sculpture

During an artist residency at the University of California in Berkeley, Christopher Wilmarth visited the glass studio of the nearby California College of Arts and Crafts, headed by Marvin Lipofsky (whose sculpture is also displayed in this gallery). Working with Lipofsky’s glassblowing students, Wilmarth began making a series of blown glass and metal sculptures that he titled "Breath." For him, blown glass symbolized frozen breath. It was a material that made breath visible. Wilmarth wrote about this series: "I have tried to make sculptures that evoke a spiritual disembodied state close to that of reverie, the kind of perfection I have found during my revelations or epiphanies. Understanding Mallarme was an epiphany in that I found myself in his poems." The writer Wilmarth refers to is the French symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarme (1842–1898).