{"id":26258,"date":"2014-08-07T15:03:51","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T21:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=26258"},"modified":"2025-10-24T13:13:39","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T20:13:39","slug":"josanne-glass-comfortably-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/josanne-glass-comfortably-free\/","title":{"rendered":"Josanne Glass: Comfortably Free"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Josanne Glass in her Salt Lake City studio. Photo by Shawn Rossiter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Comfort zones. We all have them. Some get stuck in them. Others use them to their best advantage.\u00a0 Some, who may be the type to be the most regulated by regimen, habit, routine, and ritual, may have a very tight comfort zone.\u00a0 Some within this category have the gift of wisdom, and are open to the receptivity of influence, are open to sound council or advice, know truth when they see it, are honest with life and their own lives. This comfort zone becomes a malleable entity to the betterment and propagation of life, happiness, productivity, and balance. This is an apt description of now well-seasoned artist Josanne Glass, who through a series of life influences, and despite describing herself as a \u201ccontrolled person,\u201d has been much in-tune with the rhythms of life. As a result, she is perpetually achieving greater and greater success as an artist, and as a human being.<\/p>\n

Born in Maine and raised across the United States with a military father, Glass attended high school and university in northern California before permanently settling in Utah in 1979. For 30 years she was in corporate America, working in human resources at a number of firms before deciding it was time to leave. \u201cAt some point,\u201d she said to herself, \u201cI\u2019ve got to do something with myself.\u201d That was in 2007, and since then Glass has been carving out her own niche in the artistic world, a journey that continues with exhibita of fine new abstract work at The Town Club and Phillips Gallery.<\/p>\n

In 2002, when Glass was still working a corporate job, a friend recommended she read Julia Cameron\u2019s \u201cThe Artist\u2019s Way.\u201d \u00a0She began many practices in the book, the most formative being \u201cmorning pages\u201d \u2014 three pages of writing she enjoys each morning on her garden bench.\u00a0 Initially she found herself writing about the same things every day. \u201cAt some point, when you keep writing about the same things every day, you\u2019ve got to make a decision,\u201d she says. \u201cYou either keep doing the same things over and over and over, nothing\u2019s going to change, or you change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glass looked to art for that change.\u00a0 She wrote: \u201cI always enjoyed art.\u00a0 That\u2019s a place to start.\u00a0 Let\u2019s see where it takes me.\u201d\u00a0 She saw an advertisement in\u00a0Catalyst Magazine<\/em>\u00a0for art classes taught by Bonnie Sucec, a rare and serendipitous advent.\u00a0 Glass was traveling to Boston three times a month for work, so she had the flexibility to take Fridays off and took Sucec\u2019s class. For five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the act of writing, I discovered how important art is to me,\u201d she says. \u201cI made a goal that I would have a show within two years.\u00a0 In two years I got Chapman Library.\u00a0 In five years I wanted to be at a place like Phillips or Finch Lane. In five years I had a show at Finch Lane.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her show at Finch Lane featured images of people reinterpreted from black-and-white photographs, including \u201cmadre,\u201d a portrait in which all elements are reduced to a few simple flattened planes and shapes without depth: tonally nuanced cappuccino background, chartreuse green sweater, a simple shield of swept back chestnut hair, fair ivory skin, strong black angled and linear eyebrows, vermillion red lips.\u00a0 The portrait is as simplified and reduced in form as Picasso\u2019s \u201cClassical period,\u201d which anticipated his full-blown Analytic cubism.<\/p>\n

It was at the time of her Finch Lane show that Glass decided to leave the corporate world behind. She was comfortably prepared for the transition, padded with interests; she had a lovely and charming home paid for, her son\u2019s private education at Reed College in Oregon settled, and she had Leo and Annie, two Welsh Terriers for she and her husband to look after.<\/p>\n

Ironically, now that she had more free time, Glass wasn\u2019t painting.
\n\u201cIt was hard at first, but you have to find a life rhythm,\u201d she says. \u201cIt took a bit.\u201d She worked one day a week for a friend, and then began working for A Gallery, where she met artist Jeff Juhlin, an encounter that turned out to be a catalytic turning point. Glass had been flying back and forth to California to take care of an ailing mother, and was sketching patterns of the land. When Juhlin saw them he said,\u201dThese are really good, keep on going.\u201d She finished 36 of the 9\u201d x 9\u201d works on paper and her life in paint really began. \u201cI needed the inspiration, and the angst with my mother in my life,\u201d she says, \u201cto realize how much I enjoyed making art again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glass describes herself as an extremely orderly and organized person, but when she\u2019s making art something else happens. \u201cArt is the one time where I absolutely lose control,\u201d she says. \u201cI absolutely do not pay attention to the time, do not think, oh my, I have to start supper, walk the dogs . . . the wall by my desk, it is trashed.\u201d<\/p>\n

She returned to exhibiting in 2013 with a handful of group shows and a solo exhibition at Phillips\u2019 Dibble Gallery.\u00a0 It was a turning point, an exhibit that introduced her shift to abstract art.\u00a0In works like \u201cthe conversation\u201d Glass relied on formal elements with a figural allusion, albeit iconic. Glass used a solid plane of cantaloupe orange within which two structures are set, one loosely resembling the other, with rounded, head-like forms and long rectangular shapes beneath, in brick red encased in a raw shadowy darkness.\u00a0 All areas of the painting are maximized for textural interest, including a swiveled pattern on the orange, and a linear pattern within the red, that echoed the form.\u00a0 This exercise in formal abandon, executed however with minute precision, would set the stage for her total abstractions soon to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbstraction just came to me,\u201d she says.\u00a0 \u201cIt just came to me.\u00a0 As soon as that happened I couldn\u2019t turn it off.\u00a0 I go to sleep in the night, I wake up in the morning, and I look at the world differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

