Brian Ray Barber
glassmaker
Contents: artwork
2
sophietta
10
with ALIBI studio
14
for RESOLUTE
18
Artwork
Pollen Grains, 2010
Constellations, 2012
Vanitas, 2011
Opposite: A Story of Faith: Loupe River, 2012
When Stars Came to Earth, 2012
Vessel Study, 2013
Squeeze, 2012
My approach to glass from the very beginning has been to try everything, continuously experiment, and build skill. I’ve been fortunate to be presented with opportunities that have helped me fulfill my goal. I am by no means the best, but it has afforded me a freedom that keeps glass new, a quality that has spread to all of my creative work. Glass, as a result, is the medium in which I explore form, color, line, weight, and proportion. In short, all of the fundamentals of design.
Sophietta
goblets
Sophietta has been an ongoing side project of mine since 2009. It started as a way to practice the fundamentals of glassblowing while selling the products I made in a hope to break even. Goblets, for a glassblower, are the equivalent of figure drawing for a painter. It covers everything needed to make anything in glass, Opening an oven after a day of goblet-making is incredibly satisfying.
Wine goblets, 2012 - present
with ALIBI Studio collaboration
ALIBI studio was commissioned to make cocktail glasses for a pop-up restaurant in NYC. Together we developed the final design for the glasses, working through iterations that made physical the conceptual basis for the restaurant experience: traffic/tide. The restauranter was looking for cocktail glasses to be handed out at the door, to begin the evening and promote conversation. The solution was a glass that would mimick qualities of the ocean tides. The swirling beverage inside the vessel, when held in the hand, interacts with the “landscape� at the bottom, a reminder of tidal rhythms.
for RESOLUTE lighting
When I began working at Resolute in 2001, I had been blowing glass for nearly five years. At the end of the first week, I realized that I had no idea what I was doing. I stuck with it, and I learned an enormous amount in the nine years I was there. I worked on a production team, making lighting for commercial and individual clients that was designed by our in-house designers. It became the single most defining experience of my career thus far, over all nine of the years as well as on a daily basis.
Brian Ray Barber 2016