An Artist Works in Plastic
Written By: Margaret Anderson
For the past few years Zahara Schatz, a recognized painter and sculptor, has been making provocative new art forms in plastic. She is continuously fascinated with this unique medium and its endless possibilities, yet it cannot be said that she is experimenting, so right, so skillful and so individual is her work.
After exploring the medium, Miss Schatz began making pieces of small scope—pendants and wide bracelets with imbedded arrangements of metal minutiae—and went on to trays, bowls, lamp bases, screens, murals, layer paintings and sculptures. She works exclusively in Plexiglas. a thermoplastic material (methyl methacrylate) which can be molded through heat and will retain its shape. This is a comparatively simple process which may be described in elementary terms but, as in many crafts, the success of the finished form lies in the patience, the trial-and-error experimentation and the talent of the craftsman. In any case, plastics are a new and extremely versatile medium for the artist, professional or amateur, to work with. A sheet has no form or textural character of its own, as wood or stone has, but it can be molded and bent at will. It conducts light and reflects colors in ways that are a challenge and a discovery to the artist.
Zahara Schatz starts with a piece of Plexiglas cut from the standard sheet, 3x4 feet. (Murals and screens require larger sheets.) A handsaw is adequate since Plexiglas cuts quite easily, but an electric band saw can be useful, particularly for cutting irregular shapes. Plexiglas may be clear (colorless and transparent), it may be tinted in one of several colors, or it may be opaque for a definite colored background. Only the artist’s experiments can determine just what background will prove most effective for carrying out a particular scheme.
When Miss Schatz has cut the sheet she paints the background design in metallic pigments: bronze, gold and aluminum powders. She then applies her selected and arranged wonderland of small metal pieces and wires, or of dried leaves, ferns and grasses, perhaps using a collage technique for a certain design and texture. As soon as the composition is completed to her satisfaction she laminates the piece. That is, the base Plexiglas sheet and the design which is now integral with it are covered with another sheet—always transparent, though sometimes tinted in a pale color—and the two are joined together as layers. This is accomplished in one of two ways. A solvent for Plexiglas, such as acetone or ethylene dichloride, may be used. A thin coat is spread on the top piece and this is immediately placed upon the sheet which carries the design. The two are then held together between two flat, heavy sheets of metal or plywood under pressure, with several clamps, until the solvent is set. Care must be taken to avoid too much pressure, which will cause the design to shift. Sometimes the design structure itself is cemented to the Plexiglas by either solvent before lamination.
The second method is to use heat. This is more difficult, but creates interesting textured effects by allowing the plastic to flow, like oil paint, around and through the design. The two sheets are heated separately for about ten minutes in an oven, at a temperature of 250° to 300° F. (Miss Schatz uses an ordinary gas stove.) Then they are pressed together in the same kind of form and are held firmly until set. While the plastic is hot it can be shaped by hand or by molds into bowls, plates, trays or lamp bases. Too much pressure in molding may crack the Plexiglas, and too much heat will produce bubbles and crystalline effects. However, the controlled use of overheating brings about fascinating variations, from a faint milkiness around the edge to a snowstorm effect.
With lamination complete, the tray or bowl must be filed, scraped, sanded, buffed and trimmed. Filing prepares the surface for the final polishing. Miss Schatz holds the piece firm with a padded vise while she files it. Thin oil is used on the file. The scraper may be a square piece of thin hard steel, the back of a knife blade or a shaped piece of thin steel to fit a contour, but the edge must always be straight and square. Held at a right angle and drawn across the Plexiglas, it removes a thin shaving, leaving a smooth surface. Wet sanding is apt to be a tedious operation. Coarse sandpaper (about 240 to 300 grit) is used wet until scratches are removed; then a finer paper (up to 400) is sanded over the scratches that are left. The final paper (600 grit) leaves the piece satiny and ready for buffing to a polish. A small electric sander is very helpful. Buffing can be done by hand with dry Bon Ami or any fine abrasive on a cotton flannel cloth—although a very soft electric buffing wheel will save irksome work. Finally, she trims the bowl or tray, but never so that it is wholly symmetrical. Part of its interest lies in its free-form contour.