That different gaze is evident in the abstractions that are currently on exhibit at The Town Club and Phillips Gallery. In these works, Glass is motivated by what she can control, yet inspired by those spontaneous elements that are outside her reach\u2014this propels her as an artist, and motivates and broadens her range.\u00a0 A power sander is her greatest tool, as it finds newness in surfaces and hidden colors and textures.\u00a0 She works, not with a brush, but with sponges and a trowel, to be at the same time well within controlled bounds, and yet allow for a sense of improbability that will push her limitations.\u00a0 She might make a mistake, but this is never removed, but incorporated to become a learning tool, as she is forever moving forward as an artist.<\/p>\n

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\u201cDisparate Acts of Being,\u201d is a seminal piece. One can see the conceptual thinking of the artist, an artist who may be controlled and absolutely structured in her life, but who is willing to try new expression, willing to let herself be freed from the absolute. There is a balance to the composition, yet at the same time structural irregularities, and a lack of the absolute, a loss of the precise, a direction towards the unexpected and the unpredictable.<\/p>\n

In \u201cBlue Streak\u201d we can see just how the artist is open to influences and honest, most of all, to herself. When she sees a passage where she likes something she has done, she is quick to build on that, and she focuses her work in that direction. Glass is intelligent and she is a learner, always learning, not only from mistakes, but also from progress. This composition is a marvelous accomplishment, both in its quality of color as well as in its structure. Each plane of hue has an intense richness and veining that invites the eye to travel vertically through the planes of color. There is a quasi-viscous quality to the intense honey yellow incorporated with marbled charcoal, or steel blue streaked and pulsating with iridescent opal. The red is shockingly scarlet, enriched with a ribboned ash.\u00a0 Yet there is an opaqueness to the plane of yellow between the blue and the red that is quite golden; it is not gilt, but the combination and application of tones makes it seem so, and the eye does not travel but relishes in this sonorous hue.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnintended Consequences\u201d and \u201cA Point in Time\u201d are two farther leaps forward, as Glass has captured, more comprehensively and effulgently, a sense of color within a sense of sensible structure, the relationships these planes have with one another. These planes are not exclusive entities, but complimentary. Each supports the other as one plane inspires the color of the other, until they cease to be distinct, but exist as one, on one canvas, one unity, different in quality, yet harmonious and together, in presence and articulation of color harmony and being. In \u201cUnintended Consequences\u201d the honey yellow with the high viscosity is a complement to the enriched scarlet on the right, equally as viscous, and in their like presences, they exist together, their color creating a relationship of being.\u00a0 This holds true in the very powerful \u201cA Point in Time\u201d as the viscous and charcoal tempered yellow is at one with the immense blue that allows the ash to streak through its plane, muting it like inky fingers.<\/p>\n

A final piece to consider is \u201cSubtext.\u201d The piece is a tapestry.\u00a0 Glass has not painted a grid, but has created a cohesive unit of individual elements of color and structure, that comes together magnificently. And this is very much redolent of the life of Josanne Glass, a tapestry of individual pieces of structure and color, that comes together by the force of her will and volition and indefatigable energy to create an astonishing life.\u00a0 \u201cI need that balance,\u201d says Glass,\u201d and that gives me the creative aspect, but that spills over into how I\u2019ve found community, which spills into family, and it\u2019s pretty cohesive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels really in balance now,\u201d says Glass, \u201cIt took me five years to find the right rhythm.\u00a0 I\u2019d always given back and I need to be a part of something bigger and that\u2019s why I\u2019m on the board for Art Access.\u00a0 That aspect of community, that aspect of creating art, that aspect of family, that aspect of home, the personal aspect of time I spend writing, everything influences the other, and if I wasn\u2019t controlled in getting stuff done, I wouldn\u2019t feel as free to make art.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she\u2019s making that art, she\u2019s free to let anything happen. \u201cBreak all of the rules,\u201d she says about working in the studio. \u201cIt is true that this time around I am not working for somebody else and I am playing by my own rules, and I\u2019m breaking art rules too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Glass herself, her abstract painting is cohesive, and the structure allows the color to marry, and to give life and fruition to the other, to \u201cspill over,\u201d to complement, to create an abundance, where each element is a viscous unity of exciting yet controlled elements, alive and fecund.\u00a0 With sensibilities of receptivity and honesty, and eagerness to community, family and otherness, Glass\u2019 life is a well-articulated, intelligently structured, and colorful tapestry, that just keeps getting better and better.<\/p>\n

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Josanne Glass is represented by\u00a0Phillips Gallery<\/a>\u00a0in Salt Lake City. Her works are currently on exhibit at The Town Club, a private club (1081 E South Temple, Salt Lake City, UT 84102), through September 8, and at Phillips\u2019 Gallery\u2019s Summer Group Exhibition through September 12.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Josanne Glass in her Salt Lake City studio. Photo by Shawn Rossiter. Comfort zones. We all have them. Some get stuck in them. Others use them to their best advantage.\u00a0 Some, who may be the type to be the most regulated by regimen, habit, routine, and ritual, may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":850,"featured_media":26290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,14],"tags":[1407,157],"class_list":["post-26258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artist_profiles","category-visual_arts","tag-josanne-glass","tag-phillips-gallery"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/josanne640.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-05 11:19:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/850"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26258"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97438,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26258\/revisions\/97438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}