More than 50 years after Henry Halem designed a series of white glass sculptures inspired by the Kent State shootings, he decided to bring the imagery back to life, but for a different reason.
In 1969, Halem, a graduate with a BFA in ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from George Washington University, founded the glass art program at Kent State University.
At a time when the Vietnam War empowered social activism and fueled political debates, the May 4, 1970, Kent State shootings seemed to take center stage, influencing several genres of music and art. Among these works was Halem’s glass sculptures.
“The imagery was based on the shootings at Kent State and the blindness that the political system had in relationship to what young people were about in protesting the war. They were blind to the generation that was protesting. And, so, I made these blinded images that had their eyes covered,” Halem said.
“So, now I’ve taken that idea of the institution that had the power not being able to see the quandary that exists in the world today. So, we’ve been given eyes but we don’t see.”
Halem’s blinded glass sculptures began as a plaster of paris casting of one of his students faces, which was then abstracted to appear as though the face had been blinded. The casting was then used to make a mold from plaster of paris and silica mixed together in equal amounts by weight. White glass shards were then melted into the mold at 1450 degrees Fahrenheit, a slow process that takes a couple of hours.
Halem chose white glass because he says he likes “the colorlessness of the white starkness of it.”
Today, Halem is at it again, creating another series of blinded sculptures with the same plaster casting of his former student’s face, but this time for a different reason.
“I revived the imagery,” Halem said, “the blind imagery, to have the narrative of our blindness to the destruction of the earth, and who we are, and what we are.”
He has created seven blinded sculptures in the series so far, three of which are on display at Habatat Galleries Detroit.
Halem’s determination to sculpt began as a child in the Bronx, where he took art classes and learned to throw pots. Now, at 85 years old, he’s still making art.
Throughout the years, Halem has amassed a diverse set of techniques that are put into action with a little bit of know-how. He said no matter what he does regarding art, it gets “distilled” through what he has learned from his favorite book, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”
“The moral of that book was, in order to fix something, you have to know how it works,” Halem said. “So, my search is into finding out how things work. That, in itself, is what drives me, my curiosity as to how things work. When I understood that, it really opened up a whole world to me. Just call me old fashioned.”
Halem’s glass program at Kent State garnered an international reputation as one the best schools in the country, and he remains a patriarch of the glass art movement still to this day. His work can be seen at several galleries and museums around the world, including the Smithsonian Institution, the Corning Museum, the Hokkaido and Niijima museums in Japan and the Museum of Decorative Arts in the Czech Republic.
He is one of the co-founders of the Glass Art Society, and is also a recipient of their “Lifetime Achievement Award,” as well as several other awards.
If you’d like to learn more about Halem and see more examples of his art, you can visit his website at https://www.henryhalem.com.
