female announcer: On "Studio Space," photographer Pat Garcia works primarily in black and white to create stunning portraits and haunting landscapes.

Topher Reynolds of Copious glass is a world-famous marble artist.

Each one is a miniature galaxy you can hold in your hand.

"Studio Space" explores Northern California's vibrant art community.

♪♪♪ Rhynell Mouton: Hi, my name is Rhynell Mouton.

Pat Garcia is a artist here in Arcata, who does photography and paintings.

Join us as we explore the artist's journey.

♪♪♪ Patrick Garcia: Living out here and experiencing, you know, like, nature in the way that we have the opportunity to is...

I kind of foster in something like a respect in me for, you know, for the land that we live on, and I think it's also doing the same thing for everybody else, kind of, really, just giving us, you know, the opportunity to, kind of, gain this respect, and I find that that's kind of a subject in a lot of the work that I make, kind of, like, how we interact with our environment and how, kind of, there's this give and take.

♪♪♪ Rhynell: Pat, thanks for havin' us.

What inspired you to be a photographer?

Pat: When I was going to community college, I happened to stumble across a darkroom class, and I had already had a pretty big interest in photography, just because, as a young kid, I was skateboarding a lot, and, you know, we would record ourselves skateboarding with these, you know, little DV cameras, and from there, it was just taking pictures back and forth of our friends and things like that, and I happened to, you know, kind of gain an interest there, and when I went to community college, I'd gotten to the darkroom, and it really just opened up a lot of doors.

I had a lot--a really good mentor at that time, who was pushin' me a lot and, you know, really set me on a solid track, and, I mean, here I am, you know?

I'm still tryin' to, you know, push that craft and kind of explore with it, I guess.

It's a interesting medium.

Rhynell: And I seen that you shoot a lot of black-and-white.

Would you rather, black-and-white film or color film?

Pat: It's different, and, I mean, shooting black-and-white and shooting color film or color, in general, is, just, it's completely different approach.

When I'm shooting black-and-white, it has a lot to do with light and tonality and things like that, whereas color is, like, it's adding a whole nother dimension to it, you know, where, if I'm shooting black-and-white, the sky isn't blue.

It's a lot--it's like a tone, you know?

But, when I'm shooting color, I gotta take into consideration, like, there's gonna be a giant blob of blue up there and, like, a bunch of green down here.

Yeah, it's a different way of working in a way, and I feel like one side of it informs the other, you know?

It's like it--I don't know.

It's kind of like a nice kind of back and forth, I guess.

Pat: Phoebe, Phoebe, come here, hey, hey.

Rhynell: Hey, who's this?

Pat: This is Phoebe.

I've had her since she was a puppy.

She's about eight now.

She's kind of gettin' up there, you know, but she's a big part of my life that's for sure.

I take her out with me when I go on, you know, photo walks or whatever, and she's pretty funny.

She's so patient, you know?

I, like, set up my camera, and, like, "Wait right here," you know, and she'll just, like, woop, and sit down and-- Rhynell: What is one person who inspires you?

Pat: Mm-hmm, it's funny, but my instructor, Dave Woody, over at Humboldt State, he's really been a huge inspiration for me.

I mean, he's done a lot for me, you know, and he gave me the camera that I'm shooting with now, and he does a lot to help me out, and, I mean, he's a wonderful photographer, I mean, probably one of the best portrait photographers I've ever seen, you know.

I mean, his images are great.

We are really similar in a way.

Like, I look at him, and, you know, he's, like, 20 years older than me, or whatever, but it's weird 'cause I, like, see a lot of the habits that he has or, like, the way that he approaches things, you know, and I'm like, gosh, like, it's kind of, sort of, similar to the way that I kind of approach things.

I mean, he definitely is a big inspiration.

I mean, he, you know, he's out here still teachin', and he's, hopefully, pushin' other kids to do the same thing.

Rhynell: Definitely.

I feel like teachers aren't appreciated enough, so shout-out to all the teachers 'cause we do appreciate you guys.

Pat: I mean, that--my experience at HSU, I wanna say it was here is when I really started to kind of develop, I guess, my approach and, kind of, my style of image-making, I suppose, but, yeah, it was probably those years, I would say, that it--you know, things had to really--kind of falling in line, and I guess the path started to kind of be clear, you know?

I mean, there isn't really any clear path with the arts, in general, you know?

