evolution of citySCAPES

I’ve been creating citySCAPES for a while now. They all started with a goal of creating a ‘city font.’ I wanted to see if I could create a simple vocabulary that read as an abstract city, essentially like a line of text. I have a longstanding obsession with letter forms and have worked with text in many different forms.

This piece in my Proust series (collaboration with Dr. Virginia Barry’s book Scratch and Sniff Proust, the neuroscience of scent) was the original version of a ‘city font.’ Here a tiny French village.

 

Proust series | combray 18”x24” c Heather Hancock

The next commissioned cityscape was for a building lobby in my hometown, Evanston, IL. This piece kept the graphic font-like concept for the city element and added the foliage on top (a reference to both the city’s robust urban forest and the botanical imagery in the architectural details on the facade of the building). A graphic lake concept completed the bottom of the piece for a highly stylized cityscape.

City|Evanston hand cut glass c Heather Hancock

detail City|Evanston

For subsequent commissions clients requested more representational city skylines. San Diego was still an abstracted all white simple forms but now overall forms were informed by an actual skyline.

City|San Diego hand cut glass c Heather Hancock

SF skyline went further with specific SF buildings represented in a graphic style.

City|SF hand cut glass c Heather Hancock

And then came the NYC project with an imaginary skyline created based on the upper west side from central park. With much bigger panels, more detail could be included. And, of course, this project has the first reflection in glass (which I must do more of).

City | NYC 48”x36”x3 hand cut glass c Heather Hancock 2021

City | NYC 48”x36”x3 hand cut glass c Heather Hancock 2021

Recent proposals have me thinking about cityscapes again. The wheels are turning. I’m envisioning a more abstracted approach again. Love seeing the evolution of ideas with different projects and clients.

idea board | urban collage

I love when ideas intersect in new ways. My core interest is the aesthetics of information. In current work information-rich nature gets reduced to simple graphic versions, borrowing “built world” lines to convey natural imagery. City environments tend to be either information overwhelm—signage, street markings, infrastructure, material transitions, sanctioned and unsanctioned painting+markings, etc.—or uninteresting repetition, patterned or chaotic. I am interested in the compelling form of diverse kinds of information: textural/tactile, matte vs glossy/reflectance, structural, semantic, spatial, natural.

A recent idea board explores integrating REFLECT/architectural work and SCAN/abstract text forms into a dimensional urban collage. Recent technical discoveries with my ENCODE series free me to explore lovely minimalist compositions.

Love this approach and can’t wait to try something like this.

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hand held samples in the works

About a year and a half ago I made hand held samples available for client meetings and it has been a game changer. I always say that glass is “alive.” Holding a sample in hand, a viewer immediately understands how glass flickers and shimmers as it (or the viewer) moves around. Seeing glass in person also helps understand that the work is dimensional, on its way to sculptural. I consistently hear back from art consultant partners that samples make all the difference in conveying the ‘specialness’ of glass to clients, something that is so challenging to capture in static images.

Get in touch if you need samples for client meetings.

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ENCODE intersecting with REFLECT

Thrilled to see my ENCODE and REFLECT series in dialog. Techniques and approaches I’ve developed with ENCODE are driving new ideas for my REFLECT series.

Leave it to me to make work that is super hard to photograph. I love the subtlety of the ‘embossed’ grout-on-grout elements on the top corner. From a distance it looks like neutral texture. You gotta get close to see the full detail. Lots to explore with this approach.

detail REFLECT 6.1

ENCODE 3.8 ACT | REFLECT 6.1 | 20”x20” hand cut glass + texture c Heather Hancock 2022

layers. shadows. fragments.

January has been a month for exploring ideas and testing techniques. I have been thinking about how my two main groups of work, REFLECT and ENCODE, are related. Both series approach city as communication. REFLECT focuses on the vocabulary of architecture and the viewer’s role in perceiving the repetition and rhythms. ENCODE finds beauty in abstracted text forms, fragments of words and ideas, pointing to the ubiquitous signage, markings in the city. I can see these series will begin to interact.

detail | Reflect 6.1 2022

REFLECT 6.1 20”x20” urban layers

thinking bigger. much bigger.

I’m excited to be thinking about my biggest project yet.

I am developing concepts for a reception desk in a hospital. The clients have requested my interpretation of their rolling landscape. I’m enjoying the challenge of using my “precision line” approach for a landscape concept. My goal is to let glass speak for itself within a minimalist composition that offers a moment of beauty and interest in a busy healthcare environment.

I love coming full circle back to healthcare with my artwork. Much of the initial inspiration and impetus for my creative practice comes directly from working in hospitals. Thinking about how profoundly our physical surroundings impact our well-being led to my interest in exploring how art can be a powerful element in creating inviting, interesting spaces.

prelim sketching | approach to landscape c Heather Hancock 2022

creative holiday

Every year I love experimenting with a new ornament idea. Over the years there are have been painted mirrors, layered silver paper, and various attempts at folded paper. This year I wanted to do something with my translucent film that would transmit and reflect light. My son Milo has a 3D printer and designed the ornament holders w integrated hangers. Fun.

random urban inspo

i often get asked about art influences. The natural world is a constant source of inspiration with constant change and transformation. Another big source of inspiration is the random small moments I find in the city around me. Lines, materials, patterns, transitions that catch my eye. I have made it a habit to ‘notice what I notice’ even if I don’t always understand why. Here are few recent random finds.

new collection of prints

Yay! A new collection of prints is now available. Loving these glossy prints on film and glassine. Somehow they’re both bold and ephemeral at the same time. On a wood print stand, any amount of light makes them glow. Or they stay bold and saturated when framed with a bright white mat.

Every time I come back to these I see a new idea to explore and they keep evolving in such a fun way.

shop prints

Lobby installation: Scan/MOVE

Scan/MOVE 10 panels @6’x1.5’ hand cut glass + concrete c Heather Hancock 2021 | photo credit Art Matters

Exciting to see my work at a larger scale for a recent lobby installation project. The composition used abstracted versions of the clients’ core value “MOVE” translated into ten global languages. A rhythm of intricate cut glass is balanced with simple glass color rhythms using the clients’ corporate palette.

Scan/MOVE 10 panels @6’x1.5’ hand cut glass + concrete c Heather Hancock 2021 | photo credit Art Matters

Scan/MOVE 10 panels @6’x1.5’ hand cut glass + concrete c Heather Hancock 2021 | photo credit Art Matters