Between Membrane and Microclimate

Abstract

James Carpenter is a unique practitioner, but in what field exactly it is hard to say. He is an artist whose development was profoundly influenced by an intense involvement with an essential aspect of modern building technology — namely plate glass in all its multifarious applications. So, while he was first trained briefly in architecture and then in sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design, graduating in 1972, the singularly most decisive experience of his formation as a designer seems to have been the decade that he subsequently spent as a consultant to the Corning Glass Works in Corning, New York. In this undertaking he was sponsored by Thomas Buechner, director of the Corning Museum of Glass, felt that it would be advantageous for the company to have a talented in-house artist involved in the research and development. While Carpenter continued to work as an independent artist, the advisory position enabled him to participate in the evolution of new materials, including photo-responsive glass and various forms of vitreous ceramics. Most of the research in which he participated was oriented towards architecture as the field most capable of utilizing sophisticated glass technology as a new means for manipulating light, shade, and surface effect.