Sachi Yanari-Rizzo, Research Curator
Toots Zynsky’s work is immediately memorable; it is striking and distinctive. My first encounter was in a 1995 exhibition at the FWMoA entitled Clearly Art: Pilchuck’s Glass Legacy and later in the 1999 exhibition Clearly Inspired: Contemporary Glass and Its Origins. Both exhibitions showcased her work in glass threads using a process that she developed and calls filet-de-verre.
Zynsky was among Dale Chihuly’s first students back when there were only glass classes and not an official program at Rhode Island School of Design, where she received a B.F.A in 1973. In 1971, she joined the group that helped found the Pilchuck School of Glass. Enchanted, she explained, “Glassblowing fascinated me because you had to move, and it required a social environment where everyone had to cooperate. But mostly there was this fantastic material that seemed very alive.”i
Contemporary studio glass’ early period was an age of exploration. Fueled with curiosity, this generation of artists pioneered new techniques and approaches, exploring the medium more fully. Chihuly encouraged Zynsky to research and experiment. Feeling restricted working on the blow pipe, Zynsky worked in video, performance art, and installation.
Returning to glass, Zynsky was fascinated by the material’s disparate nature of being fragile yet strong. She began combining blown forms and fused glass threads. In the Corning Museum of Glass’ Clipped Glass (1982) she created her first piece made up entirely of hand pulled threads. This led to her collaboration with Dutch designer and inventor Mathijs Teunissen Van Manen. While visiting New York, he saw her work and visited her studio. Recognizing the labor intensiveness of the traditional Venetian method of pulling threads manually, Van Manen helped Zynsky mechanize the production of her materials.
Zynsky lived in Europe for 16 years during the mid-1980s through the 1990s. In 1984 Venini Glassworks in Murano invited her to make unique blown glass works, resulting in the Folto and Chiacchiera vases. In the Netherlands, Zynsky and Van Manen, with some help in fiber optics from Corning back in the U.S., researched and developed a machine that moves glass cane through hot flames and pulls it into thread. The artist calculates that the amount of glass threads she has pulled during her career could wrap around the world several times.
The FWMoA’s untitled work dates to 1987 and is from the Exotic Bird series. Zynsky grew up with easy access to the woods and marshes in northeast Massachusetts and its vast variety of woodland birds and waterfowl. While the artist does not literally depict specific birds in the series, perhaps the works make us think of the intensely colored feathers and the thick layers of plumage of birds from such places as Central and South America.
Above all, our work from the Exotic Bird series seems to visualize movement. Glass thread lines, akin to gestural brushstrokes, follow the rhythmic curving folds that shape the vessel. The series followed a research project in Ghana where she recorded traditional music and found Ghanaians’ use of vibrant color and pattern inspiring and liberating. Zynsky described, “Laying out the glass threads as I build up each piece prior to its firing and forming is identical mentally to making a drawing or painting. My drawings sometimes inform my use of color in my glasswork, but my use of color is directly connected to the music I am constantly listening to. Music and color are virtually inseparable to me.”ii
Zynsky’s innovative process involves placing thousands of colorful thin glass filaments in layers on a round fiberboard plate with a circular or oval template. It is heat resistant and dusted with dry plaster and rice paper. While in earlier work she showed a predilection for primary colors and opaque glass, like in FWMoA’s work, her later addition of transparent glass yields blended colors through overlapping and different effects with the variance of light. She explained, “’That’s why I keep working with glass, because it has this beautiful ever-changing life. You never see a piece the same way twice.’”iii
The threads fuse together in a kiln, taking anywhere from three and a half to four hours. Zynsky inserts preliminary molds to give form along the rim. Then she uses a series of preheated bowl-shaped metal molds, slumping the glass, as the material pulls downwards into the mold. Having a background in glassblowing, it was natural for her to work with the form while fusing and slumping in the kiln. She subtly beckons curves and folds freely by hand and inverts the work. Then the piece is allowed to cool slowly in a kiln and is cleaned.
Glass vessels have rich historical traditions and Zynsky brings a different perspective on them. One precedent is ribbon glass, a form of mosaic glass, which emerged in Rome in the first century BCE. In examples, like Ribbon Glass Cup from the Corning Museum of Glass, the work is made up of brightly colored glass cane that fuse and slump over a mold, transforming what were originally straight, colorful lines into striped, curved parabolas. Artists revived interest in this art form during the 19th century, seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s bowl (ca. 1860) from Murano. The wave pattern along the bowl’s rim was created by pulling the hot glass with pincers.iv Zynsky explains that she initially created works in stripes to test the compatibility of the materials.
Zynsky enjoys working with the vessel form as the viewer can experience the work from different angles and heights. She commented, “’You can never see the whole piece at once. There’s always something mysterious, no matter at what angle or in what light you’re looking at the piece. It forces you to move around it.’”v
Zynsky’s love of birds continued and her environmental concerns emerged in the Endangered Species series, as she became aware of the stark decline of the bird population, notably around her childhood home. Her first works in the series coincided with the 2018 State of the World’s Birds 1970-2020 report which estimated that North America, for example, has lost three billion birds. The series touches on species from all seven continents, including birds that were prevalent during her childhood. The works show parallels between the structure of feathers and her process. Studying the layering of colors and patterns, Zynsky’s Endangered Species is her attempt to approximate the beauty of her subjects and her emotional response.
To see other compelling glass art in person, visit the FWMoA Glass Wing during your next visit!
i Shawn Waggoner, “Toots Zynsky’s Filet-de-Verre Vessels: A Translation of Music into Color,” Glass Art 33, no. 4 (July/August 2018): 13.
ii Shawn Waggoner, “Toots Zynsky: A Conversation with the Artist,” Glass Art 26, no. 5 (July/August 2011): 35.
iii Waggoner, “Toots Zynsky’s Filet-de-Verre Vessels,” p. 13.
Thank you for a most intriguing article about this artist’s fascinating work!