By David Steinkraus
Journal Times | Posted: Monday, April 13, 2009 12:00 am
We look through it without thinking twice. Therman Statom's eyes stop inside the glass and see its potential for art and for teaching.
So on a Wednesday, a couple of weeks ago, he was hustling during the break between classes at Fine Arts Elementary School. As he talked he scored sheets of glass, propped each sheet up, pressed down with the heel of his hand, and there was a deep snap as the pieces broke cleanly apart. A few strokes from a circular disk of sandpaper dulled the sharp edges. He had just formed a roof panel for a glass house.
For about three decades, sheets of glass have formed the basis for Statom's art. This summer he'll be working on a project for the Fifth Street windows of the Racine Art Museum, but because he tries to combine his art with teaching, he spent the week of March 30 working with area young people through the Wustum Museum of Fine Arts.
He started using sheet glass because one school he attended, Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, didn't have a furnace for blowing glass.
"This is a material that was readily available. The basic rules of fabrication don't require a lot of tooling up," he said. "Also I like the paintings to have an ethereal sense to them so it made sense that they were on glass," he said.
The glass for the students' houses was frosted, so what the children painted on the inside looked from the outside as if it were viewed through fog.
Statom had asked the children in the fourth-grade class to draw out some ideas. A couple had.
Hannah Kolesar had planned hers out on a sheet of brown paper. She explained that she had added four semicircles, one on each corner of the paper, to connect the other shapes in her design.
"I think this (design) looks a little more exotic," she said.
"What are you making?" Alexa Ahrens asked Malcolm Hawkins.
"I don't know."
"OK, well then you should name your picture 'I don't know,' " said Alexa.
"That would be kind of awesome," Malcolm said.
Statom came over, took a look at Malcolm's painting work and said, "I want you to be looser."
He demonstrated by picking up a pencil and, instead of keeping his arm rigid and flexing only his wrist, drew a flower shape using the motion of his whole arm.
"Historically I'm a big fan of working with museums and schools because a big part of my education came from playing hooky and hiding in museums, because you don't get caught in museums," Statom said. "I can honestly say that the Smithsonian Institution was directly involved with me finishing high school. Actually the curators there … saw me enough times in their free art gallery that they took an interest in why I was there all the time and using their library, and ended up getting me work and getting me involved with the Rhode Island School of Design."
As they walked out, two students talked about the project. They mumbled over their work. But the point, Statom told them, is that one learns. "And each time you get better."