"HAIKU De Wit" by ABJ Seattle Glass Online:The Foster/White gallery has long supported Whidbey Island artist John De Wit. In 1989 he had a solo show with F/W and since then has had thirteen shows with the gallery! John De Wit's new work called 'Incise' is currently on view and he will be speaking about this work on November 14th.
This show has a Midwestern theme: The pieces are titled after those central states. In "Nebraska", snowy white paint collects in the plain's depressions. In "Idaho," a gold snake atop a clear stump recalls the woods you walk through there. The pieces are similar in shape to what De Wit has done before. The surfaces are again textured through thick paint and absence of paint, but they are also carved with a diamond lathe and this adds to the time you spend walking around and around the piece taking in each view of the prism.
There is birch tree patterning, the short dashes and little slits of their bark are made through holes in the paint. The trunks themselves are those tubes that stick out of each vessel like a spout. Long pieces of wood form straight handles on the sides of the vessels. These were made from clear glass and carved, casted or molded (I don't know which) with the pattern of burned wood (Idaho, Figurative, Wood Not Burn, Iowa, Birch Alder Burn, Index). Each charcoaled scute of the burn could have been it's own complete John De Wit vessel, proving, like he says about his own work, that it comes from nature. Though the glass was cold it bore the imprints of a fire. From the uniform pieces of wood, about kindling size, I'd say it was a very warm and toasty fireplace fire.
De Wit incorporates copper wire and wood along with the glass. The wire is sometimes bent to look like twigs and branches, the wood assembled to look like water (in Prow) or painted to look like metal (Index, Pour).
I enjoyed his new work immensely. Each piece was sort of like a haiku, three materials (glass, copper, wood), simple clear assembly, and the capture of a memory of a specific place outside. So here's a few haiku that are appropriate and then I have typed my own poem, "Incise/Unprecise Haiku, a song in 12 parts"
Blow of an ax,
pine scent,
the winter woods.
-Buson
Spring rain
leaking through the roof,
dripping from the wasps' nest.
-Basho
"Incise/Unprecise Haiku" A Song in 12 PartsThis show has a Midwestern theme: The pieces are titled after those central states. In "Nebraska", snowy white paint collects in the plain's depressions. In "Idaho," a gold snake atop a clear stump recalls the woods you walk through there. The pieces are similar in shape to what De Wit has done before. The surfaces are again textured through thick paint and absence of paint, but they are also carved with a diamond lathe and this adds to the time you spend walking around and around the piece taking in each view of the prism.
There is birch tree patterning, the short dashes and little slits of their bark are made through holes in the paint. The trunks themselves are those tubes that stick out of each vessel like a spout. Long pieces of wood form straight handles on the sides of the vessels. These were made from clear glass and carved, casted or molded (I don't know which) with the pattern of burned wood (Idaho, Figurative, Wood Not Burn, Iowa, Birch Alder Burn, Index). Each charcoaled scute of the burn could have been it's own complete John De Wit vessel, proving, like he says about his own work, that it comes from nature. Though the glass was cold it bore the imprints of a fire. From the uniform pieces of wood, about kindling size, I'd say it was a very warm and toasty fireplace fire.
De Wit incorporates copper wire and wood along with the glass. The wire is sometimes bent to look like twigs and branches, the wood assembled to look like water (in Prow) or painted to look like metal (Index, Pour).
I enjoyed his new work immensely. Each piece was sort of like a haiku, three materials (glass, copper, wood), simple clear assembly, and the capture of a memory of a specific place outside. So here's a few haiku that are appropriate and then I have typed my own poem, "Incise/Unprecise Haiku, a song in 12 parts"
Blow of an ax,
pine scent,
the winter woods.
-Buson
Spring rain
leaking through the roof,
dripping from the wasps' nest.
-Basho
Nebraska
At the bristling edge of
the Midwest Serengetti
utility ends--outerspace.
Aggressive little Coeur:
Protecting its fencing face,
vulnerable tail.
Birch Plaid sunday school
the uniform of trees
liturgy of fire.
Pour, 1-6-8-4:
Uprooted jay macdonnel--
out of vase and out of mind.
Snow Cherry umbrella,
a rainy day, you
pitch amber to sidewalk.
Idaho snake knows,
gold snakeskin boots are the rage
john de wit saves him.
The Pock Mark planet
or, tube's medical opinion,
voiced loudly in the gallery.
This Iowan stump,
was Abe Lincoln's thinking spot,
Whitman's stomping ground.
Index
Companion escape!
Stay and I will turn you gold!
but you'll be trapped.
Hive, 1-6-9-5.
"The bees built a teapot, Marge."
Buckingham high noon.
Steamship Prow on waves.
Mid sail-- you're the horizon.
It travels it's own pace.
Birch Alder Burn, here,
before and after the fire
once again so cold.
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