Tag: architecture

Growing up the child of Chinese immigrants in Rochester and Brighton, Nancy Gong was familiar with Asian art and its emphasis on monochromatic works.

Those familiar with the bus stop outside Gleason Works or the panels of glass in Rochester Institute of Technology’s Innovation Center can see the monochromatic influence in these Gong architectural glass works.  Both feature etched, clear glass, where refraction of light is emphasized over color.

But as she enters her 39^th year as a professional artist in Rochester, Gong, the sole proprietor of Gong Glass Works, is now moving more toward color. And she’s asking questions that inform her focus on new glass technologies and ways to display glass art.

“Why does two-dimensional glass artwork have to go on the wall? Why can’t it go outside?” she says in her studio. Or even on a flat horizontal surface? A piece that didn’t work out for a countertop she was creating stands on end just outside the door to her studio, bringing multiple bands of color to different spots along the walkway throughout the day as sunlight travels through it. It’s a much more dynamic way to display art that typically was confined in a frame or window panel inside a building.

One reason she can now display colored glass art outdoors is her developing skills in laminating and fusing glass. For many years Gong, who works without an assistant, specialized in the age-old technique of fitting cut pieces of glass – colored or not – together with leading. Color was sometimes in the original piece of glass or added later by painting. Neither the leading structure nor the paint would necessarily hold up over time outdoors.

The fused glass technique, in which pieces of colored glass are laid on top of other glass and then fired together, creates an impressionistic work, with soft edges. Gong says she would like to move more into the abstract and conceptual designs and away from figurative work.

Lamination allows her to match edges of different colors of glass without a lead seam, though it’s a tricky technique. “It’s not that I don’t like the lead,” she said. “It’s a different aesthetic.” To laminate glass, she fits together cut pieces of colored glass on a layer of clear, liquid polymer poured on top of a sheet of clear glass.  First, though, she has to build a dam around the sheet of glass so the polymer doesn’t just run off the sides before it dries.

“It’s like putting a puzzle together on top of water,” Gong said.

Many of her works are a puzzle in another way as she fits together a combination of techniques to make a finished product. A current commission for a residence used brushed etched textures, chipping and photographic etching to create images of rolling landscape similar to the land around the home where the windows will be installed. The homeowners, however, also wanted a feature they typically see when they look out — their horses.

Gong took photographs of the horses, manipulated them on Photoshop and then created photo masques made of emlusion when were placed on the glass for etching.

“I have one shot” to get it right, she said. Photographic etchings  remove the surface of the glass to create shadow and detail.  “It’s a way of creating designs that are much more painterly and more expressive,” she said.

Gong works almost entirely by commission, in which a client has a rough idea of the need for architectural art — art that’s incorporated within the building’s structure. She typically comes up with a menu of possible techniques within her proposal for the art work.  Well-known in the local architectural community — she recently was awarded an honorary membership in American Institute of Architects, New York — Gong frequently works with clients who are at least partially aware of what she can create before they contact her for a new work.

Jennifer Takatch, principal at Architectura and incoming vice president of the Rochester chapter of the AIA, met Gong through social events the association holds.

“We find her to be a very valuable collaborator, artist,” Takatch said. “Her stuff has a lot of movement. It’s not static. I find that she constantly is pursuing different methods to enrich her artwork. Over the course of her career, you can see how she has built on techniques and methods to really arrive at where she is today.”

Takatch said she is particularly drawn to the work Gong installed several years ago in the University Services and Innovation Center building at Rochester Institute of Technology. Gong created a curving wall of glass out of 13 curved, etched panels, each weighing 400 pounds. The etchings reflect many of the disciplines at the school, including the binary system, the double helix and what appear to be sound waves.

“It’s pretty monumental.  It’s not tacked on the wall, it is the wall,” Takatch said. “It becomes part of the architecture.”  She described Gong’s style as organic, colorful and spiritual, yet appealing to all beliefs.

Such works, Gong said, speak on behalf of the companies or institutions that commission them. Among other things, the art says the organization has made an investment that it intends to keep.

“My focus is to design artwork that speaks to the ages. If it’s good design, it will endure,” she said. She also aims to create a loftier experience for the viewer than an immediate “wow.”  “My main goal is for artwork to bring peace and joy to the spaces through an experience,” Gong said. “I want to feed the souls of people who are utilizing the space.”

Back in her studio, she reflected that she gets a creative “itch” about every decade that sends her into a new direction.  “I don’t like to be confined by doing the same thing all the time.”

The last itch had to do with mosaic created out of colored glass, and she traveled to Italy to become a master of the form.

“I was really excited about this,” Gong said. She has used the form to create signage for ABVI and three panels surrounding a doorway at Hillside Children’s Center. While many of Gong’s commissioned works are room-sized, mosaics tend to be smaller. And they take longer to accomplish — 10 times longer, she noted.

While she determines where the next itch will take her, she’s trying out some new or renewed ways to market her work. Gong says many of the clients who have been familiar with her work are older or moving on in one way or another. A few times she’s been asked to help dismantle a work she created years ago and prepare it to be installed in a new location reflecting a client’s retirement plans.

Recently, Gong has started showing her smaller works in the more upscale craft and art shows in town, trying to attract a new audience. But she still expects to thrive on commissions rather than creating art to sell at shows.

“To build and create art without a home for it is an extremely challenging way to make a living,” she said. After nearly four decades as an artist, she should know.

[email protected]/(585) 363-7275

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Nancy Gong

Title: Artist and owner of Gong Glass Works

Age: 61

Education: Coursework at what was formerly called Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of American Craftsmen and at Empire State College. Additional continuing study with a variety of master artists and workshops.

Family: Husband, Peter W. Fisk

Home: Penfield

Hobbies: Sailing, hiking, walking her two basset hounds

Quote: “My focus is to design artwork that speaks to the ages. If it’s good design, it will endure.”