The process is not completely controlled. For instance, a collage creates spaces of its own in lamination and the textures and depths give a composition an unexpected new dimension and quality. Again, some of Miss Schatz's most interesting pieces are made by twisting and drawing up the malleable plastic, while it is still hot, into suggestive and unconfined shapes. These take on an extra quality, that of color and light reflection. A form has totally different lines and shadows when it is placed before a sunny window, on a dark table or near a lamp. In addition, a composition of bent plastic and brass tubing never becomes static since it may be set in as many as three or four positions, and makes good sense when seen from every angle. Zahara Schatz makes use of light shining through or reflecting within as an integral part of the composition. Not only is Plexiglas a background which allows contrasting materials to be shown in a pattern without interference, but it repeats the pattern by reflection. It invites her to make sensitive use of light and space in planning a composition.
For the substances of her designs Zahara Schatz collects both metals and leaves in as many kinds, shapes, colors and textures as possible. In a metal composition she includes threadlike silver wire and strips of thin sheeting—tin or aluminum, copper, brass, steel—and perhaps thin pieces of fine or coarse mesh copper or silver screen cut to accent the design. She uses small objects in the form of washers or discs (sometimes both together for a positive-negative effect), wire raveled from screening, tiny glistening beads and dots, improbable odds and ends salvaged from workshops. She snips Lurex, to be sprinkled, like thistledown, in the background.
Miss Schatz says that it is extremely difficult to arrange natural forms—leaves, ferns, grasses, tiny flowers—in an abstract and stylized design. Her carefully thought-out collages of metals and her “exercises” in jewelry were a necessary preparation. Inevitable variations in leaves from the same tree, to be placed together, are a real problem in the consummation of a design. Most of these leaves—elm, poplar, aspen, oak, maple and others, in the colors of spring, summer and fall—she gathered herself in the New York countryside, and pressed between the pages of telephone books. Some of the more ephemeral specimens she bought and others she has carried from New Mexico.
Plexiglas is so light and durable that bowls and trays made of it may be used in endless ways, except as ashtrays. Zahara Schatz’s pieces are as versatile as her medium and they range from actual windows to coffee-table tops and doorknobs. The knobs, made from pieces thicker than the usual two sheets, have a pleasing patina, like the feel of a smooth round pebble in the hand. (Her pendants and bracelets, also, have distinctive contours, as important for accessories as the design.) The lamp bases are a good example of her functional pieces. Free-form, they are well balanced and responsive to light as no other material is. Miss Schatz has devised a means for integrating the wiring of the lamps with the composition. It is run through the brass rods which curve in and around the Plexiglas as part of the base or act as a vertical shaft straight through the middle of the lamp.
Miss Schatz is constantly at work on special orders for interiors. One of her most successful pieces is a tall paneled window in a California house. The effect of the window changes with the sun’s position, and at night when light shines through it, it becomes pale green. When light comes from behind the window the metals in the plastic are dark silhouettes; with light shining in front, they glow brilliantly in silver, gold and copper tones.
The Schatz mural in a bank in lower Manhattan demonstrates quite another technique. This is a map of Israel constructed to scale. The artist manipulated five layers of Plexiglas to suggest the elevation of the mountains and to give depth and dimension. She used mesh and wire to indicate topography and specific places with accuracy. The mural is impressionistic, yet a native of Israel can immediately point to his birthplace.
Another major project, which shows the effective use of Plexiglas in an architectural scheme, is the mural, nineteen feet long and four feet high, made for the bar in Warwick House at Atlantic City. Miss Schatz designed it entirely from photographs of the buildings and the oceanfront and, perhaps because she had not seen the resort, gave it a stylized and dreamlike appearance. Even for large compositions she never makes a preliminary sketch on paper, but in this case she first put together a smaller mural as a model to get the desired effect. The background is dark, with edge-lighting to pick up the sparkle of the metals, of which there is great variety in kind and shape. The fishes in the foreground and the people she cut out of very thin sheeting; used combinations of wire and screen for the buildings.
Zahara Schatz says that design must be an organization of many elements: space, line, texture, chiaroscuro, planes and forms. Her theory is apparent in her diverse compositions in Plexiglas; they are never confused and they are never distorted or busy.
Miss Schatz’s family is one of distinguished artists; her father founded the Bezalel Art School and Museum in Israel. After graduation from Paris art schools she came here, in 1937. Her work has been widely shown; plastic compositions at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery, New York.
