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Seekers® presents the work of Rollin Karg, a
versatile artist who likes to work on a larger scale when creating original
designs in handblown glass and glass sculpture.
Karg, an imaginative glass artist from America’s
Midwest, describes himself as "having the sense of form of a sculptor, the
dexterity of a gymnast, the eye of a painter and the knowledge of a
chemist."
His primary focus is designing and creating
massive sculptural pieces from molten glass, usually shaped in a freeform,
asymmetrical manner. He creates forms of various colors inside masses of clear
crystal or saturates the piece with a dense shower of blues, blacks and dichroic
colors.
In his effort to exploit the artistic
possibilities of this ancient medium in new ways, Karg uses high tech dichroic
glass to add a kinetic quality to many of his pieces. The word dichroic is from
classic Greek: di means two and chroic means color.
Dichroic glass was developed in the 1960s for
use in high technology applications. It manipulates light in two ways,
transmitting one color while reflecting another. It appears to change colors
when the viewer moves in relation to the piece.
Karg is particularly skillful at picking up and
applying pieces of dichroic glass to a sculptural form in such a way that the
metallic coatings are encased in a mass of clear crystal, allowing for enjoyment
of the optical properties of this very rare and special glass.
Primarily, he uses glassmaking techniques that
are thousands of years old, along with many of his own invention. He often
pushes the limits of the medium in terms of what one person, even working with
an assistant, can manage on the end of a five foot long blowpipe.
Some of his pieces run 65 pounds or more, even
after sections have been cut away during the finishing and polishing process.
Karg also creates smaller pieces such as paperweights, eggs and small
sculptures. Karg attended Wichita State University and studied hot glass at
Emporia State University, both in Kansas. He worked successfully as an
industrial engineer, photographer, potter and woodworker before becoming a full
time glass artist in 1983 and his own studio, Karg Art Glass.
Since then his wife and six children have
joined him in what is now a family business. Interestingly, his brother and
nephew, both named James Karg, are partners in a glass studio in rural Georgia;
both learned the craft by working with Rollin.
Karg has won scores of awards in competitions
and shows throughout the United States, and has staged a number of one-man shows
in his home state of Kansas.
His work has been shown at galleries and juried
exhibitions throughout the United States and Canada.
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