Sponsors of the new Garden of Glass Exhibition at McKee Botanical Garden were invited for an afternoon wine reception to meet Seattle-based master glass artist Jason Gamrath, who created the 10 magnificent glass sculptures, including orchids, waterlilies, and even carnivorous pitcher plants and Venus fly traps, on display through April 30.
Gamrath explained that what he does is considered glass sculpting, as opposed to traditional blown glass work. His process begins by watching as an actual flower grows over time, keeping track of the shapes during each stage of development, and sculpting pieces representing each stage.
“I’m basically just taking the way the plant would grow and growing it in glass, not with my bare hands, because the glass is 3,000 degrees, but with different tools,” said Gamrath.
“I take that molten glass and, like a living thing, you kind of push it into the shape you want it to be. The glass really is alive. It’s moving all the time, and gravity affects it, and centrifugal force affects it. So it’s a lot like how a plant normally would grow.”
He explained that the vibrant colors in his glassworks are obtained by adding colored powders to clear glass and layering them one upon the other.
“By the time you’re done, you end up looking through about five different colors. And all of those different gradients affect it and make it look more realistic,” said Gamrath.
“What’s so fun about the complexity when we start working in those extravagant color patterns, is to just make those subtle things that nature does. Nature does it effortlessly. It takes us years and years and years to even get 1/10th as good as nature does something. Getting close is good enough for people, I think.”
Gamrath said the beauty of having the large glass sculptures – the pieces in the exhibit range from 6 feet to 14 feet tall – next to the real thing is that they draw attention to the subtle details of the plants and how their own color gradients flow.
“I love that you can have right beside it, something organic and living that just tells the whole story of how these small details can just blow your mind if you just stare at them,” said Gamrath.
“That’s part of why I make them so large and exaggerated. Because I just love what they really are.”
Each piece takes some 100 hours to complete, from the time the glass is taken out of the furnace to cooling it down over the course of the week. As a result, he said each piece takes a lot of people with very specific skill sets that can take at least six years to master.
“Depending on the number of flowers, the number of pieces in each flower, it could easily take a year to build a piece. When I was starting out, it took me years and years and years just to get one single good flower.”
For more information, visit McKeeGarden.org.
Photos by Mary Schenkel
