A t A lfr e d ,
S o lin was
thrust into an
w orld. I t was
n ot the la st
tim e she had to
a d a p t a n d
p ro v e herself.
while blowing glass in the evenings and
on weekends, continuing to experiment.
“I would do whatever it took to keep mov-
ing it forward, and keep my hands on the
material,” she says. She bought a rundown
house in Mount Shasta, California, and
built a studio where she began to create
her first real body of work. Eventually, she
came home to Vermont and settled into her
current Brattleboro studio in 1999.
Solin incorporates techniques from
both American and classic Venetian styles.
Out of those traditions, she’s developed a
unique, experimental approach, which
involves amassing thicker glass than most
glassblowers use and layering color on color
like a painter. Her methods flout Italian
glassblowing standards, which prize glass
blown as thin as possible. But for her there
are no right or wrong approaches. “I’ll cut it,
I’ll slap it on. I don’t care about anything
but the idea coming across,” she says.
Many of her ideas come from
National
Geographic,
through which Solin does her
vicarious traveling. One series, Kauri,
mimics the form of a tree sacred to New
Zealand’s Maori people. A story on melting
polar ice caps motivated her
Greenland
piece, in blue, black, white, and fine silver
foil.
Malibar
takes its name from a spice-
trading city in India, its shape mimicking
a sari.
Uruqin
, named after dunes that form
a path where the Bedouin walk their camels,
evokes a monochromatic landscape.
Making her hefty pieces is physically
taxing; she says she often emerges “beaten
down and sweaty.” But she’s not complain-
ing; the exertion gives her a “sense of feel-
ing alive,” she says. Even at Alfred, where
she had decided to become an auto mechanic
M a g n o lia
and
W in d o w
photos: Jeff Baird
