NEW YORK — Metalsmith Myra Mimlitsch-Gray’s Studies in Enamelware with Sienna Patti Contemporary were featured during New York’s Collective Design fair (May 3 – 7, 2017).
Above image: Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Porcelain enamel on steel, 6 × 14 × 10 inches
Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Black and White Double Spout, 2014, Porcelain enamel on steel, 5 2/5 × 4 1/2 × 3 1/2 inches
Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Black and White Double Spout (detail), 2014, Porcelain enamel on steel, 5 2/5 × 4 1/2 × 3 1/2 inches.
Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Rolled Out Tube, 2015, Porcelain enamel on steel, 3 × 12 × 6 1/2 inches. Click for larger image
Mimlitsch-Gray employs a process in which she coats her steel sculptures in vitreous, porcelain enamel. Porcelain enamel is generally used in industrial applications to protect surfaces from chemical and physical damage, modify the structural characteristics of the substrate and improve the appearance of the product.
From Mimlitsch-Gray’s Artist Statement:
I produce objects as portraits and social indicators. By implying or impeding function I reinterpret utility as a critical strategy. I create wares that are both present and representational, embodying the specifics while also portraying variant roles and circumstances. Deliberately tentative, this work investigates facture, explores gesture and embodies utilitarian notions.
Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Red and White Pitcher, 2015, Porcelain enamel on steel, 5 × 9 × 7 1/2 inches. Click for larger image
Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Stretched Platters, 2014, Porcelain enamel on steel, 3 × 26 1/2 × 6 inches. Click for larger image
Mimlitsch-Gray earned her Master of Fine Arts degree at Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1986, and her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Philadelphia College of Art in 1984. A Professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, Mimlitsch-Gray received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1998. Awards include the 2014 Individual Artist Fellowship in Crafts/Sculpture from the New York Foundation for the Arts; the 2012 United States Artists Glasgow Fellowship in Craft and Traditional Arts, and Individual Artist Fellowships from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation (1995), the National Endowment for the Arts (1994), and the New York Foundation for the Arts (1997, 2005).
Images courtesy the artist.
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Fascinating. I’d love to see a compositional comparison between glaze and vitreous enamel recipes, mostly just to satisfy my own curiosity. Anywho, thanks for your efforts at cfile, I really enjoy this publication.