west of Rochester, New York, and three miles outside of Hilton. This is where I grew up, where my parents still live, which was a main reason we moved back here. We have 23 acres and several out-buildings. We’re out here with the turkeys, foxes, deer and rabbits, yet we’re only 20 miles from the city. Nowadays, if you use UPS, you can work anywhere.
A lot of people see my space, then imitate it. It has windows all around for optimum lighting. And working at home makes a lot of sense for many reasons. Think of what you could do with all of the time you commute! The commute between the house and the studio is about a hundred feet. If you could spend your commute time working instead, what a savings that would be.
Also, we’re parents, so it just makes more sense for us to be here for our son. He comes out to the studio, and sometimes he makes marbles. He’s almost 7 years old, and it will be interesting to see what he decides to do, growing up in this environment and absorbing everything we’re doing.
There are only two full-time employees here now, Kim McCormick, the director of Blue Moon Press, our publishing company, and Brian Snyder, who does all the grinding, polishing and gluing. Kiyoko, my wife, handles packing, shipping, bookkeeping and invoicing. Terry Berke and Ryan Higgins both make finished pieces and parts. They’re independent contractors. Several other local scientific glassblowers make parts or pieces they drop off –bottle and goblet tops, paperweights, etc.
GA: How much of the studio’s work is sculpture? How much is functional work?
MT: Townsend Associates offers production work — paperweights, ornaments, goblets, perfume bottles, and sculpture. The steady income from the production line affords me the opportunity to make my sculptures. The Body Language pieces are one-of-a-kind. They cost more to make, they sell for more money, but they’re typically out on consignment, so the cash flow from them is very unreliable. However, we just got back from the Buyers’ Market of American Crafts where I showed 26 of my new sculptures, and we took orders for 24 pieces. There are major new developments in the sculptural work that people haven’t seen yet. It’s exciting.
GA: Describe the Body Language series.
MT: The Body Language series is interesting because it requires the viewer to participate. They’re figures in stark, architectural settings – crisp and geometric. The figures are organic and highly realistic with fully detailed forms. In the current pieces, figures sometimes interact with each other. I use doors, stairs and windows, representing a change from one place or one state to another. In the newer work, the Echoes of the Past series, I’m using small, highly detailed accurate figures in etched glass with etched architecture which makes them read like ancient statues or sculpture. I combine these with the peach colored figures which look more like a living person. The statue and the living person interrelate on a conceptual level. In some way the figures in the past are affecting us in the present.
I like using the figure because we can all relate to it. There’s so much left to the imagination of the viewer. You make up your own story when you see the work.
GA: What are some of the techniques used in the Body Language series?
MT: The flat glass is scored, snapped and ground, some of it is polished, some is sandblasted. I want the environment or setting to be stark and the figure to be totally organic. The figure is made hot. I have discovered it takes as long to make a 6-inch figure as it does to make an 18-inch figure because there’s so much more detail. I use a small jeweler’s torch for the fingers and faces. It’s very difficult to get a good face. If you don’t get the right facial expression, it ruins the whole piece. It adds a huge level of risk to work with faces.
I use UV adhesives to adhere the figure to its environment. Archways or shaped windows in the middle of a set are cut out with a
waterjet. This high-tech approach serves its purpose without calling attention to itself.
GA: What were your aesthetic concerns with a piece like “Sanctuary”?
MT: The Body Language series is open to interpretation. The archway brings to mind a sacred space of some type, and the figure is outside. The figure is contemplative. The figure is thinking…what? You have to decide.
It was many years before I realized it was more powerful to suggest something than to tell the viewer. And that it was ok for them to have their own ideas about my work. The viewer becomes as much a participant in the creative process as the artist.
GA: You’re not afraid to use the male form.
MT: I’ve done so many male figures. Most of my Body Language pieces are males. The male form in some ways is easier, because it possesses definition. The female form is a lot more subtle, and harder to recreate well, and to make as interesting as the male form. Now that I’m comfortable with the male form, I’m working more with the female form. I’m taking a figure sculpture class, working in clay with live models which will be very good for me.
GA: Can you talk about a piece like “Identity Crisis”? How was this mask created?
MT: This is an example of how technology can be transparent. When you look at this mask, you don’t wonder how the shaped holes were achieved in the middle of a large piece of flat, borosilicate glass.
The external perimeter of this ½-inch-thick Pyrex plate glass was cut out by
waterjet, as were the eyes and the mouth. The color was laid on the back in stripes, and I used a tungsten pick to rake the patterns in the stripes. The eyes are a murrine cane with a clear cornea over the surface of the eye to give a realistic appearance. Each half of the chameleon is a single, solid-colored cane with colored stripes on the surface and frit or powder to give an organic quality. It also has murrine eyes.
All the parts have to be made in advance, and the challenge of working with flat plate glass is that it’s necessary to reheat it many times because it has a tendency to crack. You have to keep it hot. Not many people work with borosilicate plate glass. It’s such a wonderful element to have in your vocabulary. You can do a lot with it, like combining hard, geometric forms with organic hot forms.
