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PRESS RELEASE:

HOMAGE TO THE GLACIER

Sculpture by Peter Bremers and Paintings by Jim Schantz

BERKSHIRE MUSEUM, November 2, 2024 through January 5, 2025

HOMAGE TO THE GLACIER, The Impermanence of Beauty. Sculpture by Peter Bremers and Paintings by Jim Schantz

Pittsfield, MA. -  One of the most dramatic locations in Iceland sits on her southeastern coast, where the Vatnajökull Glacier (the second largest in Europe) meets the Atlantic Ocean. Jökulsárlón, is a large glacial lagoon (currently about 7 square miles) that developed in the late 1940s as the glacier receded inland. Glacial chunks that for ages had calved directly into the Atlantic now float majestically in the lagoon. Grand slabs of ice gather at the lake’s narrow egress, melt into smaller blocks and take temporary residence on the black stone beach, and eventually roll out to sea. As spectacular a sight as it is, Jökulsárlón is a stunning reminder of the effects of climate change on glaciers. Icelandic glaciers reached their maximum size at the end of the 19th century, and as Vatnajökull melts, the lake gets bigger. It has increased fourfold in size since the 1970s and is now the deepest lake in Iceland.

It is no wonder that Jökulsárlón attracts artists as a subject. The clarity of the water and ice offers endless color exploration, the reflective nature of the materials is ripe for the study of light, and the combination of jagged and organic forms allows for unlimited variety in composition. Beyond the aesthetic prowess of the location is her readiness to be both a place for meditation and a mirror of humanity’s fraught relationship with the earth.

Painter Jim Schantz and glass artist Peter Bremers traveled to Iceland together in May of 2023, and Vatnajökull and Jökulsárlón became a major source of inspiration for their work. Though they work in vastly different media, Bremers and Schantz both create art that embodies the beauty of nature. In addition, their personal and creative affiliation with the natural world has developed their commitment to environmental protection. For 15 months, the artists “worked separately but with the same memory,” says Bremers. He says that the work is important because it is “such a political topic — it shouldn’t be. It should be beyond political” because of the effects a changing climate will have for generations to come.

Icelandic glaciers have been rapidly retreating for more than two decades and glacier down-wasting is one of the most obvious consequences of the warming climate. Glaciers in Iceland reached their maximum size at the end of the 19th century. Runoff from the glaciers has also been changing, and new glacial lakes have formed or increased in size in front of many of them, while some of these monumental glaciers have completely disappeared.

“Visiting Iceland for the fourth time, now in the company of my friend and colleague Jim Schantz brought a specific joy to me. Sharing beauty with other people always enhances the experience but doing so with a fellow artist has a special value. Though the topic of the disappearing glaciers is a dramatic truth, the beauty of Iceland's ice masses is still there to visit. Traveling with a fellow artist and sharing what draws our specific attention gives the rare opportunity to look through somebody else's eyes, in this case a painter. As I see ice as 3D glass, Jim looks at landscapes to be translated into impressions on paper or canvas. Both are interpretations of what we individually perceive. The results are different in medium and dimensions, but they share the beauty that we are losing due to accelerating global warming: these wondrous glaciers. Our works complete what we witnessed and express our love for nature, as well as our concern that future generations will not be able to see or experience this beauty of the glaciers.”

Bremers explores both the outer and inner landscape, expressing in glass how the unseeable vibrations of the earth create a sense of wellbeing, how his personal journey of spiritual growth is always transforming, and how humans are changed by their encounters with the world. Monochromatic glass sculptures are made dynamic and varied as light passes through undulations of thickness, carved facets, and negative space. From his first visit to Antarctica in 2001, which he credits as being one of the most influential on his work, he identified the icebergs as “nature’s floating sculpture garden” and endeavored to honor them in glass.

