Kathleen Elliot creates sculptures out of flameworked glass, using a vocabulary of botanical forms, including leaves, flowers, fruits and vines.
Elliot was born in Akron, Ohio in 1958. Her family moved to California in 1960 and she grew up in Silicon Valley. As a girl, she was engrossed in all manner of crafts, often teaching herself with instructions from books.
Elliot has engaged in an array of life experiences that shape her art. She lived in a hippy commune, had a seven-year career as a hairstylist and make-up artist, a second twelve-year career as an administrator, corporate manager, educator, and writer. She is a thirty-year student of philosophy, linguistics and business strategy. For ten years she participated in shamanic ceremonies and practices, while studying A Course in Miracles, and received instruction from Carlos Castaneda and other spiritual leaders. Elliot has raised five children.
In 1991, an invitation from a friend to try glass work in his garage paved the way to a new life. Elliot began teaching herself the art of making glass beads. This introduction to flameworking, working with a torch directly on glass, was to serve as the basis for her future sculptural projects. Elliot took her first glassblowing workshop in 1996.
In 2001 Elliot left her business career to pursue being an artist. She attended Pilchuck Glass School in 2001, 2002 and 2003, studying with leading glass artists Laura Donefer, Robert Mickelsen, and Shane Fero, and returned in 2013 as an instructor. She takes art courses at De Anza College. Elliot’s work is shown in museums, art centers and galleries throughout the U.S. She has won numerous awards, been written about in a variety of art publications, and her work is in several prominent collections, most notably the permanent collections of the Oakland Museum of California, Museum of Glass, and the Fuller Craft Museum. She served on the boards of the Glass Alliance of Northern California and the Bay Area Glass Institute. Elliot resides and operates her studio in Cupertino, California.
Statement
What is real? How does one know? I have been immersed in these questions for over three decades through studying the intersection of philosophy, linguistics, biology, and spirituality. These questions provoke contemplation and curiosity. I try to bring this mood to my work, inviting viewers to be surprised, to wonder, to question and reconsider, to embrace curiosity and uncertainty. These are the moments in which we are most alive.
I create art in series, some wholly in glass, others incorporating elements of glass.
Questionable Foods addresses food issues of today - the argued effects of GMOs and pesticides, the debilitating effects of sugar and over-processing of foods, political and monetary conflicts throughout the food industry, treatment of animals, effects of food production on the environment, and the daunting conundrum of feeding and sustaining nearly 8 billion people. With this work, I want to urge viewers (myself included!) to more carefully consider what we’re eating, what’s being called food, and to make healthier choices, while asking food manufacturers to do better.
Natural Botanicals are three-dimensional trompe l’oeil. I love the surprise of viewers realizing that these seemingly organic and pliant pieces are actually glass. These works celebrate the beauty of nature and its ability to lift us out of the commotion of everyday life that seems so urgent and important, reminding us we belong to mysteries far greater.
Imaginary Botanicals are glass sculptures. They are my musings of what botanical life might be like in alternate realities. With this series, I want to entice us out of the confines of our ordinary realities, into alternate realities where the unexpected can appear. I believe our most alive moments are those in which we question or are surprised out of our everyday beliefs.
Offerings are inspired by the teachings and mudras, spiritual hand gestures, of Buddha. This series of work invites us out of the “I want” culture, into the spiritual healing and peace generated through gratitude and generosity. Each piece incorporates a hand offering a botanical element in glass. I am using a variety of materials and methods to make the hands, including casting glass, resin, and plaster, and carving wood.
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