|
Sculptor, Delinda VanneBrightyn
(pronounced, "van
bri ten"), works in kiln-formed
glass, bronze, and ceramics to create contemporary figurative
and abstract works which speak of life, growth and revelation.
Perpetual movement certainly defines her life and career.
-
- VanneBrightyn lives and works in Taos,
New Mexico, "place of my heart and soul", she states.
Her glass studio is located next to the National Forest in the
foothills overlooking Taos and her mold-making studio is located
in Taos at Artifex. Her partner, Michael Walker, is also a sculptor
and is currently the most collectable art-knife maker in the
world.
-
- About her life: Born in Dallas, Texas, VanneBrightyn began at
age 14 with a career in the performing arts. She has graced the
stage with such extraordinary talents as Gene Kelly, Bob Hope,
and Ginger Rogers. Although VanneBrightyn has acted, modeled,
and served as a spokesperson on a weekly television show, her
primary love, focus and mastery was in dance. In 1977 she was
the Artistic Director of Sundance Professional Dance Artists,
a company working in both concert and commercial performance
venues. Her resume in dance is extensive.
-
- Since 1976, VanneBrightyn also worked
in fiber arts as an aside to the intense, fast pace of performance
art. She owned and operated a gift manufacturing business where
her designs were hand-sewn by 32 women and sold across the country
through the Los Angeles and New York Trade Marts. She was offered
a show of her original fiber art-works by a New York gallery
in 1979, but turned it down due a packed performing and manufacturing
schedule.
-
- In 1984, she suddenly found herself
in Taos. She was vacationing for a week and never left. This
unexpected move thrust her into a new world which intensified
her knowledge and passion for the visual arts. She became the
Director of the Rod Goebel Gallery, applying her expertise of
directing and marketing performing artists to visual art. However,
VanneBrightyn missed dance and moved back to Los Angeles at the
beginning of 1990. Coming home from a rehearsal late one evening,
she was hit by a drunk driver, ending the possibility of continuing
her career in dance. Her rehabilitation took several years. She
taught as much as she could physically manage, her students winning
the ballet competition at "Youth at the Greek", a Los
Angeles city-wide theater dance competition in 1997 and choreographed
"The Nutcracker Ballet" for the City of Los Angeles
in 1998.
-
- During her rehabilitation, VanneBrightyn
turned her main focus to visual arts, as dance was physically
difficult and painful. For 5 years she chaired an annual art
event for a large California non-profit. She taught art weekly
in several different media (including fiber, beads, sculpture,
and fused glass) and took the opportunity for extensive self-exploration
and learning. She designed a line of jewelry and her designs
were featured in Women's Wear Daily, Accent, and Accessory magazines.
She began to be invited to teach across the country in fiber
art and was invited to teach nationally at acclaimed art schools
and conferences such as the Medicino Art Center, the Taos Institute
of the Arts, Embellishment, Convergence (National Handweaver's
Guild), and Bead Expo. She wrote and published a book on weaving
with beads. Her art was purchased by private collectors and the
Smithsonian.
-
- About her life in Taos: Besides her art, VanneBrightyn is very active
in the community of Taos. She currently serves on the Board of
Directors for the Taos Center for the Arts and Taos Search and Rescue. VanneBrightyn is
a certified search-dog team with her K-9 white shepherd "Zatoichi"
and also serves as K-9 Unit Leader and Training Officer for Taos
Search and Rescue. "People, animals, the wilderness, the
arts...these are my passions", she responds when asked about
her volunteer work, "And service is a part of me. As I must
breathe to live, giving back to community is an intrinsic relationship
to living and my life." Sundance Performing Arts Center in Taos is
a community space owned by VanneBrightyn and is available at
low cost to performing and visual artists for classes, shows
and events. VanneBrightyn is a member of Glass Alliance - New Mexico, a guild comprised
of artists, galleries, and collectors of contemporary studio
art glass. Glass
Alliance – New Mexico is a non-profit organization whose
mission is to further the development and appreciation of contemporary
studio art glass.
-
- About her current artwork: At the end of 1999, Delinda moved back to Taos
and stopped teaching so she could focus solely on her own art.
In 2003, she decided to change her primary medium to glass. She
was most interested in kiln-formed glass, particularly pate de
verre techniques. In 2005, Delinda traveled to Switzerland to
study with master glass artist Linda Ethier. She has attended
the Bullseye Glass Learning Center in Portland, Oregon, studied
with Alicia Lome in pate de verre techniques and again with Linda
Ethier in kiln-casting. During this time she experimented and
perfected the techniques necessary in order to realize what she
envisions in glass.
-
- Today she works in the rigorous processes
necessary to render her work in sculptural kiln-formed glass,
utilizing a combination of pate de verre and solid glass casting
techniques. Her work is clearly influenced by her past career
in dance, as the work has been called 'graceful', 'moving', 'powerful'
and 'deeply rooted with meaning and intention'.
- "The change to sculpture was natural
for me," states VanneBrightyn. "Although dance is a
performance art, it is wholly visual. Dance is about creating
lines through space and their relationship to each other in a
way which evokes the observer to feel or think about the relationship.
To me, sculpture is a similar expression, only fixed in time,
and therefore, timeless."
-
- VanneBrightyn has exhibited at LewAllen
Contemporary (Santa Fe, NM), Hawthorne Gallery (Springfield,
MO), Winterowd Gallery (Santa Fe, NM), Artifex (Taos, NM), Henningsen
Fine Art (Taos, NM), Salon MarGraff (Santa Fe, NM) and The Smithsonian
Museum (Washington, DC). She is currently represented by The
Edge (Santa Fe) and Hawthorne Gallery (Springfield, MO) and is
in private collections throughout the United States.
|
"Art is a passionate
dance
