Title of Artwork: Octo Vessel

Dimensions: 20h x 5dia

Medium: Blown, fused, and flameworked glass

2015

Signed

Since 2012, Jennifer Caldwell and Jason Chakravarty have maintained a critical, conceptual, and technical dialogue about their individual work, which easily evolved to collaborative pieces. Over the past couple years they have mounted multiple two person exhibitions which included work that challenges the experimental process specific to each of them. Within these compositions, Jennifer included flame worked components that represented her mastery of the process while Jason's contribution was cast and blown glass. Jennifer utilizes a lot of sea life while Jason includes imagery that man uses to access the sea. IE Man and Nature in Nature. The finished compositions have been published in glass magazines and generously collected.

Jennifer Caldwell AKA Umphress creates work that draws inspiration from her environment. Born and raised in California, she began working with glass in 2000 while living in Hawaii. Caldwell now lives and works in Kingston, Washington, where the Pacific Ocean continues to influence her work. "Although my inspiration comes from the ocean, I am most intrigued by capturing movement. I try to emulate the movement of sea life in a simple contemporary form," says Caldwell in her personal statement.

Jason Chakravarty began incorporating glass through the use of neon into his sculpture in 1998 while attending Arizona State University. He was employed for four years at a commercial neon sign shop where he learned technical fundamentals of the neon process. In 2002 he began illuminating hot shop forms and kiln casting glass while attending graduate school at California State University Fullerton.