See-through craft

Leonid Kritsun, an architect-turned-artist, is displaying his colorful glass works at the Jerusalem House of Quality.

By BARRY DAVIS
‘Scorpion’ (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
‘Scorpion’
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Once upon a time, Leonid Kritsun was an architect.
Back then, he’d plan buildings made of stone, brick, wood and all sorts of other commensurate materials and, of course, glass. Today, he devotes many of his waking hours solely to the latter element, and the production of a dizzying array of fetching esthetic pieces.
Some of these will be on display in his “Magical Transparency” retrospective exhibition, which opened this week at the Jerusalem House of Quality on Hebron Road and will run until April 12.
Considering Kritsun’s passion for working with glass, it is difficult to believe that his transition from architecture to the more purely artistic discipline was not premeditated.
“It happened by chance,” declares the Soviet-born artist who made aliya 35 years ago. “As an architect I, of course, designed houses, and on one project I wanted to design a window. Actually, it was for my own home. That was exactly 30 years ago.”
Kritsun didn’t know exactly how to go about arriving at a suitable solution for his design conundrum until a new immigrant artist pointed him in the right DIY direction.
“I met her somewhere near the Jerusalem Theater, and I asked her how much it would cost if she designed the window,” recalls Kritsun. “She suggested that I make the window myself. And that was that.”
That may very well have been that, but Kritsun did not just put down his architectural tools and dive headlong into his new craft. While he may have had a head start on most budding glass artists, he still needed to get the rudiments down pat.
“I took a three-month course in stained glass window art at a studio in Jaffa Port and then just got into it,” he recounts.
In fact, the change of professional tack had been bubbling for some time.
“It may have been subconscious, but I’d been looking for a different direction for quite a while,” explains Kritsun. “I had been looking for something more tactile, and I fell in love with this material.”
But it wasn’t as if he hadn’t laid his capable hands on a variety of relevant substances before.
“I studied metal processing, so that helped with the stained glass window work,” he notes. “I worked in a factory, too. When you make a stained glass window, you need to design it first, and as a trained architect I knew how to do that. And there’s drawing and painting involved as well.”
Other hands-on experience also came into play.
“Working with glass reminds me to some degree of photography, which engaged me 40 years ago,” says Kritsun. “At that time, films were developed under a red flashlight with the aid of chemicals. At the end of the process, you discover an entire world that produces a thrilling sensation. Working with glass evokes that same excitement.”
Although Kritsun was not exactly a spring chicken when he veered off his tried and tested professional road, he says he has never regretted it.
“Even though there are many preparatory sketches, the result always succeeds in surprising me,” he says with a twinkle in his eye.
Kritsun’s dedication to his artistic second wind comes through loud and clear as we make our way among dozens of creations of practically every hue and shape crammed into his studio. There is also a surprisingly wide range of textures and thematic orientations on display.
There are, for example, Angel 2 and Angel 3, shaped like the front of a female torso. The latter was far more of a challenge than the former. Angel 2 is made of monochrome layered industrial glass placed horizontally and glued together. On the other hand, Angel 3 comprises colored glass strategically placed to produce the effect of a knitted sweater, with the polychromic “threads” interspersed by white diamond-shaped lines. That involved not only color coordination but also a substantial logistical element of integrating the pieces of glass vertically, so there was no gravitational advantage during the creative process.
Kritsun clearly likes to stay on his toes.
“You need a lot of patience for something like this,” he observes. “I have a lot of patience, and it also relaxes me.”
Making 3D stuff – and there is an abundance of that in Kritsun’s ever-evolving collection – allows the artist to draw on his previous professional expertise.
“You have to plan these works – all the colors and how to place one piece on top of the other,” he says. “You sometimes have to dismantle part of a work and reconstruct certain sections.”
As I cast an eye around the studio, the category spread began to take shape. There are biblically themed items, such as an attractive hanukkia called Columns of Solomon, referencing the striking monoliths in Timna Park in the Arava. The candelabra section also features the self-explanatory titled Spiral piece, while other Judaicaoriented works include a somewhat geometrically designed Noah’s Ark, complete with an impressive lineup of animals.
There are quite a few zoological creations in Kritsun’s portfolio, including a dog, a cat and a slightly menacing-looking crocodile, a scorpion with its raised tailed poised to strike, and a spider with a crown on its head. The textural spread is certainly stretched by the Squirrel creation, which comprises thousands of bits of stained glass glued together to produce a charming creature which you half expect to feel feathery. And there are practical items, such as Tiffanystyle lamps and an alluring glass ode to Marilyn Monroe.
“Even before I took the glass cutter in hand, I knew that would be my vocation for many years to come,” Kritsun declares. “With this, I could create new, different and varied things.”
He says he was also enchanted by the almost chameleon-like qualities of his chosen material.
“Glass has very special properties. It can be solid or liquid, fragile or strong, transparent or opaque, straight or curved,” he says.
We can look forward to much more where all this came from.
“I began this work at a relatively advanced age, but I have no regrets,” says Kritsun. “I just hope that many more years of productive and creative work lie before me.” 
For more information: (02) 671-7430 and http://artglass-jerusalem.net/english/index.php