Cerulean Cube. Toland Sand, artist
On Thursday, September 6, Bender Gallery will host an opening reception for its newest exhibition, Linear Angularity. The exhibition features six new sculptures from glass artist Toland Sand. Sand is known for his “cold worked” sculptures, which are created by painstakingly cutting, grinding, bonding together and polishing optical crystal and dichroic glass. “We are especially excited to premiere the collaborations between Sand and David Patchen, a San Francisco-based glassblower known for his murrini work,” says gallery co-owner Bernadette Bender. Murrini is an Italian term for colored patterns or images made in long rods of glass that are revealed when cut into cross-sections.
Sand’s sculptures are made using both leaded and non-leaded optical crystal, dichroic coated glass, tinted adhesive and acrylic paints. An innovator, Sand is the first glass artist to combine these mediums in this way. “In 1983, I was looking for some glasses that would be optical—crystal clear—and that also had some color,” he says. “There was basically nothing out there. Dichroic fit the bill and I started to use it, gluing it with other forms of glass as the coloring agent.” Each of Sand’s sculptures takes about six weeks to complete.
Of the title for his show, Sand says, “You can see from my pieces that I’m heavily into geometry, so these two words fit quite well. The new pieces will also be geometric, but will have new elements and shapes, as well as the murrini.” The reception for Linear Angularity will be held at the gallery from 5–8 p.m. and the exhibition runs through October 20.
Bender Gallery is located at 29 Biltmore Avenue in downtown Asheville. For more information, visit bendergallery.com or call the gallery at 828.505.8341.
