Honoring the Future contributing artist Toots Zynsky is internationally renowned for creating richly colored, exquisitely textured and sensuously curved fused glass vessels. Her newest series of vessels – termed “Endangered Species” – highlight the peril birds face from human impacts, including unchecked climate change.
Toots Zynsky, Double Plum-Headed Parakeet (2018). Region: India. Filet de verre (glass thread). Dimensions: 7 1/4” x 18 3/8” x 6 1/8.” © Zynsky, 2018. Courtesy of Heller Gallery.
Zynsky’s new series draws upon her decades-long exploration of glass as an art medium. In the early 1970s, she was one of the pioneering artists studying with the now legendary Dale Chihuly, whose innovative glass sculptures have garnered worldwide acclaim. In conjunction with Chihuly, Zynsky helped found the celebrated Pilchuck Glass School, which today draws glass art students from around the globe.
She also developed a new glassmaking technique she called “filet de verre,” in which layers of thousands of multi-colored glass threads are fused and hot-formed inside a kiln. Today, Zynsky’s work is included in more than 75 international museum collections and earned her the prestigious 2015 Smithsonian Visionary Artist Award.
The Heller Gallery, New York City’s premier showcase for contemporary glass art, exhibited the first eleven works in Zynsky’s Endangered Species series from June 8 – July 13, 2018. Almost all of the vessels were sold before the exhibition closed. “I’m not at all surprised,” said Honoring the Future Director Fran Dubrowski. “These are beautiful artworks with a poignant message: bird species are disappearing or declining at alarming rates and will continue to do so without active conservation.”
To draw attention to the enormity of the decline in bird species, Zynsky is intent on making more vessels in this series. The Heller Gallery will exhibit additional vessels at upcoming shows in Chicago, New York City and Miami:
- SOFA Chicago (November 1- 4, 2018 at Navy Pier Festival Hall, 600 East Grand Avenue, Chicago)
- Salon Art + Design (November 8-12 at the Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Avenue between 66th/67th streets, New York)
- Art Miami (December 4-9, 2018 at One Herald Plaza at NE14th Street on Biscayne Bay).
Read more about Zynsky’s Endangered Species series here.
