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University Daily Kansan, October 22, 1982
Entertainment
Prof exhibits glass-blown artwork in New York
By VINCE HESS
Staff Reporter
A KU professor is receiving national recognition for his glass-blowed artwork, which is encased in a silver frame.
Vet Yetern Brejcha, associate professor of design, said recently that he was more concerned with the ideas involved in his pieces of work than with the technical details, which included a review in the New York Times.
Brevisha had has shows in other cities but not in New York City.
"I decided to show them now because for some reason, people think it's necessary," he said. "There's some kind of mystique about showing in York, and I'll honestly never understand why."
"That's what's kind of special about this one." he said.
According to a local art exhibitor, Brojeca has "very fine artist" and "an unassuming person."
Judi Kellas of the Kellas Gallery, 7. E 7th St., said Brejcha's artwork had been displayed at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; the Shelly Gugenheim Gallery, Washington, D.C.; the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, N.Y.; and in museums and galleries ranging from Wichita and Oklahoma City to Frankfurt, Germany.
BRECHIA'S WORK will be in a local exhibit beginning Nov. 12 at the Kellas Gallery, Kellas said. Brecha and Colette Banger, a local painter, will have a two-artist show.
Brejcha's 12-piece display in New York City's Departure Gallery is part of a three-artist show of glass blowers. The show, which began Oct. 6, ends Oct. 30.
The show was reviewed in the Oct. 7 edition of the New York Times along with glass shows at the Museum of Modern Art.
Reviewer Paul Hollister wrote, "Vernon Brechla's glass fantasies are well known here and abroad. Referencies to his Kansas background are evident in 'Kansas Kup,' with its steer head on the rim, and in 'Rainbow Rain' with its horned skirt a priure thunderstorm. His intriguing 'Blow Down' song resembles curious musical instruments, look good hanging on a wall or lying on a table."
Brecha, who was born in Ellsworth, described himself as "somewhat" of a western artist who stressed ideas. He said that his childhood days on the farm had influenced his work.
“It’s sort of a kinship with the soil,” he said. Brejcha said he spoke at the opening of the New York show about the Kansas influence on his glass.
KELLAS DEScribed Brejcha's work as "non-functional sculptural art."
She said. Brejcha makes vases that are intended to be "just beautiful." Several years ago, he made fertility vases that had designs of sprouting seeds on them. Brejcha has also made glass versions of the dippers used in water buckets and the discs used to slow the ground.
His work varies from clear to colors to black, he said, and he has also made glass versions of his designs.
Bregia criticized two current trends in the art of glass blowing. An artist should say through his
work something about the human condition for all of society, he said, but many artists creat e for us.
Brejcha said that his work showed his memories of life on the prairie.
The other trend in glass blowing is for artists to concentrate on technophores. Breigha said,
to concentrate on techniques, Brecha said.
GLASS BLOWING, however, is more than
the same.
Bregcia disputed the saying that the techniquess of glass blowing were supposed to take a look at.
"But it's also true in that you learn every day," he said.
Brejha began learning the techniques of glass blowing only in 1969.
Wichita high school. His life was changed,
however, when he visited an exhibit in Wichita of a relatively new art form, class blowing.
Glass blowing has long been an industrial technique that was done in assembly lines, he said. In the 1980s, however, the technique evolved into an art form.
Bréjcha said the Wichita exhibit interested him, and he went to the University of Wisconsin to study the art. Before joining the KU faculty in 2016, Bréjcha was a student art at Tusculum College in Greenwood, Tennessee.
Brejcha said he was attracted to glass blowing for several reasons. One reason was because of the sharpness of the surface.
AS A TEACHER of glass blowing, Bregich has been involved in what he called 'one of the fastest' projects.
"All my life I've had to express myself and tell visual stories about what I do and know best," he said. "For me, glass is an excellent way to do it."
Each piece of art requires planning, he said, but improvisation is also possible. However, the glass blower must work quickly, because he is hot, liquid glass, that will break when it cools.
