"What if?" could be Mary Shaffer's motto. In an artistic career that spans nearly twenty years, Shaffer has always experimented, expressing her curiosity through the medium of paint; with installations making use of odd materials, fire, and electricity; and, perhaps most consistently, with glass.
Although trained as a painter, since 1972 Shaffer has been fascinated by glass. At the time she was living in Providence, Rhode Island, and her paintings focused on light as it came through windows: "I was very attracted to windows and window light and also to the symbol. . . of a woman in a house bound by children, looking through the window, the window being freedom or a visual freedom in any case, or a barrier, a gentle barrier."
Shaffer further explored her interest in light and the effects of moving light by making wooden stretchers for her paintings, which created an undulating surface like curtains moving in the breeze in light. Then glass artist Fritz Dreisbach, who was teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), suggested that she use slumped glass to create a curved surface. Slumping is a technique used in industry to make windshields, among other things, and involves heating glass to the temperature where it becomes malleable but not yet liquid. The glass, which is placed over a form, then sags to conform to the contours of the mold. The form is retained when the temperature of the oven or kiln is lowered.
Autonomous works
Shaffer's first experiments were with plate glass slumped over metal bars to make wavelike configurations. Although originally conceived of as a support for painting, they became autonomous works: "I just started working directly with materials. It was wonderful freedom to be working with tangible things instead of imaginary space as in a painting."
Her interest in glass as a material strengthened during a vacation in Rome the following summer, when Shaffer worked on an installation piece to show the effect of heat rising as seen through glass. She placed a heat element behind a sheet of glass and shone lights on it, and the rising air made a pattern on the wall. Shaffer then wondered
What it would be like to crack the glass. So I cracked it
and saw these wonderful wild cracks made by heat, much
different than impact cracks, which are just pretty
straight.. . . One of the pieces of glass fell and stuck to
the heat element. There it was, touching one side at 1800
degrees Fahrenheit and the other side an ice-cold, wet
wall, and it wasn't continuing to crack and I thought "My
God, what a strong material. If it can do this. . . it can
do a lot more than people are letting it do."
Exploration of Glass
Back in Providence, Shaffer's life began to allow for her exploration of glass. Dale Chihuly, perhaps
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