MOULTRIE, Ga. — Colquitt County Arts Center’s glass artwork exhibit, “Clearly Colourful,” options a myriad of glassworks established by artist Cindy Hammond.
Colquitt County Arts Heart is web hosting the exhibition of glassworks — from home windows to bowls to Xmas ornaments and numerous a lot more unique styles — until June 16, in accordance to the “Clearly Colorful” plan. It opened May well 6.
Items selection from massive window items to modest window hangers and paperweights. The shades occur from the sum of lead in the glass.
The exhibition has had at least 100 site visitors accounted for on the indication-in sheet, as properly as many other people who did not indicator in, Arts Heart officials said. It is totally free for the public to see throughout the Arts Center’s ordinary hrs, and some of the glasswork items are on sale.
Tifton-centered artist Cindy Hammond is a Panama Town, Florida, indigenous who attended Agnes Scott Higher education in Atlanta as a biology important. In an interview on Friday, June 10, Hammond reviewed her journey to South Georgia and her love for glasswork.
Alongside her journey, Hammond moved to Savannah the place she received married and labored in the medical offer subject. Her time in Savannah is where by she located her love of glass creating.
“When I was doing the job in Savannah, a good friend that I worked with explained, ‘Hey, I’m gonna acquire this class. Do you want to take this class with me?’…I’d hardly ever performed it just before and we built a small glass window, and I went ‘Wow, that’s great.’ So, I began building glass windows and things at property,” Hammond reported.
Hammond worked with stained glass from 1980 right until 1984 in advance of she took an 18-yr hiatus to increase her 3 sons, as talked about in the “About the Artist” webpage of the exhibit’s software. Later on, Hammond resumed earning glassworks as a passion though residing in Albany.
At that time, Hammond’s interest grew as commissions for glass home windows and other items would appear in by word-of-mouth.
“My young children acquired even bigger, and I started out executing glass artwork all over again. It was a interest and phrase-of-mouth…It was a hobby that just grew,” Hammond claimed.
She had also obtained a present certification from one of her small children to go to a glass blowing workshop in Atlanta, and she cherished it. In addition, Hammond took on another technique of fusing glass alongside one another in the kiln and sandblasting the glass after doing work with somebody in Ashburn.
With her techniques, Hammond’s art ongoing to expand with more commissions coming in. She designed windows, Christmas ornaments and paperweights.
From then, Hammond continued her function and was asked to showcase it at the Colquitt County Arts Heart by Kim Yarborough, who was an worker there at the time. Yarborough experienced viewed her get the job done, beloved it and booked the show a 12 months out, Hammond discussed. Hammond mentioned her exhilaration as the exhibit at the Colquitt County Arts Centre would have been her initial.
So, Hammond gathered pieces that she had carried out from states these kinds of as Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky and Illinois. She also collected pieces that she experienced been working on at the time.
Each and every piece Hammond showcased is one of a kind for the reason that she seldom duplicates her do the job. She performs with 3 different forms of glass: cold glass, heat glass and very hot glass.
Cold glass, as Hammond spelled out, is reduce with a diamond cutter into unique pieces and place together like a puzzle. It is commonly flat, like some of the window items in the exhibit, or it is place with each other as points this sort of as a jewelry box. Considerably like the identify, it is chilly glass in the place that is slash and shaped into a photo.
Then, there’s heat glass — which is put into the kiln and can be fused jointly. Heat glass temperatures can rise from a selection of 1,400 to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which causes the glass to become delicate. Then Hammond places the glass onto structures she constructed to shape it.
From there, the glass is authorized to slowly great so that it does not crack or crack.
In this course of action, various items can also be fused jointly in order to turn into a single piece, or they can be fused with each other as different items that maintain their rigid distinctions. Pieces this kind of as the hollow, fifty percent-moon shaped piece by Hammond are warm glass parts.
The 3rd variety of glass, hot glass, is glass blowing. In this approach, the hot glass is on a person stop of the blow pipe and air is blown into the other conclusion, resulting in the glass to blow up. Then, a damp rag or wood shaping piece is utilised to form the glass. This glass is intended or shaped in a way which molten glass can be included to the piece for design, this kind of as a standing fish piece Hammond made.
With each type of glass, the system can get everywhere from 20 minutes to many days, Hammond spelled out. She styles and generates each piece of perform from scratch.
“I just really like it. I like that design procedure,” she explained. “I like making a thing that anyone has envisioned in their intellect and then I can make it in glass for them.”
Hammond options to continue on her get the job done, and is excited that the exhibit will be showcased at the Tifton arts museum from June 25 to July 24.
Hammond’s art can be located on Fb at Cindy’s Glasswork Designs or on Instagram at cindysglassworkdesigns. She may also be contacted by e mail at [email protected].
