Mary Heintjes

ARTIST PROFILE

RE: Painting, Drawing, Photography, Stained Glass Design/Restoration and Welded steel fused with glass

Reacting to the environment has always encompassed a threshold that inspires my art.  Grasping onto sites in nature that stirs some inner desire to draw, paint, weld and photograph keeps me always drawing, painting, welding and photographing and planning future work.  I strive to learn all the means necessary to convey emotional expressions but have always found drawing on paper to touch the fragile details that burst the barrier to conquer profound observation.  There remains a distant view and always some wish to capture.

In the endeavor to continue progress in self-expression, I have reconnected with welding.  Creating welded steel via oxy-acetylene, the process allows for freedom to be whimsical, playful; forming nature related organic inspired pieces.  Once the welded steel sculpture is completed, I fuse glass onto it in a glass kiln.  It has been a wonderful journey.  The welded art is being named after the © ELEMENTS of the periodic table.  Since while welding, my mind wonders about the mysteries of science and basic elements of life, this series is well named.  Welding allows for drawing in space and capturing movement that holds steady in midst of full swing of what the arms and hands can do while forming the shapes incorporating heat on steel and careful bending with metal shaping tools and forging.

Life brings an ongoing search for strength, ideas, creating through fatigue and injury and wondrous moments of discovery. Try to never stop exploring art, science and music through it all especially in the medium of glasswork, welding, painting, flute and bass clarinet. Experienced being part of an exhibition at a prestigious museum: Belskie Museum of Art and Science.   Thrive on the museum philosophy of being enlightening and academic.

My work and interest in stained glass has made me very sensitive to light passing through a surface in my fine artwork.  Keeping working and keeping an open spirit to an unconscious flow to the meaningful aspects of life and being alive, somehow guides me.  Curious about light, glass and nature, I have been exploring glass and water and investigating the result in an array of prisms and organic forms in the sunlight as a brushless painting on canvas held by a structure of welded forms.

Mary Rieser Heintjes 2022