CAROL LAWTON

Resides:  California

 

To download PDF catalog, please click here

 

Bio:

 

Carol Lawton earned her Master of Arts degree at California State University at San Jose, majoring in ceramics and photography.  In 1983, she received a National Endowment for Arts Fellowship for her explorations in pinhole photography. She worked primarily in photography until she began her glass education in 2002. She studied glass fabrication techniques at the Corning School of Glass in New York. She also studied in the Czech Republic and at the Bullseye Glass Factory. She currently teaches glass casting and related glass-working techniques at Ohlone College in Fremont, California.

 

Artist Statement:

 

My sculptures are metaphors for life’s transitory nature. The shape, weight and mass of the glass represent strength and solidity. Yet, glass is fragile and easily shattered.  These aspects combine with a luminous transparency that enables the viewer to move into the work.

I use house shapes to express the strong yet vulnerable characteristics of the glass, and to represent what may or may not be a safe protective structure.

My figurative works use the architectural form as a stage for photographically based human silhouettes to act out narratives of everyday human life.

Our lives are precarious and my work seeks to illustrate that aspect of our existence using a material with qualities that speak to the eye and the hand as well as to the intellect.

 

EDUCATION

BA Ceramics – California State University at San Jose

MA Ceramics/Photo – California State University at San Jose.      

The Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass

Kamenicky Senov Glass School, Czech Republic

Bullseye Glass – Teachers Forum

 

GROUP GLASS EXHIBITIONS

“Illuminations”,1212 Gallery, Burlingame, CA

Recycled Glass Kiln Arts, Cal E.P.A. Building, Sacramento, CA

E-MERGE

Pilchuck Auction

 

PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITIONS

Phoenix Photo Competition, DeSaisset Art Gallery, U. Santa Clara.

Montalvo Center for the Arts.

A.S.U.C. Studio at Univ. of California Berkeley

“Nine Photographers”, University Galleries, Cal State Hayward.

Triton Museum, Santa Clara, CA.

The Art of Digital Technology, San Jose, CA

 

AWARDS / GRANTS

National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship, Photography 1983

Bullseye E-MERGE Finalist, 2006

 

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Instructor:

Ohlone College, Fremont, CA, Glass and Photography

San Jose City College, San Jose, CA, Photography

ASIC Studio, Berkeley, CA, Photography