It's not like I can just be like, "I'm gonna be a photographer, and I'm gonna make, you know, a living doing this."

Rhynell: So, in photography, what gives you the most satisfaction when you are shootin' these shots?

Pat: When I have a preconceived notion of, like, what I want an image to look like, and I go out and try to make it, nine times out of ten, it doesn't happen.

You know what I mean?

It's like--doesn't quite line up with whatever expectations I may have had.

You know, I look at the negatives after the fact, and I'm like, "Oh, wow," you know, there's that image that I didn't even think about.

Yeah, you know what I mean?

Like, that's a keeper, you know?

Rhynell: The ones that's unplanned are the best ones.

Pat: Yeah, exactly, exactly, so it happens that way most of the time.

Sometimes, you know, I'll, kind of, achieve some results that I was looking for, in a sense, but a lot of the times, it's just, kind of, luck of the draw, it seems like, you know?

Rhynell: What is somethin' that dissatisfies you with photography, and you could elaborate on that?

Pat: The way that Instagram works, you know, or, kind of, social media in general, it's really, really easy to kind of look at a lot of work from all over the place and from artists from all over the world, and I think, when I look at it, it's hard to not compare it to my own work, you know, and that I find the satisfaction in that and comparing my own images and work to that of others, and it really makes me wanna do something different, in a way, and, I mean, I don't mean to throw shade at anyone out there, doing what they're doin', you know, but I see a lot of the same thing, you know, a lot of people approaching, you know, photography as a medium in kind of the same way.

It really makes me think about my work and, like, how I'm kind of, like, taking that same approach, and that, I find slightly dissatisfying, you know?

It makes me, like, kind of, take a step back, you know, and I--I'm asking myself, like, "How can I, you know, make this more, like, I guess, about myself?"

'Cause, you know, if there's anything that is, I guess, unique about my work, it is that it's made by me so-- Rhynell: Exactly, yeah, there are a lot of filters out there that may look like, you know, darkroom photography but might not even be actual darkroom photography but a filter which is takin' away from somebody like you, who's actually in the darkroom, you know, creatin' those photos.

Pat: Mm-hmm, how I present my work too, you know, like, again, bringin' it back to, kind of, these social media platforms and--I call it "the void," kind of.

Whenever I have, like, images that I am unsure of what to do with, you know, I'm, "Oh, I'm just gonna throw 'em onto the internet," or whatever, you know?

♪♪♪ Pat: It isn't doing anything necessarily, you know?

And it's making me consider how exactly I wanna share my work.

Rhynell: So I read that, years ago, you had said, you know, you were skatin', and you'd be reckless--a little reckless, now, you know-- Pat: Yeah, you know, as a kid, I mean, I grew up in Southern California, in the not-best-of-places, but, you know, that's neither here nor there at this point.

Rhynell: But when did you realize that you wanted to take the photography serious, like, you went from just, you know, skatin' and playin' around to actually, you know, "I wanna, kind of, make this a career"?

Pat: Right, well, you know, it had to have been--I mentioned before, my experience in community college was pretty formative, especially in, kind of, how I decided to, you know, take this path.

It's up to me to, like, make, you know, the connections and the work that, you know, I need to make in order to be an artist, yeah.

Rhynell: Do you think it's good to step outside of your boundaries when it comes to photography?

Pat: Yeah, absolutely.

I am constantly trying to push the envelope of, like, what I'm doing and what I could be doing, I guess, just really tryin' to shake things up in a way that'll, like, kind of, bring something new and exciting to me, you know, in my work.

Rhynell: Do you have a favorite place to take photos or a favorite subject?

Pat: In terms of subject, you know, nature is kind of what I'm into and then portraits as well.

I find that I really enjoy taking portraits.

I've spent a lot of time out in the community forest, making images, which has been challenging and fun 'cause my camera is huge, but I--you know, I'm walkin' around the forest with the tripod on my back and this huge camera, and I encounter people out there, and, you know, everyone is always real curious, which is kind of fun, and I usually go out there with my dog, and, you know, I'll walk through the forest.

Pat: Hm, I do kind of like this view.

Pat: It's kind of a meditative process, I think.

I mean, usually it's, you know, it's nice and quiet, which is a good thing, and it feels good to get outside and kind of, like, really have an intense sort of attention to my surroundings and just--it's not like I'm looking for something in particular, you know?

