
Kristina Logan lives in New Hampshire and is a professional artist making fine art glass beads and other glass work. Her work is in many collections including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Boston Museum of Fine Art. She is a leader and teacher in her field. I like her enthusiasm and that she embraced a new direction which lead to her career in glass. And her work is elegant.

H: PLEASE DISCUSS YOUR CHILDHOOD AND FORMATIVE YEARS AS THEY RELATE TO YOU BEING A CREATIVE INDIVIDUAL.
K: Most formative, I was raised by a single mom who was a Maker. She did fashion illustration for newspapers. In our house always, we were making. It was 2 dimensional: drawing. My grandmother was a seamstress, my Grandfather did faux painting for churches. We come from this lineage of making with your hands. As a little kid I hoped that I could make things with my hands for a living. I was known as the “best drawer” in school, tagged as “the artist kid”. I saw that [my mom] could draw and put food on the table.

I am really thankful to my mom. She didn’t follow convention. She would say, “Do whatever you want, the money will figure itself out along the way”. Money was never the end goal.
It worked. And it’s worked in a way that I’m really happy with what I do. I feel a great sense of satisfaction with being a maker. It is profound. I teach a lot of people and what they do is a hobby. I have this really elevated view of “Hobby” because it is something that you love, and it brings you joy. I have a very high belief in things that are made with your hands.
H: DID YOU STUDY FORMALLY AFTER HIGH SCHOOL?

K: I went to the University of New Hampshire. I have a Bachelors of Fine Arts with a concentration in sculpture. I was afraid of color. It’s funny, I work with color now. My senior thesis ended up being carved wooden figures.
I joke that my work develops over geologic time. I percolate. I make shifts and changes that are very subtle. They are very important to me, but they might be viewed as a tiny little shift. Instead of being wildly spontaneous I think I dig depth into my work.


H: IS THERE A WORD THAT DESCRIBES YOU, OR A PARTICULAR SKILL OR TALENT?
K: Patience. It is kind of a super-power, and a weakness. Patience brings me to a kind of quiet, or calm. “In the Zone”. Freedom. The outside world gets really quiet. It is not something that I’m enduring, it’s not a negative. It’s more of a place of Peace, and Quiet. I think I’ve cultivated it over time.
But as a weakness, is patience slowing me down? Keeping me from being spontaneous at times? Maybe. I’m proud of Patience. It is a place of comfort, for me.

H: SO AFTER YOU GOT YOUR DEGREE…
K: I worked at a cafe, had a little studio and was carving wood on the side. I knew nothing about glass art. [A friend] said, “Why not work for an artist and make money?” So I worked in Dan Daley’s studio for four years, learned a lot about glass. It was a different world, super high-end.

Glass seemed too “shiny”, too colorful. I wasn’t attracted to it. But I liked learning about it. I liked the technical aspects. Then I saw somebody flame-working, and thought it could be fun. I thought I could make glass beads for adorning my sculptures. Then I started making a little money. People were excited about them, so it ended up being a sense of freedom.
I had a very simple, kind of primal, connection to beads. Then I realized that beads connect people all over the world, cultures. There is an importance to this. I became invested in a bead as a sculptural object. Patience and steeping of information, like a tea bag steeps, slowly learning and learning. Becoming proud, that I fit into this continuum of beads in the world.
I wasn’t trained as a jeweler, so I came at it in this sculptural way. These little tiny things were sculptures to me, and I was not in the decorative arts at all.

I learned through asking questions of other people. I go at things today that are maybe not conventional. I would design, and then figure out how to make it. This was before the Internet. It was this funny little process. Working in 3 dimensions, there’s something about the technical challenges that I love. That light up my brain. Like how to fit things together.
There is power in creative making. Time spent on a piece, whether somebody really sees it or not, it’s at least important to the maker. I think that those are the pieces that last in the world.
H: PLEASE TALK ABOUT YOUR INSPIRATION AND PROCESS. DO YOU HAVE ROUTINES OR EXERCISES, OR THINGS THAT YOU DO?

K: Inspiration specifically, I get from architecture, and ancient objects. I like traveling. We went to Barcelona. My goodness! Talk about creative energy. Big spaces, strangely, I find really inspirational. As well as nature. You know how nature has mathematics? That part of nature. I rejuvenate myself by walking outside in the woods, the mountains.
It is important to me to make things with my hands for a living. It’s how I communicate to the world. It’s how I communicate with other people. It’s how I leave my mark after I’m not on the planet any more. The things I made will still be there, at least for a period of time. All that brings me great peace.
H: NOW, I’LL ASK THE OPPOSITE, WHICH IS CREATIVE BLOCK. DO YOU DEAL WITH THAT?

K: For me its almost like problem solving. Because I make functional objects, beads, I can always keep my hands busy.
So, I’m thinking of something that is percolating in the back of my mind. Is that a block? I’m not there yet. I make what I can make. I think the best when my hands are busy. I’m never idle. “Block” never keeps me from working. The work continues, and I don’t wait for inspiration. I work through it. If you keep on working, for me, ideas will come. In the process of making.

I’ll have to solve problems along the way. Design problems. But work begets work. I like to have a lot of the work around. All this smaller work, it inspires a larger piece.
H: WHAT ARE YOUR GUIDING PHILOSOPHIES OR MOTTOS; WHICH TIES INTO PERSONAL QUALITIES. AND ARE YOU AN INTROVERT OR EXTROVERT?
K: Introvert or extrovert… I think I have both. When teaching I just teach honestly what I know. I love hearing people’s stories, I love helping people with something they love to do. I really care about my students.

But for me, in my work, I need to be alone, quiet, by myself in order to fully create.
For mottos and philosophies, I’m trying to make the best work I can possibly make. I care about putting as much of myself into the work as possible. It’s pretty simple…the philosophy: I care. It’s about that patience, that care, that responsibility to make what’s true to me. Inside my heart.
H: WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES TO YOUR CREATIVE LIFE, AND HOW HAVE YOU DEALT WITH THEM? ALSO WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST REWARDS?
K: I think having kids, for both. The creative challenge was how to keep on making while having kids. And have the making not stop. It couldn’t stop. It was a great challenge, but I didn’t stop.

It taught me a lot about perseverance, and not having the studio be “precious”. At one point I had an antique cradle in the studio. My son would take naps in there. There were toys on the floor. The art wasn’t secluded from the everyday household. It was part of life. I have good feelings about that. It was hard, but I wouldn’t change it.
H: DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR CREATIVES?
K: I’d say: Make. Make.

You learn by making, you learn by doing. It all boils down to that quiet moment of really making what makes your heart sing. It’s all about your own relationship with the making process. I think it is important.
To see more about Kristina you can visit her website at: kristinalogan.com

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