Avian Pair

Marc Petrovic’s sculptures, often assembled from multiple elements and incorporating different materials, focus on the theme of the journey, navigation, and time. Boats, maps, and birds are subjects that have occupied him over the last 20 years, and he has explored them through glassblowing, the gathering and assembly of found objects, and most recently fusing and hot-sculpting Bullseye glass. Petrovic is one of a growing group of international glass sculptors, including William Morris (American b. 1957) and Martin Janecký (Czech, b. 1980), who have been inspired by the work of the legendary glass sculptor Pino Signoretto (Italian, b. 1944). As a young man, Signoretto apprenticed to the even more famous Muranese master Alfredo Barbini (Italian, 1912–2007). Petrovic saw Signoretto work in 1990, when he was introduced to hot-sculpting glass a massiccio or “in the mass.” Unlike the technique of bit sculpting, in which hot bits of glass are added onto a molten gather of glass, a massiccio sculpting inolves pulling form from a large mass of molten glass at the furnace. Both are extremely demanding techniques. For Petrovic, process is key, but he also emphasizes the symbolic content of his work. He has always been drawn to representational forms, rather than explorations of color, and to outdoor activities that interest him, such as fishing and observing wildlife. One series of his work involved letters spelling symbolic words, contained in bottles or arranged on a wall. The same kind of meaning is “encoded,” as Petrovic says, into the patterns of his avians. A well-known metaphor for the soul, the bird is—for Petrovic—autobiographical, it is a vehicle to explore identity and place.