Dhammika’s MGM Casino now a glass artworks gallery
Craig Mitchell Smith displays a creative work.
Faced with state pressure on running casinos, the Dhammika Perera-controlled MGM Grand casino at Bambalapitiya Junction (on Galle Road) which closed down recently is being transformed to a glass artworks gallery.
When the Business Times team entered the former casino premises, the second floor was full of fanciful, rich glass sculptures that was budding with flowers and trees at the gallery. The bright works included images of butterflies, fish, waves, fire and flowers. The idea to start this came up when Mr. Perera first encountered American glass artist, Craig Mitchell Smith’s work at Disney World’s Epcot Center, where his displays were part of the International Flower and Garden Festival.
Mr. Perera was deeply impressed by the work and reached out to Mr. Smith. “He said he had never seen anything like it,” Mr. Smith told the Business Times at the newly converted Colombo studio where he was teaching some 18 undergraduate students of University of Moratuwa and University of Visual and Performing Arts, Colombo.
As the conversation progressed, Mr. Smith said that Mr. Perera had offered to foot the bill for a Sri Lankan glass studio. “This new studio includes all of the same equipment as my studio in Lansing; we ordered kilns and glass-making tools from Bullseye Glass Co. in Portland, Oregon and had them shipped to Sri Lanka,” he said, adding that he and some of his employees will spend three weeks in Sri Lanka and he has contracted to make a number of pieces. Mr. Smith said that he has perfected his own technique for cutting and kiln-firing glass to emulate a painter’s brush strokes.
His sculptures, he added, are designed to add to nature, and have found their way into private and public gardens both in the US and abroad. “In 2006, I discovered my medium in glass. I love glass for its metaphors of the human condition. At its best, it is colourful and transparent, brittle when cold and malleable when warm, stronger than it looks, enduring the ages if treated with care and respect,” he explained, adding that the students will be taught as many skills as possible. The students, he said were handpicked and they too were mesmerised by Mr. Smith’s unique approach to kiln-formed glass which combined fusing, ingenious texturing, slumping and cold working to create the pieces which he had assisted the students to sculpt at the studio.
“It’s a different way of thinking about glass,” added Mr. Smith who is a self-taught artist who has worked as a designer and painter. “I think like a painter, and I treat my kiln like I would a canvas. It’s just something I stumbled upon and it works for me.” Kawshi Amarasinghe, Junior Assistant Manager International Business Development and CSR, Vallibel One (the holding company of some of Mr. Perera’s businesses) said that this is a CSR project by the company. “This is entirely free for the students. It’s the first time a glass studio dedicated to fused glass making has been set up.”
Mr. Smith added that the sculptures will be large, modern works of art, typically one-off creations, which are substantially or wholly made of glass.