|
Home | Standard
M | Mini M | Large
M | Slab M | Panels
Flowers | Geo
Flat M | Gyra M | Large
Abstract M | Wire
Mobiles
Comments
from customers | Display ideas
| Privacy Policy | Publications
PUBLICATIONS
ON ARTIST JENNIFER MITCHELL
________________________________________________
|
|
|
|
NICHE
Awards
|
|
|
|
|
The Upwardly Mobile
Looking for something that will
really move your sales? Add some
color and whimsy to your stock
with mobiles. Alexander Calder,
considered by most to be the
inventor of the mobile, once said,
"Above all, art should be
fun." A quarter of a century
after his death, artists are
heeding that sentiment, using
wire, glass and other materials to
create art that moves.
Where does a graduate in animal
science/office manager at a law
firm/mom fit into the world of
mobile making? The seacoast of New
Hampshire, apparently. Jennifer
Mitchell of Jemglass Studio
(603-502-2407) creates her mobiles
from hand-blown, slab and stained
glass, preferring to work with
geometrical shapes and patterns
but also creating flowers that
have a realistic appeal. [Call for
Wholesale
prices].
—Kris Stewart
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Artist Jennifer Mitchell is featured in
this publication by Marthe Le Van.
Marthe Le Van
|
|
A standard mobile as it appears in the book
By
Gary Dennis
Union Leader Staff
ROM
HER NEW Warner hideaway, Jennifer Mitchell is bringing beautifully balanced
light into the homes across the world through chunks of glass. Mitchell’s
world is all about balance. But while so many today try to achieve some sort of
equilibrium as they multitask and fill their daily schedules, the balance
Mitchell guns for is a little different.
Sure, she balances time and attention among her
husband, young son and the “three fellas” – that’s a shaggy terrier,
giant schnauzer, and a standard schnauzer.
Another balancing act was weighing a move from busy
Portsmouth
west to the artsy and hilly
village
of
Warner
that she hoped would act as
inspiration for her craft. The scales tipped in favor of the westward move.
Artistically
speaking, she poises and balances the aforementioned glass into mobiles
structures and shapes, gently terracing the colorful blocks on lengths of brass
rod so as to keep absolute gravitational symmetry. The mobiles hang perfectly
straight, describing her success.
Some hang in the windows of her new handsome home in Warner. On this bright day
sunlight dances through them, adding a decorative dimension to a room with white
walls and minimal color.
 |
|
Her training? None really, aside from learning how to work with stained glass
from a friend a few years ago. Then it was the mere observation of other mobile
crafts she’s seen at gift shops and the like. It was kind of trial-and-error
education that lead to her pieces now.
A college degree – animal science, from the
University
of
New Hampshire
– never came into play.
She, husband Robert Gainor, and son Aidan, have lived
in Warner for four weeks on a short country road just a stone’s throw from
town. So far they love it – the property size is 15 times bigger than the
small postage stamp slice they owned in
Portsmouth
.
Mitchell is quick to point out happily that a
snowmobile trail goes right by the house – a feature some might consider a
negative. The views from the several windows around the house are the hills
that surround Warner. They’re country now – and they love it.
Before Aidan was born, Mitchell was an office worker
at a law firm. Her foray into the artistic glass world was made possible by her
decision to be a stay-at-home-mom. Young Aidan has some of mom’s artistic
qualities – “He draws rocket ships,” she says with a chuckle.”
She’s being modest about her boy. At the ripe age of
7, Aidan has already shown an interest in his mother’s work, and has already
learned how to cut and grind the glass himself.
“Aidan
is a very creative and focused little boy – I am so happy that he’s able to
express himself artistically,” Mitchell said.
He recently designed a wire and glass fish by himself,
bending steel wire until he got the desired shape. Then he added brightly
colored glass to it and attached it to the steel frame. And he then sold his
piece to Mitchell for $3.
“If I worked really hard at this I could make a good living.” She said. But
she doesn’t need or want to -
husband Robert is a lawyer in
Concord
and she really doesn’t want her
Jemglass Studio business to outgrow the studio she’s made atop her new two
car garage.
It’s in that small space where she keeps her tools
– a band saw, wet blade tile cutter, hammers, chisels, soldering equipment.