In some ways, the work that Schantz and Bremers created after their joint trip to Iceland could not be more different. Schantz’s richly worked pastels and oils have a soft warmth while Bremers sharp-edged sculptures have a pristine clarity. Schantz reveals the spectrum of pinks, greens, and blues that live within the ice, and as with his work featuring the Berkshires, pays particular attention to how the light works on the surfaces at different times of day. The violet tinge of Jökulsárlón Dusk gives way to orange in Jökulsárlón Sunset, though in each iteration the mighty floes stand sentinel against the changing sky. Bremers, on the other hand, focuses on a single color in its many light-tinged manifestations. The blue of Hvannadalshnúkur is a deep cobalt on the underside of the carved elements and barely there in the thin curves. Because the glass is translucent, layers of blue work upon each other to create a range of hues that shift as the viewer changes perspective.

Jim Schantz, Jökulsárlón Reflection, 2024

In other ways, there is a striking similarity in their work. Each in their own way captures the depth and layers of the scene, Schantz through a receding haziness of form and Bremers through volume, carving, and faceting. Schantz’s Jökulsárlón Reflection and Bremer’s Öræfajökull both highlight the juxtaposition of sharp peaks and mighty crevices characteristic of the area. Both are a celebration of the gamut of blues in the ice—from indigo to cerulean to almost-white. Both demonstrate how different interpretations of the same place can co-exist and complement one another, because within our unique visions there is a universality of experience.

Peter Bremers, Öræfajökull, 2024

The artists point out that they believe the way to motivate the public to care about the effects of climate change is, rather than preaching, to take the approach of highlighting the beauty that will disappear if we don't recognize and work to slow or stop the negative human impact upon climate.

If You Go:

Homage To the Glacier An exhibition of glass sculptures by Peter Bremers and paintings by Jim Schantz exploring the glaciers of Iceland and the idea of the impermanence of beauty.

Berkshire Museum, 39 South St., Pittsfield, Massachusetts

The exhibition catalog features full page images as well as essays by Glaciologist, Dr. Allen Pope, and Cultural Essayist Jeanne Koles.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Peter Bremers attended the University of Fine Arts (Sculpture Department) in Maastricht, Netherlands. His introduction to glass came by accident after he was well-established as a light-sculptor, when he wandered into a glassblowing workshop with Andries Copier, which led to his studies at the Jan Van Eyck Academy, Post Academic Institute for Art & Design, also in Maastricht. He attended workshops at The Oude Horn in Leerdam and became an assistant to Bernard Hessen.  In 1989, he studied with Lino Tagliapietra and worked with Neil Wilkin in England, where he produced objects using the graal technique.  His works are in major public collections including, the Art Museum of the Hague, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Imagine Museum in Florida, Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, Denmark, and Eskisehir Metropolitan Contemporary Glass Arts Museum, Turkey.

Jim Schantz received his Master’s Degree in Painting at the University of California, Davis and his Bachelor’s in Fine Arts at Syracuse University. He also studied at The Hornsey School of Art, London and at the Skowhegan School in Maine. His works are in numerous public collections, including: The Berkshire Museum, The Center for Spiritual Life at Emerson College; Lowe Art Museum, Syracuse University; The Art Complex Museum, Duxbury MA; Nelson Museum, U.C. Davis; Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University; Skidmore College; Simon’s Rock of Bard College, and University of Massachusetts. Jim has had several solo exhibitions at Pucker Gallery in Boston. His work has also been featured in exhibitions at the Berkshire Museum, The Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, The Fuller Museum of Art, Brockton, The Albany Institute of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum.

The Life & Death of Glaciers

Dr. Allen Pope

In August 2019, two anthropologists organized the world’s first glacier funeral for the Icelandic glacier Okjökull. A group of about 100 people assembled to commemorate this once-dynamic glacier nestled into the caldera of an extinct volcano through poetry, speeches, and silence.

This is unlikely to be the last funeral of its kind: Iceland, despite its namesake, is rapidly losing its ice. A combination of warming air temperatures and changing precipitation patterns have caused Iceland’s glaciers to lose 16% of their mass and 19% of their area since the early 20th century. With recent warming accelerating, Vatnajökull is predicted to lose between 30 and 94% of its volume by 2300 depending on continued greenhouse gas emissions, leaving behind landscapes the ice had scraped clear during earlier advance.

