Michiko Sakano

Japanese Born Glass Artist Michiko Sakano was raised in culturally rich Kanazawa on the West Coast of Japan. Her upbringing and influence of traditional Japanese aesthetics — incorporating minimalism, discipline of line, original design and the rigor of handcraft shaped Michiko's perspective early and continue to guide her approach to glass today. Sakano has been a major part of the Glass and Design communities in Brooklyn for more than fifteen years.

Glass is fragile, strong, hard, and flexible. Glass can be explosive under stress and it can break quickly for simple reasons. These characteristics of glass all exist within this series. My intentions when making the Rock Cups, are to play with everyday objects by making them slightly off; asymmetrical, uneven, and unbalanced with the pure colored glass “rocks”.

The ‘tumblers’ or cylindrical forms here represent ordinary the ordinary mundane activities of life. The added rock forms represent the hardships encountered in recent times, while bringing color and texture and are also made from glass in one of its purest states. They are made from recycled glass color, a leftover waste from glass making in the hot shop. The materiality connects the two forms, creating a dialog about process.

I have always liked the textures and pure concentration of pigment in glass color as shown here. This group of utilitarian objects share tension and create contradiction in the same space.