She takes the chunks of glass – its called Blenko glass from
West Virginia
and
Kokomo
glass from a town of that name in
Indiana
– and thins them out and then
scores, cuts, shapes and sands them.
She
surrounds the edge of the glass with copper wire and then solders a bead of lead
around that. The lead allows her to connect the glass to other colors of same to
create her art.
Then
there’s the balancing act. She starts from the bottom, hanging her glass
creations on opposing ends of a thin brass bar. Then she connects a wire to the
bar wherever it allows the glass of different weights to balance horizontally.
She
connects that wire to another bar and does it again working her way up. The
result is the multi-tiered mobile; most go about three or four levels high.
An
average mobile from Mitchell will sell for $32 – “You can find ones similar
to this (made by others) at $3,000,” she said.
Her
mobiles are made up of every color and pastel. They’re composed of arbitrary
shapes – circles, triangles, squares.
Creating mobiles is quite a balancing act
MOBILES
----------------------
(Continued
from Page F1)
 |
|
Some
pieces aren’t even mobiles, rather they’re sand-alone pieces like flowers.
Recently her www.glassmobiles.com web site –
where she gets all of her business now – landed her an order of 35 of those
pieces with the Clairol hair products company.
“They used them as gifts to send along with press
information, “ she said.
Another marketing firm just approached her and
wanted a 4,000-piece order for similar purposes – she turned them down.
“Four thousand by the end of April – ay, ay,
ay,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to get too big . . . this is my handiwork.
This is what I do. But I would like to go huge with the pieces them-selves.”
She’d welcome work creating a large-scale version
of her mobiles – “Like if a hotel lobby wanted something like that I’d do
it,” she said.
Something else that will likely keep Jemglass
Studio a small one person operation: Mitchell isn’t a highly social animal.
Husband Robert is, though, and he’s more for turning her talent for working
with glass into a money making operation.
It was mainly his idea to move out of
Portsmouth
, an idea she agreed with after the taxes on their
home and tiny plot of land went up more than $3000. And he’s the webmaster”
as she calls him, who markets Mitchell’s work on the internet.
It was the Internet site where she was noticed by
Marthe Le Van, an author who penned “Simple Glass Crafts” that features
Mitchell’s work. She also appeared in another glossy magazine “Niche,” a
guide for “progressive retailers.”
She’ll custom make the pieces for those who
contact her through the site. She’ll shape, color and size any mobile
according to any specs.
Warner
is a great place to do this kind of work., she said, even though she’s yet to
explore the town’s artistic social scene.
“Warner is home to over 125 businesses, artists
and artisans” reads a pamphlet/map for the town. And starting four weeks ago,
Mitchell makes it more than 126.
 From
February, 2004
From March, 2005
Showcase
Magazine - 3/23/00
Going mobile with Portsmouth’s Jennifer Mitchell
By JL STEVENS
Showcase Editor
 |
| Artist
Jennifer Mitchell in her Portsmouth studio.— |
Designing
a mobile takes care, creativity and most importantly
balance. If the right side doesn’t jibe with the left side, your
construction is for naught. Balance is also the key to artist
Jennifer Mitchell’s life right now, as she keeps her craft, family
and creativity in pleasant equilibrium.
Graduated from UNH with
a degree in Animal Science, and
having done a stint as a waitress at The Stone Church when her
brother Eric Mitchell was part owner, the former office manager
is now a full-time mother and mobile maker.
To be fair, she does other things with her spare
time and
makes other items from glass, besides her marvelous mobiles.
After the birth of her son Aidan Mitchell Gainor, she planned to
return to her job as office manager at a local law firm. That was
five years ago. "I’m trying to avoid the work world," says the
denim-clad artist. "This is my way of staying home."
She still has her
original inspiration hanging in her kitchen.
It’s a mobile made out of glass by a New Jersey artist, the
state in which Mitchell was raised. Her mother fell in love with
the mobile, many year’s ago, and bought it for her daughter.
About
two year’s ago, Mitchell took basic stained glass
lessons with friend, Jeff Haus, and was hooked. The mobile
making she picked up on her own by visiting glass shops and
gleaning advice from kind souls.
