Points North; Segments on Cover Art, Glass-Blowing, and Sculpture

This time on points north will meet a guy who paints romance novel covers for a living. Then take a look at the revival of a modern glassblowing industry and witness the artistic resurrection of West Rutland. Hi welcome to points north. I'm friends daughter when it's cold outside there's nothing like cuddling up with a good book and reading to your heart's content. But let's face it some books such as romance novels are way eristic unrealistic simplistic. But I must say they do have beautifully crafted covers. Well we met up with one of the industry's best illustrators an artist who lives right here in Vermont and found out how he creates these passionate steamy covers. The art of illustration has long been a big part of everyday American life here in the

land of advertising. Commercial success often rides on an artist's ability to turn concept into image. Sometimes it's as simple as producing a tantalizing likeness of a tangible commodity like soda in a can. But the most successful illustrators have been able to sell by combining image and emotion to convey something about the human condition easily the most famous name and sentimental illustration Vermonter Norman Rockwell had an uncanny talent for portraying social and cultural currents in a unexpectedly humorous way. Rockwell painted the broadest cleans of his day Nation home and family with the finest brush strokes in illustration history and in turn helped sell millions of magazines. And the romance was certainly not at the top of his list. Rockwell couldn't help but address this most basic of human instinct always in the most innocent terms. But things have changed since he is seducing him. I chose to

have her be the more dominant role. This is the brave new look in romantic illustration and one of today's hottest commercial art venues. And this is Mike McGovern one of the top illustrators in his field. I love painting people especially beautiful people and beautiful settings. Every illustrator from advertising to editorial to other fields other than romance has a certain image. I work in a contemporary feel of romance. Working in a 10 by 12 foot bedroom turned studio in his rural Vermont home. McGovern has made a career for himself painting intimate cover scenes for romance novels. There are about nine to a dozen different romance novel series and each series has maybe six to eight books that are published each month. Harlequin which I basically work for exclusively published in about 100 books a year.

So it's a very steady lucrative field for me to be and especially compared to what he used to make as a portrait artist. McGovern gave this early freehand drawing of Stevie Nicks to the pop singer as a gift. Since discovering his present career Mike has produced over 100 romantic paintings that have made their way onto the covers of Harlequin novel. Among today's romance cover illustrators McGovern is a traditionalist still relying on pencil brush and paints rather than computers to bring a scene to life. Some artist can do them one every two days or something where it takes me at least a good week. Their mouths are so close that only a hair could fit between them. And even that would be snug. Their eyes are half open as well and this at sensuality in a really nice way. I first received factsheets from the art director. And this information spells out what exactly they want to see on the cover it tells you where the scene takes place how what kind of a mood it is a level of

sensuality. Once they have a pretty good idea of what the art director is after I get my background reference. That involves going through magazines looking for just the right atmosphere or location. Then I'm ready to send the information to the photographer in New York. Who sets up the photo shoot make sure that the proper wardrobe is available. Props might be needed. Flowers and he's a master at it does probably eat shoots a day and they're all for romance in him he shouts at the models. He gets into the twisting turning and just really get them into it he's like a movie director. After the photo shoot the transparencies are then shipped to me overnight and into the patient and getting them is very exciting because one of those shots is going to be the basis for my cover. I look them over knowing that the art director is going to make the ultimate decision on which one to use her pick for the illustration.

I drew my sketch on the actual illustration board that the painting will be going to die. It's a very deep field drawing it. It takes me anywhere from six to eight hours. When the sketch is completed. I will reduce it down a half mile Levon. I will then send it overnight back to the art director. She will care or I'll make this little adjustment or tune this up a little bit here

that the heroine's chain is for tubing one little bit too much. You can be a little bit more smile here I think. Open the eyes up a little bit so there's this little subtle things that sometimes they ask for. Then I can go into the painting. Usually takes me anywhere from 40 to maybe 60 hours to complete the painting. I start with the background. And then I work on the clothing. I always do the skin tones last because it's the most important value in the overall illustration.

The third and final layer is just going back and adding subtle highlights and sharpening things up. And then it's ready to step into a photo lab where the painting is photographed transparencies are then sent to Harlequin. And it's very exciting. Getting to see that final book on the newsstand and pick it up and say wow there's that painting that I did you know six months ago with all that work I put into it. Having done over a hundred covers I've got to know some of the models and it's almost like getting to meet one of your favorite actors. There's even one couple who are married and I've used them together over the over half a dozen coverage and I've even given them original pieces because I just felt like to have them hanging in their. House. What I'm trying to do is create a magical moment between two people very romantic.

Situation. I mean we all dream about falling in love and that love everlasting love. Throughout time and I still go to pick up one of these books and excavate into that fantasy they came together in a blazing kiss. Michael's arms went around Isabel lifting her up against his chest until her feet dangled off the ground and never breaking. He walked with her in the apartment and shut the door. Romance novels now account for over half of the paperback sold today. That's two hundred million books a year times three dollars and fifty cents. The business of boy meets girl has never been healthier. Love at first sight. Live happily ever after. Sounds silly but is that romantic. You are the girl the prince says he must marry. So the friend Cinderella went to the palace and married the prince and they were happily ever after.

