Glass Artist Laura Kriefman
What I Make:
I take a 700 hundred year old technique- and capture 21st century people, making Leaded Stained Glass freestanding artworks. From nudes in rare mouthblown glass, to work-people captured in mid action in a portrait. Portraits that will last 400 hundred years.
How I Make Them:
All of my portrait work is created using traditional Leaded Stained Glass Techniques.
The cartoons are designed by me- working from life drawings and photographic references. Entirely cut by hand, I love working with vintage, or rare mouthblown sheet glass. Each piece is leaded using traditional leaded stained glass techniques. I love combining the traditional processes and methodology with a contemporary exploration of the human form. Where necessary I also work with traditional vitreous paints to make the sheet glass feel 3-dimensional- so that material appears to fold and drape - capturing a body in mid action.
I use a very specific technique which enables me to liberate these portraits from traditional ‘church’ windows settings. Freestanding leaded stained glass portraits have a dynamic border that is the shape of the body itself which maintains their curvaceous and vivacious forms.
I do this because I want people to feel like Leaded Stained Glass could live anywhere, in any environment. Light flows through the glass and changes with the day from in front, behind, up close or when the translucent glass or glass textures are painting another wall far removed from the artwork.
I want that in peoples homes.
Why I Do This:
After 20 years as a choreographer, dancer and circus performer, it turns out I am still obsessed with the human body.
When I was first drawn to the fluidity of glass I didn’t recognise that the obsession was still there. It is an extraordinary material; both in its molten form, and as sheet glass. The colours, reflective and magnifying properties and the manner that the transmitted light changes and flows over the course of the day.
The movement, strength and fragility of the sheet glass reminded me of muscles, and bodies, and curves and the beauty of the human form when seen through another' s eyes. I love celebrating strength and ‘real’ bodies by using that movement in the glass (the gradiated and changing colours) to capture the curvaceousness, strength and beauty of our naked bodies. I find it exciting to use the incredible strength of the traditional leaded stained glass processes to create freestanding artworks that really capture people’s poses so that the final portrait is full of a sense of them mid action, honesty and detail.
What I want someone to feel when they walk away:
I want someone to see themselves.
With my Nudes: I want people to love these body forms as their own and to almost feel an internal synaesthesia memory of the internal colour of their own bodies represented in real life.
With my ‘working portraits and full size portraits’ I want people to stop. To recognise themselves honoured in Glass. Strong, vibrant, detailed, represented, respected and awesome enough in their own every-day-self to be captured in a glass portrait that could last 400 years.
Capturing You
These are stunning stained glass portraits that capture real people, personal stories and precious memories.
In Example:
Commissioned to celebrate a 40th birthday and the birth of their first child, this piece was based on a favourite photograph. I created depth and detail by subtly combining textured glass, different thickness of lead and glass painting. It was a joy to reflect the love captured in this photo into a permanent celebratory artwork.
A Selection of my Portraits
Doug
Male Portrait
Reverse glass silver leaf water gilding, vitreous glass painting, Leaded Stained Glass.
Dimensions: 68 cm H x 50cm W x 7cm D
‘Doug’ worked on my street for 9 months. Every day we said Hello. One morning I saw him perched on these gigantic pipelines. His pose was so striking- the contrast of his high vis jacket and orange trousers, the creases and dirt smears, his work boots and the industrial pipe work that made this 6’ 4” gentleman seem to soften.
Created in traditional leaded stained glass, I used reverse glass silver leaf gilding to create the amazing reflective strips on his clothes. I used traditional vitreous glass painting techniques throughout the outfit, face and hands.