Okjökull wasn’t the first glacier to succumb to global climate change and it certainly won’t be the last. But when is a glacier no longer a glacier? And why should we care?

Put simply, a glacier is a mass of snow that accumulates more in the winter than melts in the summer. Then, compressed under its own weight, the snow is slowly compacted into ice, which begins to flow. This flow is the defining characteristic of a glacier. For a glacier, movement equals life and stagnation equals death.

In some cases, a glacier can retain its status even as its demise nears. Some scientists use the term “glacieret” to refer to very small glaciers, while others prefer the term “remnant ice patch” to refer to a former glacier, or perhaps a glacier caught in the limbo of transition. Terms like “dead ice” or “stagnant ice” can refer to parts of glaciers that no longer flow at a detectable rate.

This transition from a glacier to a dead glacier can be messy. Thanks to varying topography, precipitation, melt, and other local characteristics, the death of a glacier looks different in each case. Some scientists have checklists of features that define a former glacier: whether it has crevasses, when its meltwater features collapse, how much debris covers the ice. A certain score indicates glacier death. Other glacier surveys are very practical, done with airborne photography or satellite imagery. By these metrics, a glacier must be above a certain size, anywhere from 2.5 acres to 25 acres, depending on who is conducting the survey and how.

No matter what a glacier’s end looks like, shrinking glaciers have enormous impacts. Glaciers provide cold meltwater even in hot, dry summers. This meltwater is often vital for unique alpine ecosystems, agricultural fields that need watering, hydropower turbines that need turning, and people downstream who depend on glacier melt to smooth out cycles of drought and provide a consistent source of water to drink and use.

Snow patches also accumulate in winter and melt in summer. But glaciers’ flowing ice is special. Ice is denser than snow, and so over the same area, a glacier can store more water than a snow patch can. Perhaps even more importantly, as glaciers flow, they grind down the rocks underneath them. liberating key minerals and nutrients for the ecosystems downstream.

Vatnajökull—the inspiration for this exhibition, meaning lake glacier in Icelandic—is part of a special class of glaciers that ends in water. Calving off icebergs into Jökulsárlón is a major way that Vatnajökull loses mass. Those icebergs in turn deliver cold, fresh water and new nutrients into the lagoon and ocean beyond. And icebergs in Jökulsárlón (like their counterparts in fjords in Greenland and Alaska) also provide important habitats for seals to haul out and raise their pups in relative safety.

In recognition of all the benefits that they provide, in some countries glaciers are specially protected natural resources. In Chile, for example, glaciers are protected from the activities of mining companies while snow patches are not. So, the difference between a glacier and not-a-glacier can mean environmental protection to some and millions of dollars to others.

When we mourn the death of glaciers, though, we aren’t just thinking about water and nutrients. To many, including many scientists, glaciers are sentinels of human-caused climate change. Iceland’s glaciers are in step with global glacier retreat, with global glaciers expected to lose one quarter to nearly one half of their mass by 2100. When one glacier retreats, it might be a fluke. But when we document this retreat of glaciers around the globe, it is evidence that we are changing the very nature of our planet.

I study glaciers, yes, because of their environmental importance, but also because the deep blue of glacial ice is beautiful and enthralling. Glaciers fill me with wonder and awe. Spending time in glacial landscapes inspires me to ask big questions about the world around me. I suspect that is something I have in common with the artists presenting here.

In her wonderful book The Secret Lives of Glaciers, glaciologist and writer M Jackson asks, “What if we highlighted glaciers to show that the world is exceedingly more complex, and beautiful, and imaginable, than we’ve ever previously imagined?” I love Jackson’s poignant reminder that glaciers can be nature’s invitation to open our eyes and our minds and dream big, which might be another reason that we mourn their disappearance.

