Barbara Bernstein Works

Biography

After many years of writing computer software.  Barbara Bernstein moved from her Brooklyn brownstone to a farmhouse in upstate New York.  She renovated her barn and opened a kilnforming studio there in 2001.

Barbara has studied glass-making at the Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass, Urban Glass, Pittsburgh Glass, and the Pilchuck Glass School. She has taught kiln-casting in Binghamton, New York and Dallas, Texas.

Artist's Statement

I am entranced with color, especially how it glows as light passes through the glass. In fact, the dictionary defines color as “that aspect of things that is caused by different qualities of the light reflected or emitted by them.” When I cast glass, I explore the relationship between glass and color and light.

My sculptures celebrate the diversity of the human form using glass. My sculptures are often abstract organic forms depicting the curves of the female body. These curves are like the rolling hills of the Southern Tier, and some of my pieces depict the body as landscape. I pay particular attention to the lines made by the boundaries of the body as well as its masses. Glass is hard and the human form is soft; the body is warm and glass is cold. It might seem paradoxical to use glass to make art about people; but I like paradoxes.