Profiles and Silhouettes

Three Vessels

Date 1985 / Dimensions 22 ⅝ x 17 in. / Medium Cast, enameled, laminated glass plaques

Folded Silhouettes,1⁄5 Series

Date 1983

Dimensions 11 1⁄4 x 8 1⁄8 x 7 7⁄8 in.

Medium Fused plate glass with fired enamels

Featured Smithsonian American Art Museum

In Folded Silhouettes, 1⁄5 Series, Margie Jervis and Susie Krasnican created an image of two vessels without making traditional vase or bowl forms. They used glass cut-out silhouettes of flat vase shapes and propped them up with another piece of glass perpendicular behind each one. The purple “shadow” of the yellow and pink vase silhouette is painted on the gray vase shape behind it so that their order of placement can never be altered. This creates a trompe l’oeil (trick of the eye) effect: at a certain angle, the piece appears to be two three-dimensional vessels.

“We were thinking about how a two dimensional flat outline can actually represent a three dimensional object. In reaction to that, we decided to make objects in the round from silhouettes.” – Joint statement from the artists about Folded Silhouettes, 1⁄5 Series, 2013