Jeffry Mitchell: cat & hat

For 35 years, Jeffry has been a friend. Long before “collectible art object” was a category, Jeffry was making objects that held both joy and gravity at once. His bears, bunnies, farmers and many other unidentified creatures and mediums, are never just a shape, they are always a small piece of the world’s wonder, tenderness and strangeness.

These two glassybaby—the cat and the hat—carry his hands into ours. Glassybaby has blown and etched these glassybaby in Seattle and Livingston. These two images are drawn from his memories of living in Japan. The cat is inspired by the Yamato Transport black cat logo that he saw on the roads in Japan. The spider on the witch’s hat is inspired by the soot sprites in the films of a Hayao Miyazaki.

Jeffry describes his process, “It is like learning to read, or practicing penmanship, or reciting the rosary, the time spent making in my studio allows for rumination. There I process mysteries, sorrows and joys. Like a valentine or a votive, I offer what I make in the hope of care expressed and LOVE returned.”

Jeffry doesn’t decorate. Jeffry excavates—pulling out the parts of us that are silly and sacred in the same breath. That is what these two pieces do. They are not just Halloween. This is Jeffry sharing his talent held in light.