Trace 0520
My Glass Pyrograph is an abstract drawing on paper made with fire by scorching molten glass. This work captures and eternalizes the immediacy of a moment, and it is a trace fo my body movement with fluid glass.
In my recent body of work, titled VITRIFIED, I use uranium glass as a key element in my sculpture, installation, film, and photography. This particular choice of material relates to a shift in my personal values that occurred after the devastating 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown in Japan. I subsequently visited the Hanford site, where I learned about vitrification technology which transforms radioactive waste into glass for ultimate disposal. This experience connected many things for me – my love of glass, my Japanese heritage and nuclear legacy, my perspective looking through the lens of America, and my fear, hope, and responsibility for the future.
I was born and raised in Tokyo and have lived in Seattle for over twenty-five years. Both places are home to me, and while my life is rooted in America, my spiritual-seeking and aesthetic sensibilities strongly call to Japan. My work is a reflection of myself in these two distinctively different cultures.”
-Etsuko Ichikawa