![]() “Oh yeah, we are not going anywhere,” she says. 22, and Kovel assures Portlanders they will find her back in Esque Studio. The second season of Blown Away drops on Netflix Jan. A long-ago convert to the craft and a whiz in classic, Italian, Swedish, and Czech styles-to name a few- and a past-life mentee of season one winner Deborah Czeresko, Kovel is no neophyte to technique, something she hopes she proved while on the show. “It was hard not to be intimidated at first, and that’s something I kind of battled with the whole time,” Kovel says. Taking a break from Portland (it’s nothing personal), Kovel took to the Blown Away hot room, and found herself galvanized by the nine other internationally established gaffers (professional glassblowers). We thought we could be the people that put the bedrocks up for what the art community and craft community looked like in Portland.” “Everyone is so open, and everyone is so creative, but it’s really undefined. “I always thought of Portland as the ‘land of opportunity,’” Kovel says. But “we wanted to have our own little world that we created,” she says, and Portland was plumbed for that, with a “small but awesome” glassblowing community. Seattle, a longtime epicenter for glassblowing and host to Pilchuck Glass School, where glass artisans like Kovel pilgrimage yearly for a salon-style convergence, may have seemed like the obvious choice for their relocation. In a fit of quasi-spontaneity, Kovel and Parker packed up, hightailed it from their “Italian mafia landlord,” and drove west. “We thought, ‘Why are we making their work? We should be making our own,’” Kovel says. Fine artists like Kiki Smith contracted with them to create custom pieces, but the two were growing tired of hustling for other artists. While hustling their way up the New York art scene, Kovel and Parker made names for themselves. That’s why in 2001, Kovel and business partner Justin Parker ditched Brooklyn for Portland. “If you’re not doing something to add to the history of it, then you’re just doing craft.” “ about being curious about the material and in awe of the magic and being less married to the techniques of the past,” she explains. Kovel’s style is provocative and avant-garde, intertwining a spare style she calls “ punk-lux” with functional installation. “That’s part of glassblowing it’s inherently performance-based.” “There’s fire, yelling, and it’s kind of chaotic, but it’s fun.” The atmosphere in the hot room is equal parts competitive and theatrical, she says. “It’s like a war zone in there,” Kovel explains of the show’s production. Now the co-owner of an elite, high-end glassblowing studio, Kovel says she applied to Blown Away because she was ready for “more.” That was in the ’90s Kovel has established herself as a professional glass artisan since then. ![]() While teaching art classes at the Museum of Modern Art and working on her master’s at Parsons, Kovel took a glassblowing course for kicks. A former Brooklynite trained in fine art and sculpture, she entered the niche world of glassblowing almost by accident. ![]() ![]() “I just knew they’re going to like my vibe,” she says on a Zoom call from a Chicago hotel room, amid flight transfer mishaps for Netflix-sanctioned travel. Kovel has been glassblowing for 20 years, and when she applied to compete on season two, she knew she’d get the gig. ![]()
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