Steiner Surface 1973

Ruth Vollmer made this ‘Steiner Surface’ sculpture in glass. It feels almost like a living organism, doesn’t it? Like a cell dividing, expanding, and taking shape. I can almost feel the artist, Vollmer, experimenting, intuitively figuring out how to stretch and pull this form, allowing it to emerge through careful manipulation. Did she feel a resistance in the glass, or did it yield easily to her touch? It must have been a bit like blowing a giant soap bubble... The surface is translucent, allowing light to pass through and revealing these intriguing internal geometries. Imagine Vollmer, a mathematician turned artist, exploring the boundary between the abstract realm of numbers and the tactile world of physical forms. I wonder if she knew other glass artists like Anni Albers, or if she was just totally in her own world? Either way, artists like Vollmer remind us that art is a way of thinking through doing, of making visible the invisible structures that shape our world.