An Exploration Of The Transformative Glass & Ceramic Artist Chris Day

Major Picture | credit score Charlotte Graham

“What have you ever achieved for your self?” It was a easy query. One which was posed to Chris Day by his spouse as they mentioned Chris’ life and profession as a heating and plumbing engineer in the UK. Chris’ reply? “Properly, , we’ve received a pleasant home and we drive good vehicles — and we, — we’re financially secure.”

Whereas this reply might have been sufficient for some, Chris’ spouse continued to push him, and as she did, Chris needed to admit to himself that he had achieved nothing actually for himself. So she instructed that he look into enrolling in college. To not pursue a brand new profession. However to lastly do one thing for himself earlier than he couldn’t. Neither Chris nor his spouse may have identified that that dialog was the beginning of a journey of self-discovery that will propel Chris and his work into the world of high-end luxurious artwork.

4 years in the past Day enrolled at Wolverton College with the hope of pursuing the humanities in some capability. He settled on pottery and ceramics whereas strolling by the college on its opening day, hoping he may flip his creative pursuit right into a viable enterprise. Or as he places it:

“It wasn’t as a result of I used to be craving for it and even knew something about glassblowing or ceramics, , all it was on a gap day, I went by the, by the, for the artwork college. And I noticed the potter’s wheels and the hotshot. And I assumed what, I’ve by no means achieved something like this earlier than or on the alternative, I’d love to do it.”

Nevertheless it wasn’t lengthy earlier than he was launched to the iron blowpipe and that was it. Chris shifted his focus away from pottery and in the direction of glass blowing.

It’s no secret why his glass-blown creations have acquired a lot worldwide consideration. While you take a look at Day’s physique of labor, you will note the pure depth of emotion that’s the hallmark of any nice and transformative artist. Each distortion of his glass or embedded rusting steel tells a robust story in regards to the women and men who have been caught in a cycle of hatred and violence. However extra importantly, his artwork serves as a place to begin for a brand new and extra significant dialog about our collective previous.

The day is a blended race artist who straddles the road between his two identities in a rustic that has an extended and horrible historical past of colonial slavery. Struggling to grasp his place in that society all through his life, Day makes use of his newly acquired expertise to discover what it means to be biracial in the UK and confront subject material that’s usually deeply disturbing, but unknown to many — even in the present day.

“Just like the glass,” Day says, ”I’ve pushed my method in how I work with glass and ceramics in each conventional and experimental strategies, to create modern artworks that characterize my ardour for this a part of our historical past. As a black glassblower, I’m one in all few and on a quest to seek out and encourage extra. My predominant objective, nonetheless, is to have interaction the viewers on points which are exhausting to confront on many ranges, utilizing artwork to assist overcome among the traumas that hang-out our collective previous”

In his first solo exhibition, “Blown, Sure, and Daring,” Day illustrated his creative genius as he expertly used “unwieldy traces… ensnared glass bubbles, copper cages and the visible weight of fabric” to confront the sins of our previous so we will construct a greater future.

Items like Emit Until and One-Measurement-Suits-All discover the deep emotional ache Day suffered as he realized in regards to the destiny of Emit Until, the fourteen-year-old sufferer of a 1955 Mississippi lynching, and George Stinney, a fourteen-year-old boy and youngest particular person ever sentenced to the demise penalty. However in addition they serve to offer a method for each black and white audiences to study, and to talk about the previous in a approach that may assist us heal, reconcile, and sit up for a brighter future.

What began as a journey to do one thing for himself has reworked right into a calling to do one thing for others. A calling to discover the fading reminiscences of slavery’s previous;  a calling to point out younger women and men of coloration that there’s a place for them on the earth of artwork, and a calling to assist individuals of all races have interaction in a dialog about collective previous that we should reconcile collectively.

Simply 4 three years after being requested, “what have you ever achieved for your self,” Chris Day has turn out to be the UK’s solely black glassblower. However extra importantly, he’s being represented by one in all London’s premier galleries, Vessel Gallery, and has had his work acquired by the V&A, the Chrysler Museum, and the Nationwide Museum of Scotland.

Day’s work is presently the central focus of Harewood’s All Saints’s Church Craft Highlight sequence and can be working from 26 June 2021 to 31 October 2021.

In the event you’d prefer to study extra about Chris Day or view his work, you may go to his webpage, view his gallery at Vessel, or comply with him on Instagram.