Willis Felecien Sevin
October 2, 2013
Not your average QB: THS star shines, despite desire to be halfback
October 9, 2013
For Stephanie Donaldson, the path to becoming an educator was lined with her curiosity.
“Ten years ago, if you’d have said, ‘You’ll be a teacher, then own a business and then have two of them, I would have been like, ‘Oh, you’re insane,’ but it just kind of happens,” she said.
As a pre-med microbiology student at Louisiana State University, Donaldson walked through the art building on her way to class, backpack straps cutting into her shoulders and glimpses of creativity beckoning her to sample an art class for an elective. One class turned into two, and she was on her way to switching her core studies to art education, which allowed her to sample all media. Teaching, which she did at Thibodaux High for eight years, was the first job she landed after graduation. Donaldson followed up on her education with a master’s degree in art education from Boston University.
“I absolutely loved teaching, especially high school – I love that age group,” the LaPlace native said. “Even the good kids, they have all these hormones and all of this expression they need to get out, and art is the perfect tool for them. … Of all the age groups, I think they need it most.”
Donaldson, founder and owner of The Purple Penguin Art Company, which has studios in Thibodaux and Houma, left the classroom after the emphasis on high-stakes testing diminished the importance administrators place on art education, she said.
Still, Donaldson remains an educator by profession. Her schoolhouse experience is evident in her patience, reassurance and abilities to communicate with and see untapped potential in the pupils who frequent Purple Penguin.
As was the way she found her profession, adapting to circumstances is what let Donaldson to begin manipulating glass. In her students’ eyes, the art teacher was proficient in all media. She confessed to them she had never blown glass, so a graduated class conspired to take her blindly on a field trip to Rosetree Blown Glass Studio in Westwego.
“I got to blow my own ornament, and this paperweight,” Donaldson said. “It was an amazing, sort of reversal of roles because I was, ‘Oh, my God, trying to maneuver this glass that was like candy dripping off a stick.’ (My former students) were having the best time watching me; I was out of my element. After that, I wanted to learn more about it.”
Instead of purchasing the equipment to blow glass, Donaldson opted to facilitate glass fusion in her studio.
Glass fusion is the arrangement of thin, colored glass on a heavier glass surface. In order to construct a piece, the glass must be broken into fragments. It is flatly glued into place, then the product is fired in a kiln, which melts the glass. Inside the kiln the product is slumped over various templates, which allows the viscous elements to descend and form into the desired shape, such as a bowl or a vase.
Where much of the manipulation of a piece during glassblowing is done while heat is applied, in glass fusion the elements are prearranged before the glass is melted.
“You can make jewelry, you can make bowls, you can make vases, and the everyday person can do it,” Donaldson said. “It’s just like collaging pieces of glass and then melting it. … It’s so easy.”
Students who complete the glass fusion class ($45) are permitted to return to the studio at any time to work independently of instruction, Donaldson said. Purple Penguin provides all necessary materials.
Purple Penguin also offers mosaic stained glass classes, typically on a monthly basis. The company’s seven instructors also teach pottery, printmaking, drawing, photography and painting for children and adults.
The glass fusion and mosaic stained glass media impose little restrictions on somebody’s creativity, Donaldson said.
“A lot of people, when they do the painting classes, they get real nervous,” she said. “‘Oh, look at yours.’ ‘Oh, mine doesn’t look like the teacher’s.’ But this, everybody does their own design, and it’s not going to be perfect because you have little pieces of glass that you make it with. With all of them, you have to step back and look at it. They all come out beautiful.”
Donaldson’s imprint on the local art scene has grown at a rapid rate.
Donaldson’s Houma studio, opened last year, is adjoined to her newest venture, an art gallery named PPG, which debuted this year. Through partnerships with Nadjah Bergeron, Re Howse, Stephanie Terrebonne and many other area artists, Donaldson has kept fresh its exhibits by continually rotating subjects and themes. Last month, the center of the gallery was consumed with road-found garbage coated in red paint, laid out in the mapping symbol of a hurricane, its pointed arms harkening to looming danger.
Howse conceptualized the piece, which was part of Initiative V: Hurricane. The overarching exhibit, also Howse’s idea, was culled following an international call for artists. Among the nations represented on the wall are Germany, Spain and Italy. Each piece is being sold; proceeds are earmarked for American Red Cross of southeast Louisiana.
“We’re still trying to get people to understand that art is not an elite thing that just ‘artists’ can do,” Donaldson said. “Everybody can benefit from just creating art. … It’s all about you expressing yourself.”
Stephanie Donaldson, owner of The Purple Penguin Art Company, assists Samantha Lordrigue with her glass-fusion piece. Lodrigue, a frequent client at the art instructional company, said the medium’s process – breaking glass, then arranging it on a base before melting it into position – is a “stress reliever.”
Lodrigue continues work on her glass-fusion piece.