I don't come out here and, like, "I'm gonna take a picture of a tree today," or I don't know.

It's kind of, I guess, whatever calls to me, but, yeah, like I said, it's pretty meditative, I think, kind of, just being out here and surrounding yourself with what we got, and it's beautiful out here.

I mean, there's definitely some, you know, romanticism happening when I make some images.

You know what I mean?

It's looking at this land, like, the landscape and, kind of, putting it in a way that, you know, makes you feel appreciation for it and--I don't know--admiration, and respect, I think, is a big one too, you know?

Yeah, when I'm shooting with film, I'm creating something tangible.

I'm creating a physical object that, you know, holds this bit of information that it's just like a still scene, you know, like a--I mean, it--a shot from life, I guess, but it's nice to be able to, like, hold something and to store it, and at, you know, one point in the future, I can pull it out of a box and look back at it and--I don't know.

It's nice to have that security, I guess, you know, that it's not just gonna disappear one day if, you know, my electronics suddenly decide to break on me or somethin' like that.

It's--I'm, hopefully, gonna have these for the rest of my life.

♪♪♪ Pat: I mean, I've seen these--this space, like, so many times, but there's just so many different ways to, kind of, capture it in different lighting situations and things like that.

There's just so much interest in there, and, I mean, we live in such a unique, you know, environment.

I mean, we got the beach five minutes that way and the forest five minutes that way, you know?

It's kind of hard to beat--yeah, exactly.

I mean, there's so much to see out here.

I feel like living in this area has really, kind of, fostered, like, this interest that, you know, has been growing suddenly, you know, in myself for as long as I can imagine, you know, but it just really kind of gave me this sort of, you know, opportunity to kind of really dive into it.

Rhynell: Well, Pat, it's been a pleasure.

Thank you for havin' us in your home, and thank you for joining us on "Studio Space."

♪♪♪ Rose Nhem: Hi, I'm Rose Nhem.

Today we'll meet with Topher Reynolds, a glass artist that forms ethereal worlds that you could hold in the palm of your hand.

Let's discover how his use of color and fire plays a role in the community.

Topher Reynolds: And I'm constantly trying to work on my skill set to get to the point where my work pleases my eye.

Having said that, I'm secretly hoping that I never achieve that.

Perfection is always the goal almost never achieved, but by having it be that elusive, it keeps me trying harder.

It keeps me fresh.

It keeps me trying to expand.

♪♪♪ Rose: Topher, thank you so much for joining us today.

Topher: Absolutely, happy to be part of it.

Rose: Could you tell us more about this space and how you came across it?

Topher: So this is Mendenhall Studio Complex.

It's owned by a local woman, Kathleen Krause, and she owns another building as well, and she kind of caters to working with artists, and we started out by literally vending in one of the alcoves and setting up a portable glassblowing station.

Eventually, they trusted us enough to let us be in here in the gazebo, and then as the studio space opened up, we eventually moved into a studio, and we've had that studio now for two years.

Rose: What is the studio called?

Topher: So, we are called the Glass Garage.

It's a little confusing 'cause there are six separate artists who work out of that studio at any given time, and we all have our own separate studio names, but the Glass Garage is what defines the space.

Rose: What's the name of your particular glassblowing business?

Topher: I'm Copious Glass, partly because I produce a lot of glass was part of it, but the other side is I was a wilderness instructor for a lot of years, and I have a fairly famous canoe, called the "Copious" canoe, and my glass business is actually named after my canoe.

Rose: What made you decide to come to Humboldt?

Topher: When I look back on my life, I can see the clear path that brought me to everything I've ever done, however, at the moment, I can look back to times when I was able to make what I refer to as the next right decision, and my little sister was in Humboldt, and I came out on vacation to see my little sister and, within 48 hours of landing, had decided that this was where I wanted to be.

I think it was nine weeks from the time I first stepped foot in Humboldt to the time that I was living here.

Rose: What is it about your work that satisfies you the most?

Topher: I love holding a finished piece and rolling it in my hands.

I like the kinetic quality of a marble that, when you put it in someone's hands, they wanna move it around.

So I enjoy having that experience for myself, but I'm not sentimental about my work at all, and through all of my years of working in glass, I think I have five pieces that I own.

Everything else, as soon as I've made it and had my experience with it, I'm ready for someone else to have an experience with it.

I don't believe in a big afterlife.

