Beacon-based artist plans glass carpet
Growing up, Zeinab Manesh spent a lot of time staring at the carpet. She still does.
“As a kid, I was often in situations where I felt uncomfortable,” says Manesh, 24, an Iranian American artist who works out of Hudson Beach Glass in Beacon and was diagnosed as an adult with memory loss attributed to post-traumatic stress disorder and autism. “It was an easy escape for me, but I also found the carpets very beautiful.”
Last month, the Ann Street Gallery in Newburgh, a project of Safe Harbors of the Hudson, named Manesh as one of its three 2024 fellows. (The others are Matthew Gilbert of Newburgh and Nicole Hixon of Orange County.) The gallery provides up to $2,000 to each artist for materials and supplies. The artists create works over six months that will be unveiled during Newburgh Open Studios.
Manesh, who studied glassblowing at the Rhode Island School of Design, says she plans to create a glass carpet inspired by the islimi patterns found in Iranian rugs.
During college, Manesh copied these patterns by hand as sketches. Later she began using colored powdered glass to incorporate the designs and develop her own style.
“During Christmas break in 2021, I was exploring the concepts of frames and visioning and tried to figure out a way to draw with glass and capture it with my hot-cast glass on top that I would pour over,” says Manesh, who lives in Hopewell Junction. “I found that if you put the powder down first and embed a design, pouring the hot-cast glass on top captured it so perfectly. It inspired me to continue going down this path with my creations.
“At first I bought cake stencils from Amazon and then created my own designs to use with the colored powdered glass. It happened one day in the studio and I loved it so much I thought, “OK, this is what I’m doing. As Bob Ross said, happy accidents.”
When the colored powder sticks to the glass, it creates a photographic finish, something that Manesh appreciates because she also enjoys photography.
“When the powder sticks to the glass, there is almost a ghost image of what was once there,” she says. “The concept of ghost images resembles my childhood a lot.”
Because they are so large, her glass carpets are created in sections. “My vision is for the viewer to question their sense of vision and think, ‘What am I seeing?’ It also makes them search for an image that is not completely there and that ties in with how I see myself.”
Manesh’s glass carpets are displayed on the ground over a bed of black sand. She says she experimented with many materials, including dirt, to display the 6-by-7-foot pieces but black sand seemed symbolic.
“When I was a child, I was obsessed with sparkles and glitter,” she says. “Black sand sparkles and makes the glass shiny, but it also connects the glass and sand because they are both repurposed things made from natural materials.”
In addition to glass carpets, Manesh uses her colored powdered glass technique to create household items such as goblets, cups, bowls and holiday ornaments that are sold at Hudson Beach Glass.
Her carpets are a different story. “Carpets of course are meant to be stepped on,” she says. “But the carpets I make you almost can’t use at all. You can only stand above them and question your vision and your memory of what’s going on. It’s visceral and sacred.”
During the six-month fellowship, Manesh hopes to explore more of this concept of a viewer constantly questioning perceptions “because that is how I feel when I try to remember things from the past and I can’t.”
Manesh sells her glassware on Instagram at @glassqueenz and also posts photos demonstrating her process.
“I want to be a glassblower for the rest of my life,” she says. “Even with 30-plus years under my belt, I want to be able to say I’m not done learning yet.”
