Among the participants in the Cottage Street Holiday Sale in Easthampton.
Piper Foreso, who is among the artists participating in the Cottage Street Holiday Sale in Easthampton, on Dec. 5, 6, 7, and 14, used to dream up ideas with her Tinkertoys, and the inner workings of deconstructed clocks, with the skills her father taught her in his New Jersey woodshop. Now when it comes to art, she’s working with glass, found objects, and stainless and carbon steels.
"DragonFlies," a 14-foot sculpture of a Chinese dragon, created by Piper Foreso of Piper Glass and Steel of Easthamtpon. “I was thrilled to win the Peoples’ Choice award. The excitement of designing and fabricating the dragon was really rewarding for me, but the joy of seeing so many people enjoy and appreciate her was really the icing on the cake,” Foreso said.
"DragonFlies" took two months to complete with numerous hours spent making the scales, from recycled soda and beer cans donated to the project by friends and neighbors. Fortunately, the work was portable, and Foreso was able to take hundreds of cans home at night, or to Maine on her summer vacation.
The dragon itself is lightweight, around 75 pounds, with the head and frame made of steel rods. The size of the project was a challenge in her studio, a small one known around the world.
Foreso has been commissioned to create stained glass windows that have been hand-carried by a courier to Kuwait, carefully packed to send on their way to Bermuda, and created in tandem with a New York City theatrical set artist for Martin Scorsese’s mausoleum.
After months of viewing and voting, "“DragonFlies”" was selected as the audience favorite. Hundreds of people attended the closing ceremonies, which featured a parade along the sculpture trail, led by the Expandable Brass Band and a feast catered by Apollo Grill.
“When the parade arrived at my dragon, I was presented with the award, while the band led everyone in a ‘Go Piper’ chant and I danced under the dragon. It was quite silly and fun!,” she said.
Foreso, a Northampton resident, has a studio in Easthampton’s Cottage Street Studios. where she combines glass and found mechanical parts to create indoor and outdoor sculpture, as well as lighting, gates, trellises and any other object she can think up.
“Inspiration pops up just about anywhere, sometimes it can catch me by surprise in a child’s drawing taped on a refrigerator, or an image on a TV commercial,” she said. “I’m a one person studio, it doesn’t take too much to keep me busy. I sell my work at art shows, on the internet and work on custom projects from time to time.”
In the late 1980s, Foreso took a six-week stained glass class at the Cambridge Adult Education Center in Boston, her first ever art class.
She said that it was a major turning point in her life, and finding a natural ability for the mechanics of the craft, the self-described “Jill-of-all-Trades” said that the art captured her heart unlike anything she had ever done in her entire life.
“When I enrolled in the stained glass class, I was working as the business manager of a small construction company, and I had just completed two years of business school where I was working on an MBA. It was a big surprise to me to discover that I really wanted to be an artist even though I was in a program geared to big business,” she said.
After the class wrapped, she immersed herself in learning about glass. She read books, talked to glass artists and practiced making projects for the windows in her own house.
“I made a lot of mistakes and learned slowly, but surely over time. I only made windows that were architecturally installed, and the Boston area was a great place for them because there is so much stained glass in that city,” she said.
After moving to Northampton, she started making glass jewelry and spent the next decade featuring her work in regional craft shows and galleries nationwide.
Now she’s learning to work with metal and found objects. She’s even enrolled in an evening welding class at a Springfield Technical High School.
“My friend, Rob (Lamothe), who runs R & L Sheet Metal in Easthampton, has been incredibly supportive both in helping me complete larger projects and teaching me a great deal about metal. Most of the tools and equipment have come from yard sales and flea markets,” she said. “These tools have been broken in by very skilled craftsmen, and I feel like some of that skill is passed along with the tool.”
Foreso’s studio schedule is determined by deadlines, upcoming events and creative ideas that she wants to pursue. She works well under pressure, and the weeks prior to a show are often her most productive.
“One of the great pleasures of being a studio artist is having a flexible schedule. That said, there are times when I work seven days a week. Happily, I might add!” she said.
Art from the Piper Glass and Steel studio and many others will be on display at the Cottage Street Holiday Sale in Easthampton, on Dec. 5, 6, 7, and 14. More details at cottagestreetstudios.com.
“I’ve participated in the Holiday Sale for 17 years now. It is organized by a fantastic group of talented, committed, hard-working artists, and so much fun because it’s very well attended. There’s a high level of energy and excitement in the building,” she said.
Foreso is excited about next Art in the Orchard exhibit, scheduled for 2015.
“I’m already thinking about what I’d like to create plus we’re talking about installing the dragon on a zip line, which would be a blast!” she said.
To learn more about Piper Foreso and her work, visit piperglassandsteel.com.