As glaciers around the world retreat, fade, disappear, and die, why be a glaciologist at all? Maybe it is hope that by not giving up on our glaciers, we as a society will make the changes needed to forestall their complete demise. Maybe it’s just to give myself a (false) sense of controlling the uncontrollable future. Or maybe the act of giving glaciers our attention, and spending time with them whether in science or in art, is better than doing nothing at all. Whichever it may be, I will keep returning to glaciers every summer to study them and try to understand our world, and maybe myself, a little bit better.

Dr. Allen Pope is a glaciologist and Berkshire County resident.

HOMAGE TO THE GLACIER

Jeanne Koles

When I visited Iceland several years ago, I teased that she was like a supermodel. She never took a bad photo. The breadth of geological phenomena is magnificent—expansive swaths of ice, towering and rushing waterfalls, miles of lunar-like formations, bubbling pots of elemental ooze. Earthly colors are on full display, from verdant fields to ebony lava rocks. The ice is not just milky white but contains and reflects a panoply of colors—muddy browns fill the crags where earth and glacier meet, blues and purples emerge from the depths, inky blackness swallows the profound crevasses. You cannot help but be enraptured by the awe-inspiring power of nature in Iceland.

One of the most dramatic locations in the country sits on her southeastern coast, where the Vatnajökull (the second largest in Europe) meets the Atlantic Ocean. Jökulsárlón, or Glacial Lagoon, is a large glacial lake (currently about 7 square miles) that developed in the late 1940s as the glacier receded inland. Glacial chunks that for ages had calved directly into the Atlantic now float majestically in the lagoon. Grand slabs gather at the lake’s narrow egress, melt into smaller blocks, take temporary residence on the black stone beach, and eventually roll out to sea. As spectacular a sight as it is, Jökulsárlón is a stunning reminder of the effects of climate change on glaciers. Icelandic glaciers reached their maximum size at the end of the 19th century, and as Vatnajökull melts, the lake gets bigger. It has increased fourfold in size since the 1970s and is now the deepest lake in Iceland.

It is no wonder that Jökulsárlón attracts artists as a subject. The clarity of the water and ice offers endless color exploration, the reflective nature of the materials is ripe for the study of light, and the combination of jagged and organic forms allows for unlimited variety in composition. Beyond the aesthetic prowess of the location is her readiness to be both a place for meditation and a mirror of humanity’s fraught relationship with the earth. Painter Jim Schantz and glass artist Peter Bremers traveled to Iceland together in May of 2023, and Vatnajökull and Jökulsárlón became a major source of inspiration for their work. Though they work in vastly different media, Bremers and Schantz both create art that embodies the beauty of nature. In addition, their personal and creative affiliation with the natural world has developed their commitment to environmental protection and conservation.

Schantz explains:

“My work has been centered on paying tribute to nature for the past 40 years. Part of this tribute has been to respond to the beauty of the landscape. As part of this response, it’s my intention to remind us of nature’s vulnerability and temporality. When Peter Bremers and I had a conversation a few years ago about his interest in the Icelandic Glaciers, it was the catalyst for me to investigate this phenomenon. When we visited in May of 2023, the Glacial Lagoon was my greatest inspiration. The ice formations are majestic and powerful, while at the same time, they reflect the transience and vulnerability of nature.”

Jim Schantz works in both pastel and oil, primarily in the Berkshire region of Massachusetts where his bond with locations such as Monument Mountain and the Housatonic River is both artistic and spiritual. His serene landscapes masterfully evoke times of day with smoldering dusks and light-creeping dawns. They capture the essence of the seasons with stark winter skies and heady summer abundance.

With his work, Schantz offers a place of solitude and solace that is reflective of his personal humanity and connection with the planet. In his book, Spirit of Nature, Schantz describes his relationship with nature:

“Within nature exists both timelessness and a universal message. The human spirit contains the spirit of nature. Nature is the common ground for humanity, a place upon which we can reflect and meditate. It is nature that is the constant in our lives; a reminder of the essential in all of us. While it is universal, paradoxically nature is ever-changing; each day presents new light and a new message. We all have a need to connect with nature and receive its message. It is our provider and teacher. We are given this gift of this place we inhabit; it is a gift that must be valued and protected.”

