 |
|
> main menu navigation <
|
|
 Bandon Glass Art Studio - A greater freedom of expression
Dutch and Aro Schulze have been well known in the world of Art Glass for over a decade. Aro, for her prized Coral Reef Paperweights, and Dutch for his large scale blown glass vases, the Dreamscape series, and his cast glass sculpture. In their first blown glass studio, which opened in 1991, they included a small retail space. People traveling along the West Coast Highway 101 pulled into their studio to watch them blow glass, and enjoyed buying pieces from the glassblowers themselves. A few years later Dutch and Aro had the opportunity to relocate into a new facility with a bigger gallery space right in the center of Bandon, Oregon. Located on the beautiful coast of Southern Organ, Bandon has long been a tourist destination, even before the world famous Bandon Dunes Golf Course was established. Now in its eighteenth year, Bandon Glass Art Studio has become well known as an extremely interesting gallery to visit. Not only because of the fascination of the glass blowing process itself, but also the collection of art glass objects in this gallery is quite different from that found in other glass galleries. Some of the work is purchased from other glass blowers whom Aro and Dutch have met over the years and whose work they admire. About half the work in the gallery is created in the studio on premises, by Dutch , Aro, or their son, Logan. Since they sell this work directly, and show it in their own gallery, it allows a great freedom of expression. This is because with the usual method of marketing glass, in which the artist sells the work wholesale to a glass gallery, the artist must create a product that is designed to be attractive enough to resale easily, and also be reproducible since the artist intends to provide many galleries with similar pieces. This system can be stifling to an artist. But the ability to sell directly, one of a kind, and sometimes "quirky" pieces is liberating. And now, with the internet, and this website, a great opportunity for the artist and for those who love glass art is available. Featured at Bandon Glass Art Studio is the work of Dutch,Aro and Logan Schulze and Art Glass in all of it’s forms; blown glass vessels such as blown glass bowls, blown glass platters, blown glass vases, wine goblets, champagne flutes, martini glasses, various GLASS CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS AND GLASS WINDOW ORNAMENTS, glass perfumers, glass salt and pepper shakers and glass teapots. Also available is a variety of Solid Art Glass; unique glass paperweights, glass marbles, mini sculptures of glass shells, glass starfish, glass waves and glass fish and Cast Glass Abstract Sculpture, Cast Glass Nude Sculpture and Cast Glass Relief Sculpture. |
|
|
About Dutch
Dutch graduated from the University of Missouri in 1968 and studied Art and Art History for a year at Wagner College in Bregenz, Austria.In the early 1970’s Dutch began sculpting in wood. Dutch’s style was representational and his subject was most often the human form.
He moved to the Southern Oregon Coast in 1975 and with fellow artists established a gallery from which he sold his wood sculptures. During this time Dutch sculpted with many different materials, and by 1985 he was creating glass sculpture using the pate’ de verre technique. With the opening of the Plum Trees Glass Studio at Sixes, Oregon, Dutch had access to hot glass and began making sand-cast glass sculpture.Soon he was assisting in the creation of large, blown-glass vessels at the Plum Trees Glass Studio, and beginning to learn the different skills involved in blowing glass. After three years of apprenticeship, Dutch built his own studio, Vitra Blown Glass, in 1991.Blown Glass is a medium that excels in rich and brilliant color. Dutch employs a color application technique that involves the layering of different transparent colors over opaque design patterns. This produces a subtly complex color background upon which he picks up hot twisted cane and murrini. The result is the flowing “ Dreamscape” effect which makes his blown work unique and recognizable.
Dutch also makes non-vessel, sculptural cast glass in addition to his blown glass work. He creates a sculpture in clay, then takes it through the lost wax mold making process, and casts the piece in a large kiln. It remains in the kiln, at a temperature of 900 degrees, for as long as two weeks before it can be safely removed. The mold is then chiseled off, and the surface of the sculpture is polished with diamond abrasives.
In 1997 Dutch and his wife, Aro, moved their hot shop to Bandon-By-The-Sea. Their facility is called Bandon Glass Art Studio. |
|
|
 About Aro
Aro Schulze began working with glass in 1989 and fusing hand-blown roundels, cane and murrini into one-of-a-kind jewelry. She sold her work on the West Coast as "Glass Reunion".
In 1991 Aro and her husband, Dutch Schulze, built Vitra Blown Glass Studio on Oregon's south coast, giving her the opportunity to work with hot glass. Since that time Aro has been creating a limited number of unique paperweights in her Coral Reef and Shining Sea series.
As she explores the beaches near her coastal home, Aro delights in the watery vignettes she encounters in her wanderings.
Aspiring to recreate and embellish, in glass, the amazing life forms hidden in the miniscule worlds of the tidepools secluded among the beach rocks, each paperweight she creates carries with it the energy of life at the edge of the Pacific.
The color combinations that she uses in creating the paperweight interiors draw on her background in watercolor. She finds that working with the transparant and opaque colors available to the glass artist has similarities with the mixing and layering of colors done by an artist working in watercolor or gouache.
Furnace glass in its fluid form, as 1200+ degrees F, is a perfect medium for replicating the watery world of sea anemones, jellyfish, and creatures-of-the-imagination. Reinventing these creatures in glass allows her to play with bold color combinations and the infinite variety of the Italian murrini form.
Aro's work is shown in fine galleries around the country.
In 1997 Aro and Dutch built the new hot glass studio in the sea side town of Bandon Oregon, where they continue to explore the possibilities of glass as a vehicle of expression. |
|
|
|
|
