Johnathon Turner

GALLERY

ARTIST STATEMENT

Life has a way of giving us opportunities to explore a wide range of vivid contrasts and incongruous overlaps. My own odyssey into art and into glassmaking began with an earnest exploration into science – geology in particular, an extremely visually stimulating practice – which then led to an interest and investigation into visual art, which helped me navigate the troubling waters of the slow demise of a parent during my undergraduate studies at the university. This exploration into creativity was an extension of my background of building stuff and drawing things that are in my DNA -- though I was never a student per se. Glassmaking began for me in 1988 at San Jose State University, with Mary White, where glassblowing brought me some purpose and peace as I worked to reconcile the early death of my mum from a long and painful bout with multiple myeloma.

Glassblowing offered a deep dive into a mode of expression that was physically engaging, creatively stimulating, spontaneous, rewarding, and seemingly instantaneous. It took me no time at all to become completely hooked, as was my cohort in the glass department at that time. We always managed to get ourselves into the studio – even at odd hours – to continue our practice. Over many years of practicing glassblowing, I developed bodies of glasswork that often defied the norm – vessels that rolled around with the slightest touch, glasswork that flouted the preconceived preciousness of the material, and eventually glasswork that brought me back to my studies in geology and explicitly explored the visuals of that area of science – which had initially propelled me into this artistic engagement. I received a Fulbright Scholarship to study glass in Australia and was led to new conceptual frontiers and technical processes. These gave me the liberty to pursue imagery, surface, and form in ways I had not considered before. Klaus Moje schooled me into the secrets of kiln-formed glass, while Stephen Procter mentored me in the esoteric aspects of coldworking glass. Both opened up new realms of expression for me. Suddenly I could paint, draw, and texture the glass -- as well as sculpt it.

Simultaneously, street art – large, eye-catching, colorful, mind-bending murals, often with seemingly unreadable geometric and/or topologic fonts -- began going viral, showing up in locales that had never hosted art before. I loved how the dimension of color and movement permeated over what was before just a boring gray cement wall. It’s as if a veil had been lifted to show what an enhanced universe could look like. I began blowing vessels with street art text imagery -- words that required perceptive viewing to

decipher. I realized that a flat form presented a more useful visual draw for this forma and for faster comprehension of my intent so I moved to board shape -- which resonated with the origins and influences of the street art scene. Board riding has often been seen as a rebellious act -- seemingly a waste of time and energy – and skateboarding still has that stigma, surfing has held for years, and snowboarding has is still not fully sanctioned despite the massive industry that has grown around it. I grew up in this culture here in the coast of California – skating (made my first skateboard in woodshop in 1975) and surfing -- so I understood the defiance, and how alluringly universal it all is. Skating, and often street art, make no bones about being a snub to the notion always being constantly productive -- something that is ingrained into our Western lives. There’s an anti-capitalist undercurrent here, which is both an act of youthful folly and continued message of hope for a better world.

It is within the intersection of this (almost) indecipherable text, board-riding culture, defiance of the preciousness of glass, and my own bumpy personal narrative that this body of work was spawned. Each word on the boards is autobiographical, a reminder of a point of struggle/triumph in my life story, encoded in the form of an outstretched text on a board shape – which alludes to the journey, the full ride, that is taken during a lifetime. These boards provide a vehicle for this reflection – perhaps a modicum of inflection -- and a confessional mode of expression, giving way to openly find some reconciliation with the past – and a way to embrace loss -- while holding a space for what will come next.