Splish Splash - Jeff Zimmerman At Steuben !

Steuben Glass is renowned for the clear, brilliant, and flawless lead crystal that its glass makerstrumpet like forms that would befit a Dr. Seuss illustration and chandeliers that resemble dangling bouquets—often is marked by striations and bubbles. Nevertheless, the 38-year-old Brooklynite and the 104-year-old Corning, N.Y., company have collaborated on Soft Explosion, a new lead crystal collection that the artist designed for Steuben. The pieces in the collection include the Splish and Splash bowls, each of which resembles a droplet of water striking a surface; a variety of Trees, upright lengths of twisting crystal with protrusions that resemble the nubs of failed branches; and Spiny Orbs, which look like, well, spiny orbs. Steuben has collaborated with artists in the past. After its researchers perfected a technique for making lead crystal in 1932, the company began inviting artists to experiment with the material; a 1940 exhibit in its New York store included pieces by Georgia O’Keeffe, Henri Matisse, and Salvador Dali. For Zimmerman, working with Steuben and its lead crystal represented an opportunity to try his hand in a novel medium, though one closely related to the glass with which he usually works. Two of the more enchanting Soft Explosion pieces are the Splish and Splash bowls, which call to mind Harold Edgerton’s 1957 stop-motion photograph of a falling milk drop arrested in the instant that it bursts into a crown like shape. Zimmerman says he was not thinking of the late Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor’s work when he sketched the prototypes, but he points out that the similarities are more than visual. Both the photograph and the bowls, he says, manipulate a fleeting interaction of liquid and gravity to create something lasting and beautiful: Edgerton took his photo at precisely the right moment to capture a phenomenon that happens too quickly for the eye to see, and Zimmerman’s designs require Steuben’s artisans to rotate the unfinished glass bowls rapidly so that the stubby points around their rims reach the proper length before they cool and set. The collection is beautiful - check it out!
Steuben Glass
800.783.8236