'Craft Horizons'
An Artist Works in Plastic
Written By: Margaret Anderson
For the past few years Zahara Schatz, a recognized painter and sculptor, has been making provocative new art forms in plastic. She is continuously fascinated with this unique medium and its endless possibilities, yet it cannot be said that she is experimenting, so right, so skillful and so individual is her work.
After exploring the medium, Miss Schatz began making pieces of small scope—pendants and wide bracelets with imbedded arrangements of metal minutiae—and went on to trays, bowls, lamp bases, screens, murals, layer paintings and sculptures. She works exclusively in Plexiglas. a thermoplastic material (methyl methacrylate) which can be molded through heat and will retain its shape. This is a comparatively simple process which may be described in elementary terms but, as in many crafts, the success of the finished form lies in the patience, the trial-and-error experimentation and the talent of the craftsman. In any case, plastics are a new and extremely versatile medium for the artist, professional or amateur, to work with. A sheet has no form or textural character of its own, as wood or stone has, but it can be molded and bent at will. It conducts light and reflects colors in ways that are a challenge and a discovery to the artist.
Zahara Schatz starts with a piece of Plexiglas cut from the standard sheet, 3x4 feet. (Murals and screens require larger sheets.) A handsaw is adequate since Plexiglas cuts quite easily, but an electric band saw can be useful, particularly for cutting irregular shapes. Plexiglas may be clear (colorless and transparent), it may be tinted in one of several colors, or it may be opaque for a definite colored background. Only the artist’s experiments can determine just what background will prove most effective for carrying out a particular scheme.
When Miss Schatz has cut the sheet she paints the background design in metallic pigments: bronze, gold and aluminum powders. She then applies her selected and arranged wonderland of small metal pieces and wires, or of dried leaves, ferns and grasses, perhaps using a collage technique for a certain design and texture. As soon as the composition is completed to her satisfaction she laminates the piece. That is, the base Plexiglas sheet and the design which is now integral with it are covered with another sheet—always transparent, though sometimes tinted in a pale color—and the two are joined together as layers. This is accomplished in one of two ways. A solvent for Plexiglas, such as acetone or ethylene dichloride, may be used. A thin coat is spread on the top piece and this is immediately placed upon the sheet which carries the design. The two are then held together between two flat, heavy sheets of metal or plywood under pressure, with several clamps, until the solvent is set. Care must be taken to avoid too much pressure, which will cause the design to shift. Sometimes the design structure itself is cemented to the Plexiglas by either solvent before lamination.
The second method is to use heat. This is more difficult, but creates interesting textured effects by allowing the plastic to flow, like oil paint, around and through the design. The two sheets are heated separately for about ten minutes in an oven, at a temperature of 250° to 300° F. (Miss Schatz uses an ordinary gas stove.) Then they are pressed together in the same kind of form and are held firmly until set. While the plastic is hot it can be shaped by hand or by molds into bowls, plates, trays or lamp bases. Too much pressure in molding may crack the Plexiglas, and too much heat will produce bubbles and crystalline effects. However, the controlled use of overheating brings about fascinating variations, from a faint milkiness around the edge to a snowstorm effect.
With lamination complete, the tray or bowl must be filed, scraped, sanded, buffed and trimmed. Filing prepares the surface for the final polishing. Miss Schatz holds the piece firm with a padded vise while she files it. Thin oil is used on the file. The scraper may be a square piece of thin hard steel, the back of a knife blade or a shaped piece of thin steel to fit a contour, but the edge must always be straight and square. Held at a right angle and drawn across the Plexiglas, it removes a thin shaving, leaving a smooth surface. Wet sanding is apt to be a tedious operation. Coarse sandpaper (about 240 to 300 grit) is used wet until scratches are removed; then a finer paper (up to 400) is sanded over the scratches that are left. The final paper (600 grit) leaves the piece satiny and ready for buffing to a polish. A small electric sander is very helpful. Buffing can be done by hand with dry Bon Ami or any fine abrasive on a cotton flannel cloth—although a very soft electric buffing wheel will save irksome work. Finally, she trims the bowl or tray, but never so that it is wholly symmetrical. Part of its interest lies in its free-form contour.