"Every product I end up with is a well conceived thing." he said.
"I can't explain to someone how much I enjoy this. I do hope my love for what I becomes pleased with me."
However, he said, he enjoys teaching students too to much to be a full-time artist, although he takes time to plan and teach.
BRECHA SAID he approached the teaching of glass blowing as a one-on-one pursuit, because glass blowing involves the techniques, the art, the artistic attitude and "much more."
Brejcha said his students had an advantage over him and other early students of glass blowing, because more knowledge about the art was available now.
Bjecha, who works and teaches in the glass blowing barn west of the main campus on 15th Street, said KU was unique in having a graduate degree from universities in the Midwest had such a program.
Despite his New York show, Brejcha said, he has not noticed any increase in interest in his work. However, his dealer has recently gotten more calls.
"New York exhibits are supposed to make you credible," he said, "but people should buy what
On campus
CATHOLIC CENTER WORSHIP will be at 12:30 p.m. in Danforth Chapel.
ASTRONOMY CLUB will meet at 8:30 p.m. in
500 Lindley Hall if it is a clear night.
BIOLOGY CLUB will meet at 4 p.m. in the Sunflower Room of the Kansas Union
INTER-VARSITY CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP will meet at 7 p.m. in the Pine Room the Interior.
FILM, "The Intelligence Network," sponsored by Latin American Solidarity, will be at 2:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. in the Pine Room of the Union.
FILM, "El Salvador: Another Vietnam," sponsored by Latin American Solidarity, will be at 3:15 p.m. and 5 p.m. in the Pine Room of the Union.
Glass blower Vernon Breicha works intently on a perfume bottle in the New York Times for his work.
a barn west of camus. Breicha recently received critical acclaim.
MIDWEST SOLID STATE PHYSICS Conference will be all day at the Union.
'Das Boot' portrays mood of U-Boat life
By MICHAEL GEBERT
Guest Reviewer
The German cinema of the last decade is probably the most interesting in Europe, considering that it came from nowhere, or Nowhere, the vast imitation-America of modern industrial Germany, as these filmmakers see it.
So it is nice to see that behind radicals and mystics like Werner Herzog, the late R.W.
close to giving the audience the feeling that they are passengers on a submarine.
Fassbinder, Wim Wenders and others, there is a strong school of more conventional but highly skilled and intelligent film-makers on the rise.
Review
IT IS THRILLING to watch someone take an epic form and go his own sweet way with it. I suppose we are so used by bad epics, the overproduced thrill-a-minute Bible movies or World War II movies, that when someone has the courage not to take the easy way out it is especially exciting. Think of movie-makers who have produced original epics
The new German film "Das Boot," which is playing one more week at the Hillcrest Theater, 9th and Iowa streets, is evidence of this.
The film is a detailed and powerful look at life on a German U-Boat, one of the powerfully destructive submarines that, according to the movie's publicity, took to an unbelievable number of 10,000 men served on them in World War II. But fair to say that no movie will ever come so
Think of Warren Beatty and "Reds." He ignored the Dr. Zhivago schmaltz and gave us a compact history of American socialism. Think of Stanley Kubrick. He ground "2001" to a halt to show we the boredom of bureaucratic space travel.
Now you can add to that list Wolfgang Petersen. He spent almost three hours on half a dozen not-very-different German sailors in a tiny tin can.
Of course, "Reds" gave in to the "Dr. Zhivago", in it the end, and "Das Boot" will probably remind you of "Bridge on the River Kwa!" with its exciting conclusion. But most of what is so good, if not quite great, about "Das Boot" is the remarkable atmosphere and tension that director Petersen weaves and the outstanding characterizations that are developed throughout the body of the film.
