by
Kirk Hathaway
With over 40 years combined experience, artists Drew and Kirsi Smith have realized a career in creating and exhibiting art glass and sculpture: a variety of sizes,
shapes, themes . . . often, with an intensity toward a playful abstraction. Their most recent venture, sculpting furniture in thick steel and glass, shares an equal sense
of playfulness and joy. While it is relatively new territory for this artist team, a sudden, increasing demand for their works has placed Drew and Kirsi Smith in a
constant state of creative production. But the sudden workload is more joy for this storybook couple and their creative efforts.
Briefly described, these new works are durable and functional indoor/outdoor furnishings. Thick, colorfully patterned glass is inlaid in heavy black steel forms which
are sculpted into fable-like chairs, benches, headboards, and tables. The outcome exhibits such lively images as colorful figures embracing to make a love seat,
family members balancing to make a chair, a couple with a suitcase and passport taking flight on a bench with wings. Together, the combination of brightly colored
glass within animated metal sculpture seems to speak, almost to sing, to a civilization which has used the industrial age to slingshot humanity from agrarian societies
into a colorful era of technological wonder and excitement.
For over 25 years of creating art glass on his own, Drew Smith has hit all the marks for which he has aimed. Permanent collections, solo and group exhibits, awards
and commissions have Smith on the map in a variety of styles and dozens of times from recognition in his home-state of Ohio to international shows and European
museums and back to the United State's for premier galleries and exhibitions across the country. Then, in 1991, inspired by a non-site visit to cave painting in
Honduras, Smith began production on his"SpiritForms." Creating petroglyph abstracts as black metal monoliths, Smith began experimenting with hand-casted glass
inserts and sun-like disks held in awe toward the sky. Initially intended as outdoor sculptures, these lively forms were soon to decorate plush gardens and private
inns.
Then, in 1995, while attending a Glass Art Society conference, the"spiritform" took a more human shape when Smith met Finland's first female glassblower, Kirsi
Laihiala. In 1985, as member of an art glass team atthe Nuutajärvi Glass facility, Laihiala had been primary assistant to international acclaimed artists, Oiva Toikka
and Markku Salo. Laterasa glass art student of Wetterhoff College in Finland, she specialized in the Graal technique which she enhanced by adding painted
enamels between layers of glass. But, as a woman in Finland, her role in glass facilities remained secondary. Smith offered her independence as an artist, a true
opportunity to continue her artistic explorations.
Within the year, Smith and Laihiala were married in the US.---Kirsiim migrating to America with her daughter, Sini---and they set up house at Smith's Glasshouse,
a barn converted to studio in the Appalachian foothills of southeastern, Ohio.
In the pre-glacial terrain of rock and dense woodlands, the fable-figures of Drew Smith's "Spirit Forms" quickly took new shape. Rather than singular monoliths of
sky-faced figures, Drew Smith began joining figures, making couples and families. And rather than being solo garden pieces, the figures became backrests on
benches and chairs . . . his sculptures everyday literally embracing people, inviting gatherings and community. On her own, away from Finland's glass factories, Kirsi
Laihiala Smith experimented with a variety of styles and themes in glass. In celebration she experimented with color and design, often painting innocent, childlike
folk scenes with in glass spheres. And enthusiastically, she became a partner of Smith's Glasshouse and joined Drew Smith in the creation of his massive pieces.
Now, as they begin 1997's exhibitions and tours with the furniture, theSmiths are adding to their creations by focusing on one more new project: Iron Glass Inserts
(TM). With spring shipments of benches, chairs, and loveseats beginning to reach their destinations---decorating terraces, gardens andother spaces with dramatic
underlighting and placement---Drew and Kirsi Smith's creative attention was captured by an entertaining concept: to bring the same spirited sense of joy to the
traditional ironwork of fences and gates surrounding estates and gardens where their artwork was being displayed. Without losing a beat, Glass Iron Inserts (TM)
became their new trademark for crystal clear and colorfully hand cast glass to accent functional work in iron. Whether the simple iron frame of a traditional bed or
the plush, landscaped border of an estate, the Smith's found their glass inserts to suddenly launch ironwork from its serious past to a lively and dynamic future.
Standing back from their first completed gate, Kirsi smiled and nodded in approval. "This is how it should be!" she exclaimed."Color. . .everywhere . . . always. In
Finland, color is everything."
Smith's Glasshouse can be found by taking 93 North from Logan, Ohio aleft on Old Bremen Road (about 2 miles out) and 3.5 miles further will take you to their studio on the left.
1997 copyright by Kirk Hathaway
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arrangements with editors at we3@bright.net