Peter Bremers is originally from the Netherlands, but his inspiration comes from almost anywhere. He writes that:

“Traveling brings me to new places and always initiates new ideas; through the people I meet, sounds, smells, tastes, landscapes, cultures, thoughts, dreams et cetera. It accumulates in 4-dimensional “realities” that exist only because of the world and me in continuous ever-changing relationship. I look at our world but am an intricate part of it as well. I am a witness and a participant.”

Bremers explores both outer and an inner landscape, expressing in glass how the unseeable vibrations of the earth create a sense of wellbeing, how his personal journey of spiritual growth is always transforming, and how humans are changed by their encounters with the world.

Monochromatic glass sculptures are made dynamic and varied as light passes through undulations of thickness, carved facets, and negative space. From his first visit to Antarctica in 2001, which he credits as being one of the most influential on his work, he identified the icebergs as “nature’s floating sculpture garden” and endeavored to honor them in glass. He has said, “How can I express my gratitude for this inexhaustible source of inspiration other than by trying to depict the awesome power and majesty of nature in my sculpture? Not aiming to imitate or equal it, but simply to express my sense of wonder as a human being and an artist.” While the early work of his Icebergs & Paraphernalia series was his way of “portraying [his] relationship with nature, without a moralistic statement; beauty first,” twenty years later is now moved to address the accelerated retreat of the glacier and the impermanence of nature.

In some ways, the work that Schantz and Bremers created after their joint trip to Iceland could not be more different. Schantz’s richly worked pastels and oils have a soft warmth while Bremers sharp-edged sculptures have a pristine clarity. Schantz reveals the spectrum of pinks, greens, and blues that live within the ice, and as with his work featuring the Berkshires, pays particular attention to how the light works on the surfaces at different times of day. The violet tinge of Jökulsárlón Dusk (pages 26-27) gives way to orange in Jökulsárlón Sunset (pages 24-25), though in each iteration the mighty floes stand sentinel against the changing sky. Bremers, on the other hand, focuses on a single color in its many light-tinged manifestations. The blue of Hvannadalshnúkur (page 16) is a deep cobalt on the underside of the carved elements and barely there in the thin curves. Because the glass is translucent, layers of blue work upon each other to create a range of hues that shifts as the viewer changes perspective.

In other ways, there is a striking similarity in their work. Each in their own way captures the depth and layers of the scene, Schantz through a receding haziness of form and Bremers through volume, carving, and faceting. Schantz’s Jökulsárlón Reflection (page 11) and Bremer’s Öræfajökull (page 12) both highlight the juxtaposition of sharp peaks and mighty crevices characteristic of the area. Both are a celebration of the gamut of blues in the ice—from indigo to cerulean to almost-white. Both demonstrate how different interpretations of the same place can co-exist and complement one another, because within our unique visions there is a universality of experience.

Reflecting on their journey together, Bremers wrote:

“Visiting Iceland for the fourth time, now in the company of my friend and colleague Jim Schantz, brought a specific joy to me. Sharing beauty with other people enhances the experience but doing so with a fellow artist has a special value. Though the topic of the disappearing glaciers is a dramatic truth, the beauty of Iceland’s ice masses is still there to visit. Traveling with another artist and sharing what draws our unique attention gives the rare opportunity to look through somebody else’s eyes, in this case a painter. As I see ice as 3D glass, Jim looks to translate landscapes into impressions on paper or canvas. Both are interpretations of what we individually perceive. The results are different in medium and dimensions, but they share these wondrous glaciers—a beauty that we are losing due to accelerating global warming. Our works complete what we witnessed and express our love for nature, as well as our concern that future generations will not be able to see or experience the beauty of the glaciers.”

Jeanne Koles is an independent museum professional with a focus on cultural communications