please don’t eat miwa ito’s desserts
Please don’t eat Miwa Ito’s desserts. The flan is glass, the cherry is glass and the little caramel sparkle on top is also glass. It looks like something lifted off a table, but it comes from a furnace in Osaka, where Ito turns the molten material into foodvases, animals and strange little characters that take on a cartoon logic.
The Japanese glass artist and the sculptor works with a material that is usually read as cool, delicate, and untouched, and then pushes it toward appetite. Her ramen bowls, gyoza, fried rice, hot dogs, donuts and sweets look soft and warm. It is this contradiction that gives her work traction. But even beyond their visual appeal, behind each forbidden snack lies the demanding process of glassblowing.
‘Why glass?‘ The artist asks. She explains: ‘Through the glass, I hope to create works that encourage people to revisit the things they might have overlooked: the life inside other living things, the value of everyday objects, and the many connections that support our existence.‘
images courtesy of Miwa Ito
fused glass in disguise
The looseness of Miwa Ito’s figures hides a process that leaves little room for hesitation. Glassblowing depends on heat, breath, time, gravity and rapid movements made while the material is still soft. Glass shines, stretches, hangs, hardens and changes state as it cools. There is a small window in which the object can be configured, and after that, the decision remains.
This demanding process does the artistHis food works more than a visual trick. To make the glass read as cream, dough, jelly, sauce or fried skin, Ito has to work with the way the material already wants to move. Too much control would make the pieces stiff and too little would lose shape. The best works seem caught in between, as if the glass has agreed to pretend to be food for a moment.
Classic Jelly, Miwa It
“glassman poo poo” opens the proceedings
Miwa Ito shares much of that production via Glassman poo poo, a video that brings the hot shop to a more casual, online space. In the clips, the process can almost look like cooking. Molten glass is collected, shaped, cut, added, reheated and assembled until a dessert, pastry or small creature emerges from the oven.
Videos explain why work travels so well online. They have the satisfaction of watching something familiar come together through an unfamiliar material, but they also show how natural the process is. Breath expands the form. The tools press against the surface. Heat keeps the glass functional. The hand must keep pace with the material. What looks cute in the final image is built through speed, repetition, and a very specific kind of attention.
Onigiri, Miwa Ito
mugs, animals and objects with moods
Miwa Ito’s larger glass work moves beyond food to vases, animals and small character-like sculptures. Her Goofy Goblets tilt and sway in bright colors. Slime Mugs and Chubby Mugs appear to bubble, tilt, or bulge, as if the glass is still halfway between liquid and object. Vases and saucers follow the same logic, sitting somewhere between functional dinnerware and small sculptural figures.
Her animals and craft share the same strange threshold as food. They are recognizable, but only fair. A mug can lean into something that looks like a creature or a fish but retains the rounded, toy-like finish without losing the hard luster of the glass.
The strangeness comes from this slight mismatch, where the object looks friendly but still feels untouched. Meanwhile, nothing feels overly polished or precious because the whole of the handcrafted items are allowed to be weird that way.
gratitude, appetite and the daily table
Food sculptures are also connected to the artist’s concept around food. Ito has linked the works to ‘itadakimasu’, the Japanese phrase said before a meal as an expression of gratitude. Literally translating to “humbly receive”, it gives thanks for the food itself, but also for the lives, work and care behind it. ‘It is a quiet thank you — for life, for care, for the invisible,‘ explains the artist.
Ito’s holistic practice brings this traditional practice into a more youthful light. It doesn’t make glass feel current by adding technology or forcing it into a futuristic shape. Rather, it does something lighter and perhaps more efficient. It lets the old know the language of cartoons, snacks and online image culture without losing the difficulty of the hand.
The work is accessible before it is explained. Viewers can immediately understand the appeal of a glass donut. Then the process catches up and the object becomes more impressive. Its softness is an illusion and its humor depends on a material that must be handled with real discipline.
Strawberry Mochi, Miwa It
