Reverse Glass Painting with Mother of Pearl - A Restoration Project

A while ago (about two months now!) I was approached by a friend with a new type of work for me to do, something I don't have the first idea how to do - restore a painting done on glass!

While I told her and her mother that I am not very knowledgeable when it comes to such things, that it didn't really matter since at this point this just have to throw it out, so anything (we'll see..) that I do to fix it will be an improvement.  Considering the fact there there are empty spots and flaking paints I hope that I really can't hurt it much more than nature already has. 

The front of the reverse painting on glass with mother-of-pearl accents

The back of the reverse painting on glass with mother-of-pearl accents

Before I just start going at it, I figured I should probably do a little research!  Here are some of the things I found:

A Helpful guide from Michaels Craft Store found HERE, including which type of acrylic or other paints to use.  It also mentions baking the paint/glass.  That sounds interesting doesn't it?  Not sure if that would help make this painting permanent or not.  Also taught me that I should make sure the glass is clean and what to clean it with.  Makes me wonder too if the rubbing alcohol will help get some of the paint off that's there already?

On ehow.com they have several different videos and information on painting on glass, projects to do, and more (click HERE to see them all).  I found this video to be helpful in knowing what painting supplies I will need:

Painting Glass: Choosing Glass Paints -- powered by ehow

On ehow.com I also found an article about Reverse Painting on Glass (found HERE), which is what this old painting is.  You view the art from the front of the glass, but all the paint is on the back of it.  It's kind of fun to read about the history of this artistic tradition.

Did you know there are still contemporary glass-painting artists out there today?  At Paintingonglass.com Andriy Khomyk makes and creates hundreds of them!  I found that what he said about technique and skill in regards to reverse painting on glass to be... well, daunting for a first time-attempter:

THE TECHNIQUE is not such complicated, as it appears to be. The image is carried on glass in exactly the same resulting in unique effects manner as on canvas, paper or wood; but when we look at the image, we look through the glass - which serves both as a support and a protective varnish. Everything is backwards from traditional painting. The working image is on the back of the glass. The viewer looks trough the glass on to the painted layers. Letters, symbols, and images are painted as the mirror image to how they normally read, in order to be correct when the glass is turned over to be viewed. Details or accents which would ordinarily be painted last, are painted first; the background, instead of being painted first, is last. All the details have to be correct as it is not possible to make corrections without destroying the underlying work. When the painting is finished the glass is turned over and displayed with the paint behind the glass. Therefore, three "reverses" take place: the paint is applied in reverse order, the glass is turned over when the painting is completed, and the design or painting is seen in reverse -- that is, the right-hand side of the pattern appears on the left-hand side through the glass. When painting on glass special care must be taken in the selection of the color palette due to the primacy of color. The synergy of paint and glass has a depth and luminousness unlikely in any other medium. Painting on glass is a very time-consuming and difficult handicraft operation. There is no place for a mistake because this what you first paint will always be in the front of the painting and you have no possibility to change it.  

 In fact I am a little hesitant to even start working on the piece at all because I feel like as soon as I touch it it may start completely falling apart!  I found this message board (found HERE) that makes me feel even more that way, especially the last comment that says: "We had a similar piece artwork [an old reverse painting with mother of pearl accents that needed to be restored some] brought to our gallery for repair. I took it to the woman who does our restoration. She wouldn't touch it. She said once they are opened up to air they start deteriorating."

Reverse Painting on Glass close-up leftside

Reverse painting on glass close-up middle

Reverse painting on glass close-up rightside

I also found a painting (found HERE) very much like the one I was given, (maybe even the same artist? what do you think?) that someone had appraised at around $150, but the piece I have is much larger.

It seems that there are a lot of people (see THIS forum) where people are wondering what to do with their in-laws, grandparents old reverse glass paintings and don't know their worth. 

I guess the question I have to anyone who might know about these type of works of art is should I even attempt to "fix" this piece?

The people who gave it to me have had it sitting in their garage for years (I believe) and the husband really liked it but now it's un-hangeable since it looks so bad, and therefore, I believe probably has no real value anymore.  Should I just do my best?  I feel once I start working on it, and getting in there I am going to have to remove more and more of the original painting...  Will it be worth my time?

Josiah McElheny - Glass Blower Artist

Note from the author: I wrote this in college for an art criticism class.  I have cited my references and hope you will always do that same.  Copyright infringement is NO good.  If you click on the images it will take you to the website I took them from.  Also, please do not use this as your own paper.  Cheating is NO good.

Josiah McElheny – Glass Blower

            Josiah McElheny stands apart from his art contemporaries as a trained hands-on artist who puts meaning behind his works.  McElheny is a New York based artist who creates works of beautiful hand blown glass.   His glass objects are alluring, simply because of the fact that they're made of glass.  No matter how humble a simple drinking glass may be, there's always a mystery to it; because it's solid and transparent, and it's solid and it's fragile.[1] McElheny is an expert glassblower and artist, taking inspirations from books, classic paintings, history, and objects he sees around him.  He reacts to art and culture of both the past and the present.  McElheny’s glassblowing techniques and his stylistic elements create a unique venture from his contemporaries as he turns ideas into productions.

