Visiting Artist Residency: April 22 - 26, 2009
Conversation with the Artist: April 26, 2pm Theater

Artist Biography
Flo Perkins makes cool things about moments captured, the invisible, and the familiar as iconic or ironic. Whether of the natural world or of the urban environment, Perkins is developing themes about adaptive survival, disappearance, and change, using fragility, humor and beauty. Following hunches and going with the unforeseen, she continues evolving a personal iconography and style that is internationally recognized. Not knowing where this work will lead enriches the mystery for the creative process which keeps an artist honest.

Perkins has exhibited in Europe and Asia and is included in many books on Contemporary Glass. She has lectured and taught throughout the United States, and lives in the desert of northern New Mexico.

Artist Statement
Flo Perkins considers herself a translator. She makes things about things, ideas, moments, and the invisible. Decades of her profession have been based on two questions: Will this form translate into blown glass? How is an idea made? Art comes from diligence and hard work, but what is it that makes one pursue a fleeting moment with great conviction? How does the creative flicker develop in to an idea? The artist believes that “great faith, great doubt, and great determination” play the lead roles in this process.

An artist in the sculptural tradition, Perkins based the first part of her career on the natural world. Botanical imagery dominated the early years. Glass acquiesced to Perkins and became elaborate cacti, floral bouquets, living vines, and allowed itself to be shaped by the concept of weather, specifically the wind.

Perkins’ work appeals to technicians and artists of all media, as well as critics of all genres. “I have learned to make things well and beautifully.” Perkins speaks on her medium - In order to create in the world of glass, one must delve into knowing this unpredictable material and the elaborate process of its becoming something.

It is the mystery of the creative process that Perkins finds most rewarding.