"I just started doing it because it was fun to
do," says Mitchell of her foray
into the fragile art. Her first mobile shines in a window off her kitchen,
and she is quick to point out its
flaws. "I was very sparing with the glass," says Mitchell.
Unsure how to balance each piece, she made
shapes identical to each other for weight and counterweight. Mitchell has
since learned the key to
balance is working from the bottom up.
"It’s
very physical working with glass. You have to grind it, you have to wear
goggles, and there are
chemicals," says Mitchell, demonstrating her actions with her hands.
She has to grind the shapes,
smooth the edges and clean and then fill them with copper foil. "I
like round shapes," Mitchell says.
 |
| “A mobile is a
piece of poetry that dances with the joy of life.”— Alexander
Calder |
Her mobiles
are either pastel — different clears, champagne, pale pink, blue,
green or bright — or more intense jewel colors such as red, teal and
bright green.
There’s a palette for every season.
"It’s very seasonal
work, with the season seeming to start earlier and earlier
this year," Mitchell says. Last year, she began working in February,
but there are
always craft shows to apply to. In December, her work was featured at the
Strawberry Banke Craft Fair and at the Button Factory open house, where
mobiles
sold out before the second day. This year, so far, the artist has been
accepted into several high-end shows, including on May 28 and 29; Crafts
at the
Playhouse, Ogunquit Playhouse, Route 1, Ogunquit, Maine on June 17; Art in
the
Park and York Art Association, Moulton Park, Route 1A York Harbor, Maine,
on
Sept. 16. And of course, her mobiles can always be found hanging on her
Web
site, managed and updated by her husband Robert Gainor) at
www.glassmobiles.com.
When asked
whether her art is called "kinetic," Mitchell laughs.
"That’s what my husband
calls it. I call it whimsical." Whimsical also describes her other glass
creations: flowers in
wonder jewel tones and pastels. Her bouquets don’t smell delightful like
the flowers seen from
her studio come spring, but they are just as beautiful.
She has recently completed her first order placed over her
Web site. It’s a stained glass
window panel with beiges, browns and whites in Job glass, which is
glass woven in streams.
The panel should make its owner in Illinois, who has only seen a
prospective image via the World Wide
Web, very happy.
One of the nicest
responses Mitchell has received from her art also came via the Internet.
A woman ordered a mobile for her husband and he wrote an email to
Mitchell. "He thanked me
and said he started crying when he opened it, it thrilled him that
much." Then there was the in-person
reception her work received at one show. "Probably one of the best
(responses) was someone whose
father recently passed away. Her father used to make glass mobiles and she
said, ‘I’ve never seen
anyone make them. I’m so excited.’"
Mitchell uses many
different types of glasses with names such as Yakain, Uroboros,
Youghiogheny and Wismach. She uses a circle cutter and handcutters.
And she never makes
mistakes. "Oh yeah," corrects Mitchell, laughing, as she
points to various piles of glass in her studio. "Some
I’l
l reuse, some I’ll just donate to my husband."
Husband Robert Gainor
is a lawyer and college professor, and he makes steppingstones out of
Mitchell’s "mistakes" and leftovers. You can spot his
treasures lining the stairway to the family’s Portsmouth home. Son,
Aidan Mitchell Gainor, is also artistic, "he is 4 and he likes to
draw shapes on glass for me." He also draws books. Mitchell is also
from a semi-artistic family and always dreamed of owning a craft store
when she was little. "I think this is my niche," Mitchell
says.
Thankful for her husband’s
support, Mitchell is quick to point out their key difference. Mitchell is
shy. Gainor is not. "He’s really talkative and robust and he really
markets this. He pushes me that
extra step." The ceiling in the house on Sherburne Avenue might also
want to thank Mitchell’s husband, "Otherwise," she says,
"I’d be making tons of them and putting them all over my
house."
*The article has been updated to reflect pertinent factual changes such as
current web site address.
Discover Mitchell’s work at
www.glassmobiles.com
|
|
he Le Van has
held the positions of glass curator and creative
director of a contemporary art gallery. She has
also coordinated glass exhibitions for national
and international galleries and museums.
