By shaping molten glass into sinuous, full-bodied sculptures that recontextualize ecology and womanhood in the modern world&ndash;Goldie Poblador proves that strength doesn&rsquo;t always mean perfection or invincibility. It&rsquo;s about trusting the process of becoming: breaking down, taking the heat, and picking up the pieces.

&ldquo;Is it dangerous?&rdquo; I ask Goldie Poblador about her trade of glassblowing. She says, &ldquo;It could be but you get used to it.&rdquo; In simple terms, it&rsquo;s a technique that manipulates glass by blowing air through a tube. It&rsquo;s a field dominated by men but this doesn&rsquo;t deter Goldie from pursuing a rare occupation. She burns through odd hours with a concoction of upbeat music and the smell of liquid glass whose signature aroma mixes notes of propane and beeswax.

Photo courtesy of Goldie Poblador

From describing scents to sounds, Goldie is very much in tune with the sensory qualities of her environment. As a graduate of the University of the Philippines, she once created an ironic perfume bar for her thesis. &ldquo;I thought about a perfume bar that critiques how people dredged a river to build a mall. I made my bottles too. I worked on the concept of how scent is related to memory as it&rsquo;s our sense of smell that&rsquo;s most connected to the limbic system in our brain.&rdquo; That was in 2009 when the Typhoon Ondoy happened. &ldquo;I bottled all the memories of the typhoon&ndash;the degradation of the ecology&ndash;in that area.&rdquo;
Fast forward to 2023, with countless residencies and a scholarship at the Rhode Island School of Design up her sleeve, she continues to explore the longstanding intimacies of culture and nature. In Sea Anomaly, she reimagines vulnerable marine invertebrates from the Verde Island Passage in the Philippines and recreates bioluminscent forms by invoking the dark feminine power of the ocean.
Through it all, she never settles, and it&rsquo;s this spirited curiosity that sparks our conversation about testing the mettle of material and immaterial objects.

Portrait by JL Javier

Among all things, why glass?
I love the rarity of the medium and demonstrating to the audience why it&rsquo;s fragile. Will it break? As an artist, I enjoy that process.
What interests you?
My overarching interests are ecology, scent, and of course, the female body. For instance, I love the sculptures of Janine Antoni. She worked with the themes of the body. My favorite piece of hers is Lick and Lather. It&rsquo;s made of chocolate and soap. It&rsquo;s her bust; she ate it. Man, I love her work. It&rsquo;s so exciting and tactile.
Tell me about your recent residency.
I was at a residency at the Corning Museum of Glass in upstate New York. It&rsquo;s one of the biggest centers for glass in the world. I was there in 2012 as a student. It was a dream come true because that&rsquo;s where my idols taught.
Who were your idols?
Lucio Bubacco, Ramon Orlina, and Emilio Santini, who was my teacher.

Can you tell us more about your exploration of femininity in your works?
Looking closely at my pieces, you'll see feminine body parts. I think intuitively from a place where femininity is explored from the idea of life and life forms like the flowers I made last year and this year&rsquo;s sea creatures. It was a dark feminine energy, you know, about life giving death. These parts exist in everyone. Last year, my research was about flowers and this queen who couldn&rsquo;t have children, and another was about someone who needed an abortion and used seeds as an abortive drug&ndash;the peacock flower. These flowers are everywhere.
Do you assume a character when you work? How personal is your art?
At the end of the day, everything's personal. It's up to you what you choose to disclose. Sea Anomaly is about diving into the shadow side of yourself and the creatures you&rsquo;ll find there. The sea is scary for me and [it&rsquo;s like] the creative energy in the shadow side of yourself.

Are you into symbols? Very. As a child, I liked surrealism and read Salvador Dali&rsquo;s diary. I also love Leonora Carrington. They put her in a facility but her paintings are very symbolic and dreamlike. I&rsquo;m interested in plants and how the female body morphs and transforms into mythology. Carl Jung believed in the collective unconscious, right? I find it interesting that the way we view dreams and symbols is universal.
How long have you been doing your practice?
I&rsquo;ve been doing this for around 13 years. I still feel like I have a long way to go. I&rsquo;ve always had other jobs to support my things. I worked in retail. I worked as an art assistant. I worked in the restaurant industry. Thankfully now, it&rsquo;s easing up in that area. I'm always ready to do whatever it takes. That's my mentality.

What lessons have you learned from the Philippines that you were able to channel overseas and vice versa?
In the Philippines, you have to be resourceful, especially when you study at UP Fine Arts. We have a lantern parade, right? In the parade, you have to make a giant lantern out of minimal material. We had to make a mythological bird that glitters so we used old discs and chicken wire. I used a lot of chickenwire during my undergrad years.
Meanwhile, it&rsquo;s expensive in New York so when there&rsquo;s zero budget&ndash;other people would back out. I&rsquo;ll be like, &lsquo;You know what, I can think of something to do for $300.&rsquo; I'm proud that I can do things for less. However, it&rsquo;s here where I learned the technique of glass. There&rsquo;s no glass education in the Philippines. It was a two-year program, but then there&rsquo;s always more to learn. Just being around people that can do it, you realize all the possibilities. You learn through observation. These experiences taught me to know and respect many ways of life.

&ldquo;Go on a journey of knowing yourself. Whether you&rsquo;re a filmmaker or a writer, you need integrity even if your stuff will break.&rdquo; - Goldie Poblador

What can you say about being a commercial artist?
The hustle is important. Always be ready to supplement your practice. Knowing it&rsquo;s not guaranteed to succeed commercially, it helps to expand. You can have it one year and not the next year. Or it can take you years. But always still have a practice. Even if it&rsquo;s not your main thing, do it every day if you can.
How do you empower women through your art?
One time, I was looking for lights in a local hardware store. I was telling them exactly what I needed, but they were like, &lsquo;That&rsquo;s wrong.&rsquo; Even for an experience as simple as that&ndash; a woman being in a shop full of men&ndash;women tend to get their share of mansplaining. Sometimes women&rsquo;s art is also pigeonholed as decorative handicrafts.
So, I always highlight women in my work. I did a project where each piece is named after a woman artist&ndash;Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, Simone de Beauvoir, Brown Sugar (my friend), Georgia O'Keeffe, Gabriela Silang, and Ana&iuml;s Nin.

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 How would you define your breaking point? What&rsquo;s your advice to artists who are in the midst of their breaking point?
 Keep working through failure. Glass breaks a lot, right? Every time you work, you&rsquo;re paying for your time and you&rsquo;re paying for the material. Sometimes it&rsquo;ll break. Learn to be okay with failure but show up the next day. If you get 50 rejections in your inbox, you still have to apply the next day even if people say your medium is so hard that nobody is going to want it. You have to be strong enough to decide for yourself. Go on the journey of knowing yourself. Whether you&rsquo;re a filmmaker or a writer, you need integrity even if your stuff will break. 
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Make or Break: Glass Artist Goldie Poblador Is One to Play with Fire

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