Don't ask Eric Cohen for the fish basket and fries. The menu board
on the wall of his studio is only a relic.
The upper Union Street building that still looks and smells like the
fish fry joint it used to be is where Cohen turns amorphous blobs of hot glass into things
like bud vases, cups and sculptures.
When the junior art major from Rockville Center arrived at Union in the
fall of 1995, fresh from a glass workshop in Eugene, Ore., he was eager to continue his
art. So he created his own program.
He approached his sculpture professor, Chris Duncan, with a proposal to
do an independent sculptural exploration in glass and steel and set up his studio. Now in
his junior year, he has moved far beyond his first independent study.
“Glass is an exceptional medium because you get to work with it in
its different states,” said Cohen. “You start with a solid and work with a
liquid only to return it to the original state, but the new shape is one that you have
created. It is also important to understand that a piece that took hours to blow can
easily break with one careless slip of the hand. It is a real test of patience,” he
said.
Cohen took time away from his studio this past August to intern with the
Amses Cosma Co. near New York City. There he observed a new approach to working with
glass. Cohen observed techniques for mixing and formulating colors, creating molds that
were later cast into sconces (decorative lighting fixtures), as well as etching and
sandblasting.
“There are many techniques to blowing glass,” he said. “I
have so much to learn and that is exciting.” The highlight of the experience was
working on the restoration of a Polish Synagogue in the heart of New York City, a project
that gave him experience with his minor in art history, he said.
Cohen's thirst for the arts runs in the family. His sister, Nina
Cohen, a '97 Union grad, was an art history major who works for a New York City
gallery. His grandmother was a stone sculptor whose creations were part of the Cohen
household.