You're. Glass was first manufactured in Egypt around 2000 B.C. Europe later picked up the pace and technique of shaping glass objects first in Venice then in France and England. The early 1900s brought a thriving glassblowing industry to Vermont but that's disappeared. But now glassblowing is experiencing a revival that is a smashing success. Alan Goldfarb runs a small glass blowing studio in Burlington's old north and a native New Yorker came here because it seemed like a peaceful place to live where he could work quietly work hard.

Less gently. Harder. Hit. So we just texted this thing in a mo. And then twisted it. For. Good. Goldfarb studio on North Avenue is only a few blocks from where Vermont last knowing industry once thrived in the eighteen hundreds of factories made consumer goods like window glass business was good. For my it was an attractive place for a new glass company because it had the raw resources to start a class company namely wood for fuel for kiln water and sand. And there were two major class companies. One was on Lake Dunmore and saw three from mine and the other was in Burlington Champlain class company. Although business had been booming by the mid eighteen hundreds much of the cheap wood for fuel had been

used up new fuels like coal and natural gas were being developed west of Vermont. The railroads opened up new markets no longer dependent on Lake travel. And cheaper European glass was being imported. From our factories were no longer able to compete and went out of business. Glass blowing in small studios like this was not possible until technological advances in the 1960s enabled ceramic sculptors to develop smaller furnace and this allowed individuals to work in a small workshop like setting. A movement had begun that continues today. So what we're going to do with this style of blowing is. Join blown components with solid. Joints call them folios in a volley Oh it's extremely difficult technique. It took me a year of daily. Practice to learn to do this. We're going to school a joint on this. General.

Goldfarb describes his early work as American style garage glass. Danny attended the Pilchuck school in Seattle. He was influenced by some of the Venetian masters who were teaching at the school. Their trade secrets were once very closely guarded. There was a revival in the eighteen hundreds which was the period of that. That store that I was telling you about. So back in the in the early part before Napoleon took over. If he if the Murano guarded its trade secrets really carefully and if you are of the nation glassblower who left the island and show the technique to anybody they cut your hand. Fortunately that is no longer the case. Goldfarb is working with the deletion masters little by an even more specific than spin than periods or traditions it's like I'm trying to evoke a certain depth of

character in the pieces that I make and it seems to be working. Alan was recently honored with a prestigious achievement award from the urban glass school in New York City. There was a moment in there where I realized that my heroes put me on the podium and said we honor you. And I didn't get that until I was there. And. You know and I was really stunned by that. When the people who I admired most you know who I had put up when they put me up on the podium and said you know congratulations you've earned this. That was a real. It was just an awesome experience for me. I kind of see myself there. Almost like a glass blowing savant like I've gotten really good at these particular skills in studying this particular thing from my business academia is another story and you know it.

So no I'm not rich and famous at this point I certainly you know one of the things that keeps me plugging along. Hoping I'm a late bloomer you know and that I also believe in. I'm a real believer in like four decade careers along and so. You know I feel like I'm in process and hopefully you know there will be a breaking point if I continue or just to continue to go deeper and deeper and deeper. But at some point there's going to be a place for my work. That's more. In Burlington gold farmers work is featured in galleries like the Vermont state craft center alongside the work of other Vermont glassblowers like SIMON PIERCE. A different style of glass and a different story. Pierce grew up in Ireland in 1980 he established his glass business in this country at an old mill in Queechy. I was looking for three things somewhere beautiful to live and work somewhere I could do a good

retail business and somewhere I could have hydroelectric power. A lot of people told me I'd never do the retail here but when I looked at a map and sideshows Boston was on the interstate sudden just root for in the tourism in Vermont I felt very sure that we would eventually build up a good retail store as it was. Pierce has developed a very good retail business producing what he calls basic glass of good quality. It's just a simple plain functional glass like a bit like was made in. In Georgian times and some of the shapes are actually on the character are very similar to those there was a period in England when they made. Glass that had the same characters and that's what the characters are glassed that's what got me interested to see in those old glasses thinking Wow if they made last like this why are nobody making glass like this anymore. That's how I got into the whole thing and started. Even though he built a second much larger factory in Windsor four years ago Pierce cannot keep up with demand and with unemployment so low it's hard to find workers. He says

business has grown enormously in the last two years mostly due to word of mouth. The philosophy well. It's really a lifestyle. That's what it's really about and believing in that if you have things that are really simple and beautiful and well-made. That they're really enjoyable to live with and to use every day on your own. It's made exactly the same way they made it 200 years ago. And what that does is it means because we're human we can't make a profit. Michael Sheens when we finish. You need to know that people are incredibly skilled. You know we've got some of the finest glass makers anywhere here. But they're still human and they can't get it perfect which is why I love it. That's why I use people not machines to make the glass. May never be the commercial glass making capital it once was more than a hundred years ago. But artists like SIMON PIERCE And Alan Goldfarb constitute the new generation of last lowers for sparking the revival of an old tradition.

