Veronica Andrus- Blaskievics:

My aim for my work has been to create a series of sculptural glass and mixed media objects that investigate and communicate my personal experience of loss and loss of culture.

I grew up with my grandparents in rural Transylvania, and the passing of my grandfather left me devastated and disoriented. Because of my circumstances, the loss of this individual also marks a loss of cultural identity for me. To examine this experience, I began a journey of healing through making.

Inspired by the traditional crafts omnipresent throughout my childhood, I started my studio-based research by developing a glass working process that would allow me to construct flexible glass objects. I wanted to weave sculptural objects that contained memories of my grandfather and referenced Transylvanian folk art and craft. These works were to maintain the link between my past and present. Based on assembling thousands of handmade components, the repetitive making process soon became meditative and introspective, and essential to realising the conceptual aims of my work to examine my experience of loss, and my experience of grieving.

The time spent weaving provides me the opportunity to reflect and mediate on the emotional response the work might bring up. I’m very attracted to the associations I have with my past and stories they come with already, and what layers of meaning I can add on.

I want to capture a memory and a movement in the glass, to give a sense of something present and alive, just like feelings and memories. But, at the same time, I hope to evoke a calm feeling, where yes, something is missing, but not something necessarily lost.