            Josiah McElheny, a MacArthur fellow, went to the Rhode Island School of Design to study photography originally, but the glass department captured his interests more.  He loved the very exclusive, secretive guild community of the glass factory culture, and its long oral preservation and small circle of people who understood its language and methodology.   The production of glass is expensive and difficult, and requires a number of people working together in a sort of apprenticeship tradition.[2]   He went on to study with several glass masters, honing his skills, and becoming a master himself, possessing a familiarity with methods that date back centuries.

McElheny uses his craft as he continues to explore what has become his primary field of interest in recent years: questioning the legacy of Modernism, and probing the very function of art—its use in a world in which our relation to objects is almost exclusively that of consumers rather than of producers.[3]  McElheny exploits the nature of glass, in a true modernist feel in many of his works, by having the viewer contemplate the materialality of the glass—its transparency, reflection, illumination, and emptiness. Some of his stances on Modernism include claiming glass as the ultimate modern material because its nature is transparency and perfection, a twentieth century bigoted idea of being perfect, without differences.  Most of his pieces play on the idea of Modernity, its influence in the past as well as the present.  He himself often follows the Modernist idea that process and materials dictate form.[4]

One of McElheny's real strengths is creating visually enthralling pieces, as well as involving complex ideas about modernity, history, and science.  McElheny integrates thought and action with the voices of many disciplines: sociology, history, philosophy, and psychology. Through his art and the research it entails, he seems to be on an all-encompassing mission—to understand the world and his place in it.[5] Josiah McElheny stated: 

My work is generated from the study of the culture and ideas connected to objects, whether contemporary or antique. I believe that all cultural, physical manifestations are on a continuum. A contemporary art object exists with all the associations we apply to it. And it changes. To be human and alive is to respond to the ideas of others and of yourself and to apply those ideas to the physical world.[6]

Many of McElheny’s pieces try to tap into central human questions of who we are and where we come from; what, if anything, is original about us—of our own aspirations in a confusing world, full of endless ideologies and competing influences.[7] “Politically, I’m against finding the single answer,” McElheny insists. “I’m more interested in what these questions mean to our sense of who we are.[8]

He does not believe in creating “original” art, because all of his work is derived from some previous source, and what he’s doing is re-imagining something or shifting or transforming it slightly but always very much in connection to its source.  He is interested in the past, especially because art is essentially a physical remnant of a moment.[9] His desire is to bring these objects and ideas and contexts into the modern world.  The way in which he does so is by masterfully creating these seductive, reflective pieces that are so attractive to the general public.  He believes that in today’s materialistic society that if something is to be of value then it has to have a kind of gravity and importance to it.  He gets the viewer into his works with his highly or all-reflective objects, because the viewer sees himself in it.  In other ways he tries to create a perfect, pristine utopian feel to his works.[10]

 I believe his works accomplish all that McElheny sets out to do concerning his artistic methodologies.  McElheny’s works are intoxicating to look at and to study.  They capture and awe you.  I am greatly impressed with his research and training. Very few artists today seem to care about expertise or craftsmanship, especially those who remove their hands completely from the production process.  I personally think that art has been slandered and defaced by contemporary artists who love pushing the limits of art.  I believe there should be a mastering of craft and skill.  Because of McElheny and other 20^th and 21^st Century glass-blowers, glass-blowing can no longer been seen only as a craft or a trade.  McElheny has emphasized the materiality of glass in a very Greenbergian fashion of Modernism, and done so powerfully. 

His works are not about “sticking it to the man” or using common everyday materials in new ways just to make art.  He creates legitimate, beautiful, stand alone works that aren’t about making art for art’s sake.  They are about something.  He reacts to art and culture of both the past and present, but does so with a real honed and learned skill.  This makes him and his works unique.

Bibliography

Art: 21--Art in the Twenty-First Century Season 3, Episode: "Memory". Directed by PBS Home

Programs. Performed by Josiah McElheny. 2005.

 Browne, Alex. "The Big Picture." New York Times, September 26, 2008: MM64.

Hixson, Kathryn. "Glass, Apprenticeship, and Josiah McElheney." New Art Examiner, 2001: 72.

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. January 28, 2009.

http://www.museoreinasofia.es/exposiciones/expos-pasadas/2009/josiah

mcelheny_en.html (accessed Oct 22, 2009).

Tarlow, Lois. "Profile: Josiah McElheny." ArtNew England, Ag/S 2002: 21-23.

Volk, Gregory. "An Infinity of Objects." Art in America, 2006: 166-169.

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[1] Lois Tarlow, "Profile: Josiah McElheny," Art New England, Ag/S 2002: 22

[2]  Lois Tarlow, "Profile: Josiah McElheny," Art New England, Ag/S 2002: 21.

[3] Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia,”Josiah McElheny-A Space for an Island Universe,”  January 28, 2009; available fromhttp://www.museoreinasofia.es/exposiciones/expos-pasadas/2009/josiah-mcelheny_en.html Internet;  accessed June 11, 2009).

[4] Kathryn Hixson, "Glass, Apprenticeship, and Josiah McElheney," New Art Examiner, 2001: 72.

[5] Lois Tarlow, "Profile: Josiah McElheny," Art New England, Ag/S 2002: 21.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Gregory Volk, "An Infinity of Objects," Art in America, 2006: 169

[8] Alex Browne, "The Big Picture," New York Times, September 26, 2008: MM64.

[9] Art: 21--Art in the Twenty-First Century Season 3, Episode: "Memory," Directed by PBS Home Programs; performed by Josiah McElheny, 2005.

[10] Ibid.