MY SITE
About Me
Louisa Sanders is a multi faceted artist who primarily works with glass and bronze. Her sculptures are personal but explore the commonality of human emotions and experiences. Some themes she explores are grief, loneliness, infertility, alienation, sacrifice, survival, spirituality, freedom, authenticity, healing and resilience. She is inspired by the harsh environments she’s lived in and the challenging experiences she’s endured. Louisa’s love of nature, science, history, folk lore and self reflection are fuel for her creativity. Her drive to attain technical aptitude, to achieve higher learning and to develop self awareness all contribute to her art practice.
A daughter of artist parents, Louisa grew up in western New York State. She was encouraged to be creative since an early age and attended the Rochester School of the Arts public high school. There, she focused on visual arts, in particular sculpture. Her teacher Elizabeth Lyons, founder of More Fire in Rochester, NY, introduced students to glass blowing during a summer workshop at The Rochester Institute of Technology. This is when Louisa’s interest in glass as an artists’ medium started. Soon after, Louisa was awarded a scholarship to The Cleveland Institute of Art, where she majored in glass. Studying under the department head Brent Young, Louisa experienced a variety of glass making techniques and learned some valuable equipment construction and maintenance skills. It was during her education here that she developed her love of mold making and casting. The instruction in studio equipment design and fabrication led to her career in facility and equipment maintenance.
After the five year undergraduate program, Louisa moved to California to be closer to family. There, she experienced working in a variety of hot shops doing production glass blowing. She worked at an architectural glass studio. In 2006 Louisa became the glass department assistant at The Crucible, a not for profit industrial arts organization in Oakland. After years of volunteering and teaching there, the Crucible’s hot shop was built, and Louisa became one of the very first glass blowing faculty at The Crucible. Louisa has taught a variety of glass blowing classes as well as glass casting and iron casting classes. Combining her skills in both the glass hot shop and the foundry has allowed her to develop a body of work that incorporates both glass and metal into mixed media sculptures. She makes bronze sculptures in the foundry, then these sculptures are brought to the hot shop where she blows glass into them. Later the objects are patinated and assembled with more bronze parts or found objects.
In 2022, Louisa started to develop her skills in sculpting bas-relief portraiture and medallic art. Bas relief is a type of sculpting in which the figures are raised slightly from the background. Medallic art means pertaining to small hand sized bas-relief medals, an arts tradition steeped in history and tradition. She studied with Eugene Daub at his workshops that focused on this little know art form. She is influenced by 19th century American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and her own father, the painter and designer Robert John Sanders.
Louisa is exploring the intersection of technology, craft and fine art. She is designing sculptures using modeling software and fabricating them on her 3D printer. Example projects include designing and printing an optic mold and multi-part blow molds she casts in the foundry. Louisa utilizes these molds in the hot shop to make glass objects. Developing skills in technology fosters her creative growth. At the same time, practicing traditional sculptural techniques grounds her art practice and gives it a classical aesthetic. Combining materials, experimentation, and technique are fundamental elements of Louisa’s imaginative sculptures.
A daughter of artist parents, Louisa grew up in western New York State. She was encouraged to be creative since an early age and attended the Rochester School of the Arts public high school. There, she focused on visual arts, in particular sculpture. Her teacher Elizabeth Lyons, founder of More Fire in Rochester, NY, introduced students to glass blowing during a summer workshop at The Rochester Institute of Technology. This is when Louisa’s interest in glass as an artists’ medium started. Soon after, Louisa was awarded a scholarship to The Cleveland Institute of Art, where she majored in glass. Studying under the department head Brent Young, Louisa experienced a variety of glass making techniques and learned some valuable equipment construction and maintenance skills. It was during her education here that she developed her love of mold making and casting. The instruction in studio equipment design and fabrication led to her career in facility and equipment maintenance.
After the five year undergraduate program, Louisa moved to California to be closer to family. There, she experienced working in a variety of hot shops doing production glass blowing. She worked at an architectural glass studio. In 2006 Louisa became the glass department assistant at The Crucible, a not for profit industrial arts organization in Oakland. After years of volunteering and teaching there, the Crucible’s hot shop was built, and Louisa became one of the very first glass blowing faculty at The Crucible. Louisa has taught a variety of glass blowing classes as well as glass casting and iron casting classes. Combining her skills in both the glass hot shop and the foundry has allowed her to develop a body of work that incorporates both glass and metal into mixed media sculptures. She makes bronze sculptures in the foundry, then these sculptures are brought to the hot shop where she blows glass into them. Later the objects are patinated and assembled with more bronze parts or found objects.
In 2022, Louisa started to develop her skills in sculpting bas-relief portraiture and medallic art. Bas relief is a type of sculpting in which the figures are raised slightly from the background. Medallic art means pertaining to small hand sized bas-relief medals, an arts tradition steeped in history and tradition. She studied with Eugene Daub at his workshops that focused on this little know art form. She is influenced by 19th century American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and her own father, the painter and designer Robert John Sanders.
Louisa is exploring the intersection of technology, craft and fine art. She is designing sculptures using modeling software and fabricating them on her 3D printer. Example projects include designing and printing an optic mold and multi-part blow molds she casts in the foundry. Louisa utilizes these molds in the hot shop to make glass objects. Developing skills in technology fosters her creative growth. At the same time, practicing traditional sculptural techniques grounds her art practice and gives it a classical aesthetic. Combining materials, experimentation, and technique are fundamental elements of Louisa’s imaginative sculptures.
My WorkI am attracted to the intellectual and the imaginative. I want the viewer to consider ideas that are as vast as the cosmos; that are intimate, like the soul. I look to science, philosophy, mythology, and history to help me emphasize the humanistic and intuitive act of creation.
I am not interested in technical perfection, but freedom of expression. I want to make things of beauty, but also to make things that challenge the viewer to look inward, to develop equanimity, and to experience connectedness. What do we have in common with the seasons, the elements, the universe, or each other? We all transverse time and we can experience the transitions and cycles of all living matter. Art is fundamental to human expression. My life experiences have ushered me to deep connections with my true self and to question the meaning of everything. This flamed my desire to make material what is not. Carl Rogers said “the personal is the universal”, and this is congruent with my belief that what I make and how I express my authenticity can look familiar to my audience. |
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