This April, artist Kelly O’Dell will be showing new work in Ancient Futures,a joint exhibition with Diné (Navajo) artist Ryan Singer at Blue Rain Gallery’s Santa Fe location. O'Dell will be highlighting blown glass sculptures inspired by prehistory, geology, archaeology and paleontology, rooted in the artist’s background in math and science. Some of the pieces draw inspiration from dinosaurs and fossils.
Sunrise, blown and sculpted glass, 11½ x 14½ x 7 in.
O’Dell’s work operates like a speculative archive; objects feel at once ancient and eerily alive,” says gallery manager Leah Garcia.. “Through blown-glass dinosaurs, ammonites and specimen-like forms, she invites us to consider prehistory not as something distant but as a mirror of our present moment. These works ask what survives, what disappears and what we choose to remember.”
O’Dell shares that her latest body of work focuses on color. The transparency of the ammonites—as in Sunrise and Wishing Stones—motivate the artist to keep experimenting with color density.
“I can’t get enough of the color transitions,” O’Dell says. “I’ll choose two transparent colors: one color bleeds into the next, and the spectrum in between is what I really love to see.”
Memento, blown and sculpted chalcedonia glass, 10 x 7 x 10 in.
The dinosaurs are also color experiments, as in the case of Memento, inspired by the concept of memento mori (remember that you must die). “I’ll pair an opaque color with another, and hope for reactions between the metals in those colors,” says O’Dell. “Those reactions can often make a third color, like a delicate halo around a spot on the dinosaur’s frill. Most glass artists don’t usually know the specific recipes of the color we use, and most of us don’t have the luxury to melt our own color, so experimenting can render some surprises—and disasters.”
Most glass color is manufactured, so artists have a defined, rigid color palette to work with. However, experimenting with color combinations can open a portal into a whole new palette.
In O’Dell’s Wishing Stone pieces, we see a myriad of vibrant, swirling color. “These are inspired by the stones you find on the beach,” says the artist. “I think I first heard of their significance in a story my husband told me before we moved to Lopez Island. The beaches are heavily strewn with them here, and all over the planet, if you really look. Undocumented folklore suggests that the pebbles you find with an unbroken circle of quartz or calcite hold the power to grant a wish. These glass pieces are pretty loose, happy-go-lucky and all about color.”
Specimen, hot-fused Murrine, ladle cast and fire polished, 13 x 11½ x 4 in.
Also among the show collection are ammonites captured in works like Sunrise. These coiled cephalopods became extinct 65 million years ago, leaving impressions in marine habitats to then fossilize. “Today, we can hold this time-teller in hand, and if we take a close look, we can notice the great difference between us,” O’Dell says. “I think about what we will leave behind when we are gone, and what index fossils buried in our particular strata of time will look like.”
Coming from Hawai’i, a place where active volcanoes constantly rumbled and gurgled, O’Dell grew up obsessed with her own mortality. She says, “I used to think, ‘am I going to wake up surrounded by lava tomorrow?’ Our human existence has so much impact on the delicate balance of life, causing and inspiring extinction—our own species included. I hope my artwork serves as a reminder, or ‘memento,’ of our borrowed time.”
Wishing Stones, blown glass, Left: 14 x 7½ x 4½ in., Right: 13½ x 7 x 4 in.
Head to Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe, from April 10 through 23 to view the show in its entirety. A reception will be held on the opening day from 4 to 6 p.m. —
Blue Rain Gallery 544 S. Guadalupe Street • Santa Fe, NM 87501 • (505) 954-9902 • www.blueraingallery.com
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