I like the Mask series because it brings the viewer into an intimate way of perceiving the work. If you’re so close to a person that their face is the majority of what you see, you’re fairly close to them. The masks do the same thing. This particular piece is fun, kind of a visual joke. I don’t always think about concepts in advance, but I can observe them after the fact. A lot of my masks have a different color on each side of the face. I’m interested in this divided internal nature we often feel.
GA: Is your “Male Figure Study in Red” made from dichroic glass?
MT: It’s post-production dichroic coating. I make the figure in clear Pyrex, blast it, send it out to CBS in Orange, California, where they coat it and send it back to me. I then mount it in the shadow box.
We work pretty exclusively with Pyrex in any hot application. Most of the coldworked pieces are not Pyrex, because it has a yellow tint.
GA:
What’s involved in making a piece like
“Polychromatic Sphere”?
MT: That’s an exercise in stick-toitiveness. There are
about 112 figures in that piece. Each circumference is
another layer of people. Those figures are the same all
the way around each layer, but varied from layer to
layer, six on the inside and 12 on the outside.
There’s some nice negative space between the layers.
This is one of the ways you can create scale — by
putting lots of small parts together. One piece in this
series has each figure different, created to relate to
the space it goes into and to allow room for the next
figure. But with the Polychromatic Sphere, I make all
the figures ahead of time, then assemble them.
GA: You have been asked to present at the Glass Art
Society conference in Corning, New York, this June. What
will you present?
MT: My 90-minute presentation will take place in the
main auditorium of the Museum and will include slide and
video. I will focus primarily on the ideas that
flameworking is no longer the solitary endeavor it once
was; that high technology is being incorporated into the
work; and that much larger scale sculptures are being
made than previously. I will be demonstrating a large
solid sculpture in the morning and speaking in the
afternoon of Friday, June 15.
At my studio, we utilize whatever high technology is
available to us — water jet, diamond grinding and
polishing equipment, ultraviolet adhesives,
computer-generated images to design pieces. One of the
things I emphasize about technology is that you want it
to remain silent. You want people to be moved by the
piece and not even think about how it was done. Art
still needs to be centered on content and not just form.
I will discuss scale, not only in terms of largeness,
but also in terms of detail and definition. If you make
a piece with some really fine detail, it will appear as
if you’re looking at a large object from a distance
rather than a small object close up. Like dynamics in
music, detail will put the piece into perspective. I’m
known for making large, solid sculptures. Typically you
expect to see that kind of work come out of a hot shop
with a furnace. I want flameworkers to be able to think
in those terms and have that available to them, too.
Teamwork, technology and scale is the epitome of what my
work represents.
I’m also coordinating a wonderful show at the GAS
conference called Passing the Torch, which is about
flameworkers who teach. Eleven flameworkers who actively
teach have chosen one of their current or former
students whose work will be shown along with their own,
to show their influence, and give an idea where the
future of flamework is moving. My student is Ryan
Higgins. I’ve learned as much from him as he has from
me. I hope his commitment to excellence, accuracy and
detail are all products of our working together.
At the tech display, I’m working with a dichroic
manufacturer, CBS, and Northstar Glass. Between those
companies we are setting up a gallery area for artists
who use a lot of those two companies’ products, giving
the artists exposure and examples of what can be done
with the products.
GA: Your books, “Advanced Flame-working” and
“Making and Marketing Better Work”, have been
available since April. Why did you write them, and what
are they about?
MT: My father was a classical music teacher; my mother
teaches English as a second language to adults from
other countries. Teaching is in my blood. This is a way
I can teach with my limited free time.
I wanted to write a book on an advanced level because
there are a number of good introductory flameworking
books available. When I teach a class, I require a year
of experience because I’m not interested in showing
people how to light the torch. I have more to offer than
that. I want to help them grow as artists. The book
focuses on the techniques I’ve developed over the
years. If this one is successful, I intend to produce
Volume 2, which will feature other artists illustrating
their own unique processes.
“Making and Marketing Better Work”, for which Wendy
Rosen wrote the forward, is also an advanced book
intended to aid people in bettering their art. If they
want to bump their quality level up a notch, this book
will help them do that. With the exception of the
academic community, making and marketing go hand in
hand. If you’re not able to market your work to some
extent, you’re going to be limited as to how long you
can afford to make it. You have two choices – you can
either create a product for an existing market or you
can create a market for a product.
These books will be presented in three different ways:
the two of them bound together, and each book by itself.
“Advanced Flameworking”, for which Paul Stankard was
kind enough to write the forward, interested my
galleries to use in educating their staff, collectors
and clients. “Advanced Flameworking”, through the
use of nearly 2,000 color photographs, is almost
self-explanatory. I’ll actually be marketing that book
in Japan as well.
GA: What’s the most useful bit of information you
pass along to your students?
MT: Here’s a quote I like very much: ‘If you try to
make your work beautiful, it’s only going to be
pretty. But if you try to make the work honest, it’s
much more likely to become beautiful. We look for that
here. We try to make it true, real and accurate. |