I don't know what comes next, but I do know that my work will outlive me.

I love the idea of making an object of beauty that really doesn't serve much purpose other than it just being an object of beauty and then putting that on its own path and sending it out in the world, and I hope my marbles lead, you know, wild and extravagant lives after I'm gone.

Rose: That's a beautiful concept.

So you're basically sharing your love of your work of glass with other people through this finished product.

Topher: I like the idea of distillation, so I like distillation of thought.

I like, kind of, bringing things down to basis, and so, of all my years, I mentioned, like I said, bein' a wilderness instructor, all the nights I've spent out in the field in the big, starry skies I've seen.

I try to bring that kind of idea into my marbles, and I'm trying to distill something that could be beautiful in a large scale but bringing it down to a handheld scale, and I enjoy the slight voyeuristic quality of being able to watch people, look at my glass, and I'm not fishing for complements, and it's not a validation that I thought it was pretty, and, therefore, if they think it's pretty, then it must be.

It's more, just, I'm really intrigued by what their eyes pick up and what they see in it.

Rose: Now, I understand that you don't only do marbles.

What other glass-related items do you make?

Topher: My main other item besides marbles is ornaments.

I started that real early on before I was a quote, unquote, "professional marble maker," when I was just a struggling glassblower just trying to find out what I was gonna do.

I made pipes for a little while, and I wasn't super-into dealing with headshop owners and doing that.

You've gotta be pretty thick-skinned for that.

So I made ornaments for a long time, about a couple years, and then, as I got really into marbles, I sort of resented the ornaments and resisted them, and now I'm back to I really enjoy doing them again.

Three to four months out of the year, I focus on the ornaments, and I still get good joy in it.

So a lot of--so much as I'm known of as a marble maker and I have marble collectors, I also have ornament collectors, and I have a few collectors who have entire trees just covered in my ornaments, who do that, but they want new ones every year, and so that's the challenge every year is to take something that I've done.

I mean, at this point, it's easy to say I've done, I would say, 7,000 to 10,000 of them-- Rose: Oh, wow.

Topher: But to still come up with new ideas and new designs and still work new stuff into it every year has become a nice challenge so-- Rose: All right, Topher this has all been fascinating.

Could you show us what you do in your studio?

Topher: Absolutely, let's go in the studio and fire up the torch and see if we can get you on there as well and see if we can make a marble.

Rose: That'll be super-fun.

Rose: Topher, thank you so much for showing us a space.

Could you tell us how you do your work?

Topher: Absolutely, so heat, gravity, and centrifugal force are my main tools.

So I encourage you to put your glasses on.

Rose: Okay.

Topher: And, next, we're gonna do what we call "fuming."

So I've got a tiny piece of gold and a tiny piece of silver down here, and I'm collecting that silver onto the rod and behind it.

And so I want enough color on there that it's gonna make the piece pop and look beautiful, but I don't want so much on there that it gets muddy.

Rose: What would you say the most difficult color is to get to?

Topher: Blue.

Blue.

And, when doing this with fume, it's the blue is the hardest color, and it has a lot to do with what torch you're using and the flame chemistry.

Rose: Right.

Topher: So next is that little bit of gold there, I've actually got a tiny little bit of gold already on the end of this rod.

I'm gonna preheat it just a little bit, so I'm adding just a micro-thin layer of pure gold with silver to the surface, so that's now got silver and gold on it, and it gets that lovely hue to it.

And now I wanna trap that color.

If I were to just stick this back in the flame, it would all cook right off, so I'm gonna go ahead and grab another rod of this flat and get it really, really nice and hot.

Rose: And all of it is chemical reactions?

Topher: Absolutely, absolutely.

I like to joke that my work is equal parts science, skill, and a little bit of voodoo 'cause there is an X-factor to glass.

Now I'm going to lay that over the top.

Rose: Wow.

Topher: And I'm gonna go ahead and clean up the front of this and get it started twisting, and I'm gonna have you give me a hand and jump in here, and I'm gonna have you help me twist this up.

Rose: Sounds great.

Topher: So I'm gonna use another rod, and then I'm gonna do what we call a "hot seal."

I'm gonna weld a rod to the end there, and now I'm gonna be able to--and now I've got control of it with two hands, and I can spin that glass together.

So this is kind of trial by fire if you're jumpin' in on the first time, but I'm confident you can handle it.

What you're gonna do is I'll control the torches.

