David Huchthausen
American, born 1951Mirage, 2000
On view
Cast and laminated glass
Dimensions12 1/2 × 8 3/4 × 9 1/4 in. (31.8 × 22.2 × 23.5 cm)
Courtesy of the Isabel Foundation, L2017.60
David Huchthausen started working in glass after discovering an abandoned glass furnace on the campus of the University of Wisconsin in Madison. While there he served as a graduate assistant to Harvey Littleton, a pioneer who had recently introduced the first university level glass program in the United States. Hutchausen was one of the first artists of the studio glass movement to emphasize coldworking techniques, such as engraving, laser cutting, sawing, laminating, and polishing. He uses these techniques to create optical illusions within his pieces that shift dramatically with every change in viewpoint. The colored strips that you see in this work are Vitrolite, a colored sheet glass that was used as an inexpensive decorative material on building facades in the first half of the 20th century. This type of glass is no longer manufactured so Hutchausen collects and stores as much as he can find. He cuts the sheets down into thin strips and laminates them to blocks of clear glass like you see here. After all the various components are adhered together, the work is polished to a high shine. Notice the distorted shapes of the Vitrolite sheets in the convex bubbles on the bottom of the sculpture.
