Kristina Glick

Bio

Kristina Glick received her BA from Goshen College in 1997 and moved to Bolivia where she lived for three years as a voluntary service worker. Returning to the United States she began to make jewelry, a skill first learned in college. Looking for a way to add color to her metalwork Glick discovered enameling and was thrilled by the beauty and versatility of the medium. In 2004, ready to focus full time on creating art, she returned to graduate school and earned her MFA from East Carolina University in 2007.

During graduate school Glick began to use found objects, both natural and manmade, in her work. Now in addition to enamel and metal, her artwork might contain anything from a snail shell to an electric motor component salvaged from the local scrap yard. In addition to creating jewelry she makes enamel panels, sculpture, prints and books.

Glick lives in Northern Indiana where she splits her time between being a studio artist and a professor of art. In addition, she loves to travel, attend live concerts, visit art museums, read fantasy, science fiction and mystery books, spend time in the mountains (unfortunately hard to do in Indiana), work in her gardens, and drink good tea with good friends. Her pieces have been exhibited extensively nationally and she teaches workshops throughout the country. Her work is published in several books including 500 Gemstone Jewels and 500 Enameled Objects by Lark Books.

Statement

My work is the transformation of physical materials such as metal and glass into an expression of my relationships – relationships with geography, people, objects, events, or simply my relationship to the materials themselves. The natural world is the most constant source of inspiration for my work. The feel of drifting leaves, the sun slanting off withered grasses, the earthy contours of mountains against the horizon. These are experiences that are woven into the objects I create.

I hope that my art can, as Julian Stair says, “reflect the nature of our experiential lives and become a poetry of the actual.” As an enamelist and metalsmith I am grounded in the long tradition of craft and feel at home with that tradition’s tie to the objects of everyday life. My love of good craftsmanship reflects my belief that we should be creating a culture that values people over machines, and quality over quantity in material goods.