Nicole Bauberger showcases her broken glass sculpture at the Northern Front Studio from Jan. 10-31.
Nicole Bauberger has done many demonstrations, installations and exhibitions in the Northern Front Studio over the years. The local studio is led by Mary Ellen Read, who Bauberger says is a huge enjoyer of contemporary art and puts no restraints on the artists she invites to work out of her space.
“It’s an interesting exercise in freedom,” Bauberger says. “If you can find a way to afford the time, you can do almost anything there.”
When she was asked back for a display this winter, Bauberger’s original idea was to show off a collection titled A Meeting of Parts, wherein she brought together different pieces that weren’t necessarily parts of collections and found a way to install them together onsite.
Then she decided The Dress That’s Always Green would work better as a main focal point, given its pertinence to the Yukon’s winter season.
“I have a couple of other sculptures I’m hoping to install that are also along this theme, and I’m hoping I find the right place for them,” Bauberger muses. “Partly because it’s so free, you can figure it out a bit as you go along.”
Bauberger made The Dress That’s Always Green back in January of 2021, and it was first presented on Paddy’s Pond as part of the Pivot Festival. The dress is made of broken glass pieces from gin bottles, meant to represent leaves.
Bauberger originally went at the bottles she had collected with a hammer, but realized a pedal wrench for bicycles worked better and continued her glass smashing using one.
“In my practice, I’ve been asking what happens if we let go of preciousness, but still care, for the past five years or so,” Bauberger explains of her process creating this piece. “What happens if the breaking isn’t the thing that happens at the end, and then it’s a failure? What happens if the breaking is an important and ongoing part of the making process?”
In addition to its stint on Paddy’s Pond, Bauberger has also installed the piece in the sculpture garden up at the Yukon Arts Centre, during Covid, and in her Dalton Trail Trail Gallery in the woods behind Hillcrest.
The dress is life-sized but not wearable, and made entirely of discarded and recycled products. It is part of a pair of dresses, the other being titled The Dress That’s Always Frozen.
For Bauberger, the green dress represents an endless state of summer that can be found within oneself, a message Yukoners can often draw on through the long winters. And for an outdoor exhibit, Bauberger has found glass holds up much better in the winter than other materials.
While she admits she got a few little nicks from the glass during her creation process, Bauberger doesn’t necessarily believe that glass is any more dangerous than other materials like plastic and metal.
“Glass isn’t that dangerous once you get used to it,” she explains. “I probably should wear more goggles and things like that, though.”
Along with her dress, Bauberger plans to add more bottle-glass leaves to the space, presenting them so they radiate out from the dress, and she will suspend some discarded branches she has found in the woods, with leaves wired to them.
Bauberger pauses to think when asked what she hopes patrons might take away from seeing the dress on display in an artistic workspace, ultimately saying she hopes the metaphor of repurposing things deemed broken can resonate with people.
“I’m hoping they experience some delight and pleasure with the colours and the whimsical idea of making a dress out of broken glass,” she says. “If I get some other sculptures up, I hope they sell, and maybe this piece can sell too.”
As ever, Bauberger is working on new pieces, and she says some of her upcoming works involve glass as well, and are much bigger than her dress. She goes as far as to call this piece an appetizer for her upcoming works.
Bauberger will be working on the Northern Front Studio installation over solstice and the first week of January. Interested patrons can see the installation as part of the First Friday Art Crawl on Jan. 10, along with exhibitions at Arts Underground and Yukon Artists At Work galleries.
The Dress That’s Always Green and Other Stories will remain on display at Northern Front Studio in the Waterfront Station building between Boston Pizza and the Yukon River, Monday-Friday during business hours from Jan 10 to 31.
Bauberger makes a point to thank the folks at Raven Recycling for gathering and donating the bottles she needs for her pieces. To keep up with Bauberger and view some of her other works, visit nicolebauberger.com.
