Couple work together on artful glass creations
Call them a collaborative couple. Cleveland artists Marc Petrovic and Kari Russell-pool both are admired for their accomplished work in the medium of glass, but they share something else in common, too: The artists happen to be married.
Although their work differs in style and subject matter, the pair, perhaps inevitably, help each other out while working on their own pieces, Sherrie Gallerie owner Sherrie Hawk said.
“They collaborate, too, on works,” said Hawk, who has organized a new exhibit featuring works by Petrovic and Russell-pool at her gallery in the Short North. “Mark, actually, blows the birds that are in Kari’s pieces.”
The duo’s new show, “Navigating,” will continue through Nov. 30 at the gallery, which is open on Saturdays and by appointment; an online version, featuring a video tour of the show narrated by Hawk and used for this review, is available online at sherriegallerie.com.
Hawk said that it makes sense to display the two artists’ work in tandem.
“Somehow it shows their life better,” Hawk said. “When you walk through ... you can feel parenting, you can feel love, you can feel anxiety.”
While each artist displays distinctive qualities, when contemplated together, the viewer can perceive overlaps. Both Petrovic and Russell-pool, for example, meditate on the overarching theme of navigation.
Petrovic touches on the subject in a striking series of works depicting glass boats affixed to oversized maps that hang from gallery walls. Nine boats in muted tones cover a map in the piece “Lake Erie Life Boats,” while a single glass boat shares the surface of another map alongside other objects, including glass balls and a twig, in “Same River Twice.”
Vessels by Petrovic include glass bottles housing stacks of glass balls in which air bubbles form letters in each ball, spelling out “LOVE.” Another incorporates a horizontally positioned bottle containing a light-blue glass ship within it. The artist’s glass re-creations of birds — including meticulously rendered red-and-blue-marked birds in the “Petite Avian Pair” series — also suggest flight.
Russell-pool considers the concept of navigation from a different angle: Inside of looking outward, the artist creates cozy vessels with open latticework that practically beckon viewers inside. In “Headwinds,” the outline of a tea kettle is formed with leafy strands rendered in glass; nested on the object are glass blackberries and birds. The “Safe Tea” features the frame of a tea kettle that is inhabited by a yellow bird, occupying the vessel like a bird cage — one
wishes that it could fly off.
Particularly peaceful is a work in Russell-pool’s “Practice of Forgiveness” series, in which a glass arbor has at its center a drawing, made from carefully arranged bits of powdered glass, showing one of the couple’s children with hands clasped as though in prayer.
Taken together, Petrovic and RussellPool have created a calm, contemplative exhibit worth spending time with in person or virtually.
“One is playing off the other,” Hawk said of the couple. “Even though the works are so different, there’s a link in the emotion.”
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