You're gonna put in here, and we'll just do it on a little flame initially, and then we'll see if we wanna kick on the bigger one.

Rose: Okay.

Topher: But you get a little bit hot and then start spinning the one a little bit faster than the other, but the main thing you wanna do is try to keep your hands in line and keep a straight axis across there.

Rose: Okay.

Topher: So you ready?

Rose: All right.

Topher: So lift this way, both overhand on both sides, and let that spin it a little bit and let it get a little hot, and then try to start--spin your right hand a little bit faster than your left, or every once in a while, stop with your left hand and let it kind of spin and mix up.

Rose: This is a lot more difficult than you made it seem.

Topher: Pull it all the way.

We don't wanna pull that end off.

There you go, and keep spinning it, but act like it's in the flame.

You're still kind of playing--we talk about it's like keepin' honey on the end of a butter knife.

You always have to be in motion.

It's a very fluid material.

All right, nice job.

Rose: Okay, if you say so.

Topher: And I'mma step in there, and I'm gonna make that into a barrel shape for the next step.

Rose: A barrel shape?

Topher: A barrel shape.

That will make it easier to do the next step.

We want all those in alliance to kind of go line up 'cause this marble we're making is what I call a "peekaboo."

So I'm gonna put that there and pull that off, and I grab our second half.

Rose: Okay.

Topher: And then I'm going to carefully bring these two together.

Rose: Is there a certain step that you have to play close attention to or else the entire project is-- Topher: It's really unfortunate, but the most difficult part of makin' a marble is making it round at the end.

"Pretty" is relatively easy.

"Round" is relatively hard, and I can't tell you how many projects I've lost in the last step, what we call the "final punty transfer."

I've dropped so many marbles at that point, and one of the things that we say a lot in glass is that failure is always an option.

So it's just a horrible irony that you can spend hours and hours and hours on a piece and have everything be perfect and then have one thing fail right on the very last step and have it all be for naught.

So I'm gonna start the process of rounding this out.

And again, timing is everything It is, if you put it in too hot, it just makes a mess If you put it in too cold, nothing happens.

Rose: Right.

Topher: So now I'm gettin' down to where I'm ready to throw it in the mold just a little bit.

Rose: You can see that opal just spinnin' around in there.

Topher: Yeah, we got a nice centering on that, so we're gonna go ahead and switch axis on this one more time and right now, you know, call that "north," and this "south."

We're gonna switch it so it's actually east and west are now become the north and south.

We're gonna switch it that way.

So I'm going to tap it off in the mold.

So I kind of do this symbol on the bottom of all mine as sort of a thumbprint to kind of say that I'm the one who made it.

And then, the other thing is I really like the tradition of the evil eye, especially the Turkish version of it, which is that evil eyes always have to be made of glass.

They have to be made of something ephemeral that can break, and the idea is that the evil eye can absorb negative energy, but it can only absorb so much, and once it reaches a certain point, it'll actually break, and you're supposed to take a good, hard look at what's going on in your life and make an examination and make a change, and then buy another evil eye and start over.

Rose: The lore is what makes it work.

Topher: Absolutely, absolutely, so I started with a little black on there.

Rose: And you can't tell it's black because it's molten hot right now.

Topher: It's molten hot.

So this is gonna be an exercise in what we call "dot stacking."

This idea has been around pretty much since the beginning, but it's a way of making a, kind of, bull's-eye shape, so to speak, or a bull's-eye design by stacking one color on top of another.

Rose: Oh, wow.

Topher: So that's how we get my evil eye on there.

Rose: Yeah, I like how, as soon as you put that in the mold, the black just comes out.

Topher: And there we got our colors on there.

Rose: Oh, wow, okay.

Rose: What is it that you want to convey through your art?

Topher: It's a pride in doing good work.

It's a pride in having put in the time and effort to get to the point that I can produce the work that I can.

My favorite marble is the next marble I'm gonna make.

That's the one I'm excited about is the next one.

Everything that I made in the past, I kind of forget about and hope that other people are excited about 'em, but I'm ready to move on to the next piece.

Rose: Topher, thank you so much for takin' the time to show us this space and sharing your story with us.

Topher: Fantastic.

This was fantastic.

Rose: And thank you for joining us on "Studio Space."

♪♪♪ Rhynell: For more information about these artists, go to StudioSpace.tv.

♪♪♪