GALLERY ROUTE ONE:
THE BOX SHOW
Each year Gallery Route One in Point Reyes Station organizes The Box Show, featuring the work of approximately 150 artists, each of whom takes as her starting point a wooden box provided by the gallery. The works are auctioned off to support the gallery and its many worthwhile programs.
2025
“Coastal Revery”
In creating this piece, I took inspiration from both the beauty of our natural coastline and the properties of my medium—fusible glass. There are many intriguing and fruitful parallels between this subject and this medium. Most obviously, glass is made of sand. And just as sand draws its color from its mineral composition, the fusible glass we use contains minerals—lead, sulfur, copper and others—that produce a range of colors and reactions.
Our beaches are the product of natural actions and reactions: the sky lends its color to the sea, the sea carves the rocks and cliffs, the birds peck at the shells, and over the eons the scene takes on its essential qualities. Kilnforming also relies on natural actions and reactions, though glass artists speed up the timeframe by the addition of extreme heat to the equations.
For this artwork I used only three colors of glass: dense white, French vanilla, and amber. All the other colors you see—the blues and greens, the caramel tones, the grays—arise from alchemy between the white and vanilla glass, and reactions to the silver foil I introduced.
Science can tell us that lead will react with sulfur, or that a tsunami will result from an earthquake, but the exact results will become clear only with time (and in the case of glass, the careful application of heat). Both the California coast and fusible glass are capable of surprising the receptive viewer.
Rusell Linscott expertly constructed the wooden stand out of the box provided by Gallery Route One.
Materials: Bullseye glass, silver foil, wood
You can bid on "Coastal Revery" or any of the other entries for the duration of the show (August 15 - September 12, 2025) at Gallery Route One at Point Reyes Station.
2024
“Drakes Beach Reflections”
To create this image of an iconic local scene, I started with a contemporary photograph that captures the essence of Drakes Beach. The color was extracted to produce the feeling of an old-time black-and-white photograph. I then reintroduced color, but in a more impressionistic mode reminiscent of watercolors.
This artwork is 100% glass: I created the black and white layer by screen printing black glass powder onto white sheet glass, and the colorful layer by piling scraps of sheet glass and frit (small bits of glass) on a shelf and melting it all down. The two layers were then cut down to size and fused together in the kiln. Finally, the edges were ground and polished.
The original photo was taken by Judith Stilgenbauer. The wooden stand, made from the box provided by Gallery Route One, was made by Russell Linscott.
Materials: Bullseye sheet glass and glass powder, wood
2023
"Rift: Living on the Edge"
As residents of this area are keenly aware, the Point Reyes National Seashore lies on the eastern edge of the Pacific Plate, just across the San Andreas Fault from the North American Plate. Locally Tomales Bay and Olema Valley are the visible trace of the San Andreas Fault. Experts estimate that the Pacific Plate slides northwestward about two inches in a normal year—and we live in anticipation of the next big dramatic shift between these massive plates.
In this sense the locals here live very literally on the edge. My contribution to this year’s Box Show was inspired by the San Andreas Fault running beneath Tomales Bay. A large part of the piece was created using a technique called on-edge construction, but with a twist. Normally on-edge construction involves laying glass in a tight formation, so that there is no slippage. For this piece, slippage was the point. Therefore, I laid the glass loosely and at an angle, so the heat of the kiln, much like the heat of the magma that moves the tectonic plates, would create a dynamic, almost chaotic appearance.
The hand-pulled murrine at the top right of the piece were designed to suggest the waters of Tomales Bay, although some viewers have interpreted them as stone clasts from the Point Reyes conglomerate.
Overall, this piece aspires to evoke the beauty, depth, and precarity of life on the Pacific Plate.
Rusell Linscott expertly constructed the wooden stand out of the box provided by Gallery Route One.
Materials: Bullseye glass, wood
2022
"Foggy Morning—Chimney Rock"
My aim in this piece is to strip down a beloved scene—Chimney Rock as seen from Drake’s Beach—to its essence. This work addresses the tension between the calm surface of the landscape and the complex ecosystem both veiled and nurtured by the cooling morning fog. Underlying the serenity of this image is the troubling realization that the fog is a lesser-known casualty of climate change. A 2010 research study performed by UC Berkeley scientists showed that on average fog along the west coast has decreased about 30% in the past 60 years. Just as the landscape itself shines subtly in diffused sunlight, this artwork will show its true colors in natural lighting.
Special thanks to Russell Linscott for expert woodworking, and to David Hattery, whose photograph in a 2011 blog post, Sailing Mahdee, provided the initial inspiration.
Materials: Bullseye sheet and powdered glass, wood, paint
2021
"Deep Appreciation for Point Reyes"
In 2021 I was invited to participate in the Box Show for the first time. The inspiration for my piece was the beautiful Point Reyes landscape. This piece is a departure from my usual work: I layered eleven sheets of glass, each printed with glass powder, then fused them together to create a deep image that invites the viewer in.
No artist stands alone, and this particular work would not have been possible without Spencer Pittenger (coldworking) and Russell Linscott (woodworking).