The town of West Rutland was built on an economic foundation created by the marble industry in years past and the West Rutland marble company are long gone sculptors have recently moved into the area to set up shop here they pursue their art. And West Rutland enjoys a resurgence of interest in the former industrial setting that wants to find it. For over 100 years the marble industry dominated the life it was run when I'm on. Now that industry is in sharp decline. And all that hints of its former vitality weathered remains.

A few years ago a group of artists established the carving studio in what was once the Vermont marble company's company's store. Sculptor Michael Winslow is both a working artist and director of the carving studio which has only one of the half full time employees. The carving studio started in 1986 when a Boston artist be a moray came to Vermont and along with Paul Austin Bach a Burlington sculptor who used to have the sculpture department at the University of Vermont started scouting sites for summer workshops in Vermont. And Paul and beads preference were a band in quarries and they began in Proctor in the studios early days.

Artists lived and worked in tents but their leaves soon grew in nineteen eighty nine. It became apparent that it might not be perfect over there. We needed the building. So we came over here once again and Paul Austin Boggs suggestion and found this building that we're in now which was without windows without electricity without plumbing. And the group of artists that were associated with a carving studio at that time rehab was building pro bono. Sculpture however was a part of the region's heritage long before the advent of a carving studio. These release of the U.S. presidents are at the Vermont marble exhibit in Proctor. They are the work of Renzo Paul Marino Renzo is the last of a long line of sculptures brought from Italy by the Vermont marble company in its heyday. Now retired Renzo has watched the carving studio continue the traditions of his age old art the kind of used to it is very nice it's very nice because you get a chance to the young people to get

cast with the marble to work it. This in my that I have been myself into when I was young of course but also shows how good is the willingness to do work and then to accomplish something with their hands and do they go from the marble what the marble is made of for I mean to create is something God made in the first creation to create the marble. Now it is as if you try to see if the weekend do something to be 70 body with it. One of the many young artists attracted to the carving studio by its unique program and setting on the sculpture from Manhattan and was struggling that the carver studio has incredible facilities for sculptors to deal with all kinds of media from Braddock's Marvel to wooden. Here you have the country. The energy that goes out of the car the studio it's a great place. Artist Steve Humphreys is preparing a large mixed media sculpture for show with a

carving studio. I stayed here for. Two months taking sunlight workshops and courses here carving studio and I just loved it here and the instruction and the people. That I got to work with at the carving studio were just world class artists as well as people that were just learning like myself. A student from nearby Mill River High School increased her artistic vision through contact with artists from around the world. Making great feedback. I get so much constructive paper going where in. Fact it's only a benefit. They have. To pay and. And. And like Hashimoto and in a way the people that came from overseas they have a whole different perspective on everything you do and there's nothing like it. It's unexplainable only they show you a whole new way of doing our drawing this. You know seen this part of the body.

It's amazing I like it and the unexpected benefits of the establishment of the carving studio with the positive impact it has had on the town of West Rutland the town of West Rutland feels that there's a great positive effect of having a carving studio here and there's a tremendous economical effect culturally where basically diversifying our community with our presence and in a sense where we're continuing the heritage that has been within our community since the early 1900s as far as working with our marble. So we're preparing for our future in creative ways. Several artists have purchased buildings in West Rowan and rehab and turned them into other art studio since we've come here. When Kapil was opened Campbell plaster an iron he's an. Extremely fine. Art foundry and good beautiful bronze works.

Lynn Barton is open to quite a studio on marble street she's a terrific Potter. So there's a war community developing on marble street. That and that I think that's really done a lot for West. As part of a recent public arts project. The carving studio gave its hometown a memento of its heritage. This Marble Arch was sculpted from Marble taken from West Rutland quarries. While watching the installation of the arch. Henry Sokolski who once worked in those quarries and that is about his past. There's a lot of history and by marvelous coming back. The stone carving studio was. Very impressed with it. I think art is always a positive force on society. Artists see things that people don't see and eventually other people come to see through their eyes. This is our job. The heyday of the marble industry may be long past for West Rutland but it so often

happens artists have come together in an abandoned industrial setting to establish a place to work. Teach and learn. Their presence has rejuvenated some of West wetlands pride and vitality. They go about the task of revealing beauty that most of us fail to see. And that points north for this time. As always we welcome your comments and suggestions so like to us at points north for public television. The Vermont 5 4 4 6. Our email address is PM ET. Or be with us next time for a look at an innovative program that rebuild by rebuilding how the then the world of hockey. The sacrifices and rewards and go around the world with Vermont's world

pro for this week that points north. I'm grandfathered. Thanks for joining us.