Jennifer Caldwell AKA Umphress creates work that draws inspiration from her environment. Born and raised in California, she began working with glass in 2000 while living in Hawaii.

 

Caldwell now lives and works in Kingston, Washington, where the Pacific Ocean continues to influence her work. “Although my inspiration comes from the ocean, I am most intrigued by capturing movement. I try to emulate the movement of sea life in a simple contemporary form,” says Caldwell in her personal statement. "Glass is, at once, fragile and strong, beautiful and dangerous, full of movement and static.  These paradoxes lend themselves to speaking of conflicting ideas that inevitably accompany each other in the mind and throughout life’s experiences.  Humor, whimsy and imagination are a cathartic aspect of my studio practice that allow me to address more serious emotions from a place of playfulness. In my work, I observe objects from the world around me and convey ideas by identifying aspects of these object that I am drawn to.   Color, form or historical meaning become a point of departure and focus while aspects that make these objects live or function in reality, become secondary or completely denied during the creative process.  In this way objects from my experience become beautiful, yet un-functional, or are combined in a way to see the paradoxes through which I view the world.   Working with the constant motion associated with hot glass forces me to intuitively engage with the material creating a constant collaboration between the material and myself.  This is a connection that happens between my conscience and sub-conscience, my mind and hands, the motion of the material and my own emotions, resulting in a physical object that conveys my essence".