Martin Blank in Interior Design Magazine

2009 Meghan Edwards:

"Meditations on the transience of life take many artistic forms. But for sculptor Martin Blank, like novelist Marcel Proust, contemplation began with a cup of tea. "I was watching the steam rise and dissipate into the air, and it struck me that we're ephemeral beings," Blank recalls. "How do you make objects that reflect that?" His work as a gaffer at Dale Chihuly's studio had been a lot more colorful than ephemeral, and Blank didn't begin grappling with that question in earnest until a 2002 residency at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington. There, he spent a week translating the fluidity of water into a more permanent form by hand-sculpting glass heated to 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit in the museum's glory-hole furnace.

Years later, when the museum commissioned him to create a permanent installation for the reflecting pool on the main plaza out front, he conceived Fluent Steps over the course of three months of work at the on-site hot shop, a nearby warehouse, and later the hot shop at Martin Blank Studios. He divided his composition into four "regions." Forms that rise to 15 feet tall at one end are called Cascades. The shorter peaks of Echo flow across the pool's surface. Crystal Skin, cast from the trunk of a 30-foot-tall evergreen tree, is installed in horizontal segments. And the hundreds of short glass bits are Wisps.

The first step was to sculpt the pieces, all 745 of them. Then he fused each to a handblown connector and glued that to a stainless-steel plate. The plate, in turn, was welded to a steel stem ready to be screwed into an array of vertical steel poles that he and a team of 41 artisans, architects, and engineers bolted to steel armatures on the bottom of the pool. In the event of damage to any of the components, the modular construction allows them to be easily replaced. Not to worry, though. Blank had the sculpture tested to withstand winds up to 80 miles per hour.

THROUGHOUT SME: LIGHTING CONSULTANT. PETER A. OPSAHL STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING: STRUCTURAL ENGINEER. MAREL FOOD SYSTEMS: METALWORK."

Edwards, M. "Water Ballet." August 1, 2009. Interior Design Magazine. accessed online September 2, 2009. http://www.interiordesign.net/article/ca6676376.html?q=martin+blank&

Martin Blank's Fluent Steps, News Tribune

From Rosemary Ponnekanti, Tacoma News Tribune:

"It’s been 2-1/2 years in the making and three weeks in the installing. “Fluent Steps,” a giant glass installation in the reflecting pool on the main plaza outside Tacoma’s Museum of Glass, is finally in place.

After seven months of delay, the work will be officially unveiled Saturday at a VIP donor party. But you can see it today.

“‘Fluent Steps’ is a truly transformative work of art for the Museum of Glass,” said director Tim Close. “This project has united all three components of MOG – the hot shop, exhibitions and the permanent collection.”

The work was commissioned by the MOG after Blank, a Seattle glass artist, suggested the idea during a residency there in 2007. The museum has recently begun building its own collection, and “Fluent Steps” will be a permanent installation.

[...]

It’s the biggest work Blank has ever done, and it took a team of 41 glass artists, engineers and architects to create. Most of the glass was blown during residencies at the MOG’s hot shop last year, while being partly assembled in a Puyallup Avenue studio. The 71,000 pounds of molten glass were installed over the last three weeks, with the pool refilled last Wednesday. Though the installation was challenging, only one piece of glass was broken, Blank said Thursday.

Crinkled, flamelike, flowery or bubbled, Blank’s glass shapes cluster in four main sections like an archipelago. The largest, “Cascade,” rises up to 15 feet above the pool’s surface, and is given line and depth by occasional pieces of earth-toned glass, reflected in the smaller “Echo.”

The central “Log” extends about 20 feet, its sections of glass formed around a real madrona trunk to create realistic bark texture.

“Wisps,” at the far end of the pool, are curving ribbons of flamelike glass set low into the water. At night the work will be uplit with white light.

Blank’s inspiration for the work was the movement of wind on a lake.

“The glass just picks up on the change of light there, it amplifies it like a lens,” said Blank. “It’s a dialogue on the emotive nature of water. It’s about how water transcends and transforms you.”

[...]"

Excerpted From:

Ponnekanti, R. "Museum of Glass pools sparkle with glass again." April 17, 2009. website accessed June 2, 2009. http://www.thenewstribune.com/ae/artmuseums/story/712021.html

Fluent Steps

"Fluent Steps" @ The Tacoma Museum of Glass.

Four who work on Martin Blank's talented hot shop crew: Bryn, Jason, Evan and Pete.

Martin Blank and Tim Close wade into the reflecting pool to cut the ribbon.

The Madrona Log: Martin Blank brought a Madrona into the MOG hot shop to sculpt with.

On April 17, 2009 at 5:30, Martin Blank's permanent installation in the reflecting pool at the Tacoma Museum of Glass, after 2 1/2 years, was finished.

April 2009 Tacoma Museum of Glass

Martin Blank and Evan Schauss Photo Credit: Tacoma News Tribune, http://blogs.thenewstribune.com/arts/2008/08/

Martin Blank's installation Fluent Steps is coming along outside the Tacoma Museum of Glass. It should be completed this weekend.

"The proposed sculpture will capture the play of light and water echoing the Pacific Northwest's unique environment."

-Timothy Close, Director/CEO, Museum of Glass in "Martin Blank Reflecting Pool Proposal booklet.

"My intent with this installation is to awaken the viewer's eye to keenly observe, interact and respond to the emotive nature of water. Water is the vehicle for capturing light, motion, time, fluidity and transparency. It can be placid, sublime, and in an instant a tremendous surge of raw power. This installation is a visual exploration capturing the chase between the macro and micro qualities of water using glass as a conduit to translate my thoughts."

-Artist's Statement, Martin Blank

Photos ABJ Seattle Glass Online