Susan Bloch

"My glass engravings are ideas illuminated by nature and time. I live by the ocean and love watching the waves reveal hidden objects in the sand. Walking on the solitary beach is a sensory experience full of light, air, mist, and brilliance. It provides everything. "

Susan Bloch's art expresses ideas about human vulnerability and strength. She uses qualities of glass to reflect on life. Faces and abstracts carved into glass simulate memories, visualizations, dreams, and intuition. She uses glass as a window to the common and miraculous spirit of humanity. She loves that glass is translucent yet reveals each mark on front, back, and especially, deep within.

Bloch combines deep carving in glass with various methods of mark-making to create depth, texture, and image. She employs imaginative methods developed over a lifetime of commissioned and artistic glassworking. Bloch moves from creating detailed images freehand with the nozzle and abrasive to using multiple layers of resist. She works with diamond bits, polishing points, and the heat of the kiln.

Bloch began her artistic career as a painter, eventually finding her way to glass. Philip Guston and David Hare were important teachers who inspired her to find her own path. She taught herself sand-blasting and developed a thriving commission glass studio. Bloch's enthusiasm for glass led her back to school for further glass studies at Alfred University with Fred Tschida and Steve Edwards.

READ MORE
Selected Exhibitions & Awards
Healdsburg Center for the Arts Glass & Clay Invitational, Healdsburg, Healdsburg, California, 2015
Contemporary International Engraved Glass, Red House Glass Cone, Stourbridge, UK, 2015
International Contemporary Engraved Glass, Morley Gallery, London, UK, 2014
Redwood Art Association Exhibition, Eureka, Eureka, Ca., 2014
Richmond Art Center Group Show, Richmond , Richmond, CA., 2013
Clay and Glass Biennial, Brea, Ca., 2017
Creamery District Public Art Grant, Arcata, Arcata, California, 2013
Artists Crossroads Grant: Arts of the Southern Fingerlakes, Elmira/Corning Airport, Corning, N.Y., 2003
Collections
DeLao Ocean Etching, Fortuna, Fortuna, California, 2012
Glass Commission, Eureka, Eureka, Ca, 2014