Paderborn, Germany Days Two and Three

NewsPublished September 30, 2009 at 2:21 pm 1 Comment

It is hard to learn how to paint on glass. Yesterday I spent the day trying my hand at it. At night we fired the panels I painted on. Needless to say this morning when we looked at them there was a lot of learning from my mistakes. Today I tried my hand at painting on glass again. I am working on a small landscape out back of the factory. It is of a house in a valley. Just like my studio in New York City there is a school nearby and in the distance I can hear the playground noise. So similar and so far away.

I am hoping tomorrow at least I have something I can work back into. After the glass is fired over night, I can scrape back into it or add more layers. Scraping lets the light back through and adding layers blocks the light out but can also mix colors as light passes through them. It is very different than oil painting.

Clause, who is painting my piece is great. He is a master at his craft having worked in this form for over 25 years. The other people in the studio are also great, mostly young, very talented and taking care of me. I am not used to having things done for me but that is how they do it at Peters. As Jorn said today, “You have only to say you want coffee.” Coffee was brought out to the table I was working on, painting my landscape.

At the end of the day yesterday I was defeated a little, not only from the lack of sleep but from the difficulty of this new form. But then Jan and his father, the owner of the company, came and we unrolled the 1 to 1 printout of my work, some thirty feet long and ten feet high. We went up in a lift and looked down to see the whole thing. When it was unrolled by me and Mr. Peters we both said, “Wow.”

He was so complimentary of me. I have to say it was just what I needed. It seemed not that he was simply paying me compliments, but that he was “getting it.” He understood my work. It was energizing.

He has been collecting a local artist, long since passed away, and has some 45 paintings by him. I reacted strongly to the work. Perhaps there is a shared aesthetic. The landscape I am painting is of course my own but it is in the influence of the artist he has collected. I will see in the morgan what it looks like. I hope it is something I can complete while I am here.

Below:

1) Mr. Peters smiling. The work has been blurred in the photo I uploaded so not to give away the surprise of the project.

2) Edward, mixing colors for me to work with.

Tags: arts for transit, germany, mta, paderborn, peters glasmalerei