A Conversation with Evan Voelbel
Glass artist, fabricator, and collaborator who created hand-blown glass lenses for ‘Place for Continuous Eye Contact’
Phaneron: Color Relativity (2021).
How did you first meet Bobby and what led to your collaboration on his "Place for Continuous Eye Contact" installations?
I first met Bobby during our first week at RISD at a house party. We almost immediately found common interests, talking about perception of reality and the difference between internal and external experiences of reality. We had many conversations about meditation and how people use various practices to reach a less somatic experience of reality.
“We quickly gravitated toward similar interests in using art – particularly light, color, sound, and meditation – to create experiences that transcend our physical limitations. These experiences can be very grounding and help people come together and look past individual differences when you’re aware of how subjective our entire experience of existence is.”
Bobby had some experience working with glass in Ohio, and when he found out I was in the glass program, we started talking about that. When he began making his spaces and machines, the first thing we collaborated on was developing these lenses that would help to diffuse the LED lights and make them less harsh, more integrated into the sculpture, and feel more aesthetically part of the environment rather than just a light source.
What were your initial impressions of Bobby's artistic vision when he approached you about creating hand-blown glass orbs for his installations?
I really appreciated the materials Bobby was working with – the pom-poms and other crafty materials. The LEDs felt out of place among these soft, tactile elements. Using glass lenses helped create a more cohesive feeling to the spaces he was creating.
Bobby wanted something that wouldn't be distracting. He wanted viewers to experience the changes in the environment within the space rather than noticing the light source itself, making the experience more immersive.
What unique technical challenges did you face when creating the glass lenses, and how did you overcome them?
Glass lenses on ‘Place for Continuous Eye Contact’ installation
Initially, we made about two dozen samples of different lens shapes. We ended up with a doorknob shape because it allows a lot of light to enter through the flat back of the lens. The constriction and the sphere at the end helps to magnify and diffuse the light in a way that's not too directional.
We tested all the different shapes and sizes we made and settled on two or three different variations. We also discovered that grinding or sandblasting the back of the pieces helped diffuse the light more effectively.
I always admired Bobby's practical approach. He would use hot glue for attaching many of the initial lenses, doing whatever was needed to get it done quickly and have the piece ready. It was very much a grad school mentality, but it worked well with all the other materials he used, and everything has held up well long-term.
How does Bobby's work with light and perception connect to your own artistic practice?
In both Bobby's installations and much of my work, the goal is creating immersive experiences about perception. You don't want people to be aware of the hardware or what's happening in the background so they can focus on being in the environment and what they're feeling in the moment.
So much work goes into details that are often never noticed or appreciated. We probably spent weeks figuring out the initial lens shape and then creating hundreds of them, tweaking them for every installation so they fit with the size and shape of the pom-poms and other materials in the piece; all so the technical elements almost disappear.
In my own practice, I've been doing a lot of installations with light and color. I've focused on using color and phenomenology as tools to address that threshold between reality as filtered through our senses and external reality. Color is an amazing tool for this because it's something we take for granted yet is inherently subjective.
“When you’re in these environments, you initially just see changing light, but after some time, you start noticing strange perceptual effects – patterns appear to move and change, creating a pseudo-psychedelic experience that leads most people to question what is actually happening.”
Both in Bobby's installations and in my work, the changing light within a space disrupts your sense of color constancy; a cognitive mechanism we use to maintain a consistent experience of reality.
What do you think makes Bobby's work unique in addressing themes of wellness and perception?
The analog nature of Bobby's work is crucial. We're so used to seeing projections, screens, and animations, but when you have a physical object in front of you, just a piece of glass that shouldn't be moving or changing, and suddenly it seems alive, it makes you question reality in a profound way. It raises questions about why something appears to be breathing or shifting when you know it's just material sitting there, with only the color of light changing.
Bobby's work does this very effectively. You see the pom-poms changing colors and patterns, which creates this very approachable effect. What initially might seem kitschy transforms as you spend time in the environment and begin to tune into the perceptual phenomena happening around you.
Approximately how many glass lenses did you create for Bobby's installations?
I created around 500 lenses over time. We were able to make over 100 a day when we were first producing them, but the process was spread out as each new project required a new batch. I worked with Ethan at Urban Glass on some of them as well, and I believe Ethan continued making more after I returned to Rhode Island and began traveling for residencies.
It's really nice to know that these pieces are still out there and that Bobby's work continues to be shown and experienced by people.
Looking ahead, how do you see Bobby's approach to art and wellness influencing the broader artistic community?
Bobby's work addresses what reality is and how we process it, raising questions about our shared humanity that go beyond our day-to-day existence. This exploration of perception through art offers a powerful way to connect people by highlighting our subjective experiences.
In my own work, I've been exploring similar themes, developing glass formulas with rare earth elements that can completely change color depending on the light source – appearing to shift from red to green, or from pink to yellow, without any noticeable change in the environment. These explorations address fundamental questions about what color is – not a physical property of objects but a product of how we process reality.
I think Bobby's legacy and approach to creating immersive, perceptual experiences provides an important model for artists looking to create work that transcends the merely visual and connects to deeper questions about human experience and consciousness.
Spooky Action at a Distance (2019) in Museum of American Glass at Wheaton Arts & Cultural Center