The process is not completely controlled. For instance, a collage creates spaces of its own in lamination and the textures and depths give a composition an unexpected new dimension and quality. Again, some of Miss Schatz's most interesting pieces are made by twisting and drawing up the malleable plastic, while it is still hot, into suggestive and unconfined shapes. These take on an extra quality, that of color and light reflection. A form has totally different lines and shadows when it is placed before a sunny window, on a dark table or near a lamp. In addition, a composition of bent plastic and brass tubing never becomes static since it may be set in as many as three or four positions, and makes good sense when seen from every angle. Zahara Schatz makes use of light shining through or reflecting within as an integral part of the composition. Not only is Plexiglas a background which allows contrasting materials to be shown in a pattern without interference, but it repeats the pattern by reflection. It invites her to make sensitive use of light and space in planning a composition.
For the substances of her designs Zahara Schatz collects both metals and leaves in as many kinds, shapes, colors and textures as possible. In a metal composition she includes threadlike silver wire and strips of thin sheeting—tin or aluminum, copper, brass, steel—and perhaps thin pieces of fine or coarse mesh copper or silver screen cut to accent the design. She uses small objects in the form of washers or discs (sometimes both together for a positive-negative effect), wire raveled from screening, tiny glistening beads and dots, improbable odds and ends salvaged from workshops. She snips Lurex, to be sprinkled, like thistledown, in the background.
Miss Schatz says that it is extremely difficult to arrange natural forms—leaves, ferns, grasses, tiny flowers—in an abstract and stylized design. Her carefully thought-out collages of metals and her “exercises” in jewelry were a necessary preparation. Inevitable variations in leaves from the same tree, to be placed together, are a real problem in the consummation of a design. Most of these leaves—elm, poplar, aspen, oak, maple and others, in the colors of spring, summer and fall—she gathered herself in the New York countryside, and pressed between the pages of telephone books. Some of the more ephemeral specimens she bought and others she has carried from New Mexico.
Plexiglas is so light and durable that bowls and trays made of it may be used in endless ways, except as ashtrays. Zahara Schatz’s pieces are as versatile as her medium and they range from actual windows to coffee-table tops and doorknobs. The knobs, made from pieces thicker than the usual two sheets, have a pleasing patina, like the feel of a smooth round pebble in the hand. (Her pendants and bracelets, also, have distinctive contours, as important for accessories as the design.) The lamp bases are a good example of her functional pieces. Free-form, they are well balanced and responsive to light as no other material is. Miss Schatz has devised a means for integrating the wiring of the lamps with the composition. It is run through the brass rods which curve in and around the Plexiglas as part of the base or act as a vertical shaft straight through the middle of the lamp.
Miss Schatz is constantly at work on special orders for interiors. One of her most successful pieces is a tall paneled window in a California house. The effect of the window changes with the sun’s position, and at night when light shines through it, it becomes pale green. When light comes from behind the window the metals in the plastic are dark silhouettes; with light shining in front, they glow brilliantly in silver, gold and copper tones.
The Schatz mural in a bank in lower Manhattan demonstrates quite another technique. This is a map of Israel constructed to scale. The artist manipulated five layers of Plexiglas to suggest the elevation of the mountains and to give depth and dimension. She used mesh and wire to indicate topography and specific places with accuracy. The mural is impressionistic, yet a native of Israel can immediately point to his birthplace.
Another major project, which shows the effective use of Plexiglas in an architectural scheme, is the mural, nineteen feet long and four feet high, made for the bar in Warwick House at Atlantic City. Miss Schatz designed it entirely from photographs of the buildings and the oceanfront and, perhaps because she had not seen the resort, gave it a stylized and dreamlike appearance. Even for large compositions she never makes a preliminary sketch on paper, but in this case she first put together a smaller mural as a model to get the desired effect. The background is dark, with edge-lighting to pick up the sparkle of the metals, of which there is great variety in kind and shape. The fishes in the foreground and the people she cut out of very thin sheeting; used combinations of wire and screen for the buildings.
Zahara Schatz says that design must be an organization of many elements: space, line, texture, chiaroscuro, planes and forms. Her theory is apparent in her diverse compositions in Plexiglas; they are never confused and they are never distorted or busy.
Miss Schatz’s family is one of distinguished artists; her father founded the Bezalel Art School and Museum in Israel. After graduation from Paris art schools she came here, in 1937. Her work has been widely shown; plastic compositions at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery, New York.
'Craft Horizons'