Karlyn Sutherland, Harbour House, Lybster: Folding (Study 2), 2012
dressed, polished and sandblasted Caithness stone, 8 x 7.125 x 0.5 inches
There is a universal desire to find, create, and discuss place. Place, differing from space or location, is experiential and exists between the subjective and objective realm. It is, as Gaston Bachelard explains, poetic, conflating memory, emotion, and the senses. A new conversation about place was sparked when two architects cum artists, Richard Parrish and Karlyn Sutherland, met in the highlands of Scotland during a residency at North Lands Creative Glass. Now an ocean apart, in Montana and Scotland respectively, the conversation has continued, culminating in an exhibition of kilnformed glass, drawing, and installation. The ideas that surround place - a sense of place, a place to call home, a private place - are unexceptional but these ideas are deeply tied to our sense of self and our experience of the world, which can range from inchoate emotion to explicit conception. There are, consequently, no definitive answers, only conversations.
Richard Parrish maintains a studio for kilnformed glass in Bozeman, Montana. He holds a Master of Architecture degree from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Idaho in Moscow. He was awarded best artist in his category at the Western Design Conference Exhibition in 2008 and 2009. His work was selected for the Corning Museum of Glass’ New Glass Review 27.
Originally from Lybster, in Caithness, Scotland, Karlyn Sutherland is currently studying towards a Ph.D. in Architecture at Edinburgh College of Art, where she is also a design tutor and research assistant. Her current work – explorations of light and shadow in architecture – draws upon personal experience of the derelict and historic buildings found along the Caithness coastline.