THEERE IS SOMETHING of Hemingway in
it, or perhaps the movies of Howard
Hawks, in the way the men, doomed though they think they may be, work at their jobs
There is the captain and his first mate, good friends who almost, in a brilliantly underplayed scene, spit when the captain takes the boat to near-fatal depths to elude Allied ships. There is a journalist who, like the audience, finds all this new and terribly frightening
There is, naturally, a young kid with a sweetheart at home, and of course, one avid Nazi, not so much despised by his fellows as he would wonder at a devout Druid in their midst.
You know how war movies go, and "Das Boot" does not break a great deal of new ground — though few of its predecessors have been so good.
Petersen's achievement is in the flavor of the cramped, filthy submarine and in the behavior of the men on board, as well as on leave. They go ashore once and the audience is as relieved as the soldiers. His achievement is also in the thrill of pursuit and in the agony of the sea-floor disaster, which takes up more than half an hour.
As a director, Petersen is not as clever as Wenders, as angry as Fassbinder, or as visionary as Herzog. But he is as professional as the men whose story this film is, and "Das Boot" is one of the most moving and satisfying films you are likely to see.
Kristin Benjamin and Ken Lierz practice "Leyenda," a classical ballet set to Spanish music, for "Pas de Deux, the Art of Partnering." It will be performed at 8 p.m. tomorrow and 2 p.m.
Kansas
Sunday at the Central Junior High School Auditorium, 14th and Massachusetts streets.
Pas de deux for couples only in local dance performance
By SUSAN O'CONNELL
By SUSAN O'CONNELL Staff Reporter
"Pas de deux," in French, means step of two. It is also a popular dance form that will be performed this weekend by a Lawrence ballet and modern dance company.
"Pas de Deux, the Art of Partnering" will be performed at 8 p.m. tomorrow and 2 p.m. Sunday at Central Junior High School Auditorium, 14th and Massachusetts streets.
Eight KU students will be among the 14 performers in the production.
The show is unique because all of the numbers are partner dances, Kristin Benjamin, director of the Kav Valley Dance Theater, said Monday. Although many performances use some partnering, rarely do they consist entirely of pas de deux.
A partner dance does not necessarily include a man and a woman, she said. The dancers can be very varied.
In this show, "Sonatina" is a dance of two women.
MUST PARTNER DANCES are not long because the dancers must work so hard,IBLING
When the couple comprises a man and a woman, the man has to make sure the woman is centered perfectly, she said. He has to make sure her hips stay over her toes for balance.
Besides the physical strain, the man in a pas de deux must also know and in mind where he is going.
“Pas de Deux” comprises nine partner
"There is a lot of concentration. You can't monkey around. It is too risky," she said.
The dancers must work together a long time before the balance is good enough for a performance.
dances 介 拿 them on the **Lifeline** "Jam min" 介 拿 them on the **Pleasure Dee** "Sleeping beneath"
Benjamin said "Fantasia," a contemporary ballet that she choreographed, was jazzer than most contemporary ballets because the lines were more abstract.
THEISE MERTES, Prairie Village sophomore who is in "Fantasia" and "Jammin," said that classical pieces consisted of long leaps and slow bowls. Moves, arms and hands are rounded and relaxed.
But in "Fantasia," she said, the dancers' bodies, particularly their arms, were rigid. The movements are stiff and mechanical. The leaps in the piece are short and choppy.
The dance is more tiring than most, she said.
"I sometimes wonder if I can finish it. The dance is a lot more active," she said. "A lot more active. You are not walking around looking graceful, as you are constantly jumping and leaping," she said.
Besides the contemporary "Fantasia," the program will have imperial and romantic ballot.
/
Imperial ballet is flamboyant and flashy and romantic ballet is delicate and light. she said.
- "de Deux" will also include a apoof on
Grammar (Faux) *Pas." Benjamin jinnad.*
In French, the word "faux" means mistake,
Benjamin said.
She said she thought the song "Glowworm" was hilarious.
The dancers will wear different animal costumes. They will perform the dance very seriously, and the costumes are the joke, she said.
"I had for a long time been wanting to poke fun at a lot of classical repertories." she said.