“'Sculpture' is a debatable word,” argues David Lewin. “Just because a work of glass has a hole in it, does that make it a vase?”

Just because a metal object lights up, does that make it a lamp?

“I don't make lamps,” he says emphatically.

Nevertheless, the colorful, half-finished metal and glass object he holds in his hands lights up his cluttered workshop with a soothing glow.

An accomplished glass-blowing artist for more than two decades, Lewin shut down his 4,000-degree furnace two years ago, closed his studio and moved his family from Philadelphia to Nevada City.

Born in Israel and raised in San Francisco, Lewin holds a bachelor of arts degree in painting and printmaking from California State University, San Francisco, and a master of fine arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute.

It was glass blowing, however, that captured his imagination.

“I had to take a class outside my major at San Francisco State,” he explains with a shrug.

That turned into a 25-year career that ranged from teaching at the Tokyo Glass Art Institute to working as an artisan at the Creative Glass Center of America in Millville, New Jersey, to his own art glass studio in Philadelphia.

Transition to metal

The move from one coast to the other was more than a change of venue for Lewin. It was a change of artistic vision and medium.

He took a class in metal design at Sierra College in Rocklin.

“It was like a bomb went off,” he recalls. The creative interaction with his teacher, Mike Conlen, inspired his transition from glasswork to metalwork.

The problem is: He's still got to sell off his inventory of art glass and create enough new, illuminated metal-and-glass works to begin the next phase in his career.

Lewin has won awards and grants for his glasswork ranging from the San Francisco Art Festival to the New Jersey State Council on the Arts to the National Endowment for the Arts. His work has been shown in more than 100 galleries nationwide, including the Mowen Solinsky Gallery in Nevada City.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, his remaining glasswork will be for sale at the Artisans Festival at the Miners Foundry Cultural Center in Nevada City.

Learning curve

Meanwhile, Lewin is learning to work in a new medium.

“There's a learning curve,” he admits. “There's a lot of work involved. It doesn't happen quickly.”

As a consequence, “I've scrapped a lot of stuff.”

Showing a piece of a work in progress, Lewin explains it's taking him three days to bend and intricately paint a delicately curved steel pipe. It would have taken less than a day to create a similar piece in glass.

The difference: Steel doesn't break.

“I want to do public art,” says Lewin. “There's a safety factor.”

In other words, not only does his work in metal, glass and electric light have to be structurally sound; it must still capture the imaginations of those who view it.

“Design is everything,” he avers. “You can be an outstanding technician, but if your design is weak, you're not an artist.”

Lewin is not ready to showcase his latest creations in public, but he will soon be previewing some of his new work on his new Web site (DavidLewinDesign.com).

His wife Joan Moskowitz Lewin, a graphic artist in her own right, also is teaching herself a new art form in designing the Web site.

While Lewin is fond of debating the niceties of what is and isn't sculpture, he is willing to concede his new art form is “sculpture that lights up.”

Tom Durkin is a freelance writer based in Nevada City. For comments on this article, e-mail tkleist@theunion.com or call (530) 477-4230.