Viking_Yearbook_78

44 Howard's incli.nation to go beyond the prescribed doesn 't stop at i.he shop but continues on into his work. His interest in glass was sparked after he saw a demonstra– tion in glass blowing at Cannon Beach in 1976. At the time he was doing illustrations but found " I had a real proficien– cy in glass and my ideas could be expressed better with that medium." Howard first approached glass " from a more craft approach but found that was rather limiting. I wanted to make glass a more contemporary art medium, like paint– ing. " So once again Howard took himself beyond the establish– ed arid came up with a nE" '' process for dealing with glass. Shortly after his visit to 1 '-luck Glass Center in Stanton, Washington, t he idea of hb .e.w process began to form . " I felt glass blowing was limite j in that it revolved around a point of center. I wanted to get involved in a more sculptural element so I got interested in casting, which allowed me to use the glass in another way." Essentially his process is an adaptation of the casting process used in metal. Howard will spend from six to eight hours preparation time making a mold out of sand. Once the mold is complete, he pours molten glass in ; out comes -his glass in a more structural look than that arrived at by blowing. " My approach is to take the properties of glass– t ransparencies, tension , opaqueness, the sleek cold effect, etc.-to present my ideas. J use the glass in more than just a blowing form. The glass is molten . It' s a medium." The progress Howard has made on his art has been on a purely individual level. " I've gotten a lot out of working here but it is a state university, which creates a certain amount of problems. Ifeel glass continues at PSU due to the students. There is little support from the Art Department. " I brought in two speakers last year with money donated by students ... I feel this is the responsibility of the faculty and not the students. " Anot tier problem is that people in America don 't have much culture and the glass culture is very industrialized. They don 't see glass as an art form ."