My assistant was across the studio, and she couldn’t hear me. What you don’t see on camera is what was really happening. The other contestants, we didn’t have that type of relationship, except for - sometimes we would get heated in the moment, like when I was making the foot, when Janusz responded to my - raised voice, shall we say. Did you feel that you had that effect on your fellow contestants, or is that based on the reactions that you’ve seen since the show started airing? I don’t know what prompted me to say it - but it did pan out. I knew that I’d try to be bringing my point of view from my history with glass to the table, having a global platform for it. I usually have that kind of thing happen to me, and I knew I wouldn’t be hiding myself. What made you to want ‘polarizing’ to be the first way you described yourself on camera?Īfterward, I was like, “Why did I do that? That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.” I just know my personality. The Times caught up with Czeresko - fresh off fracturing her ankle in a surfing accident - by telephone to discuss the backlash she saw coming the heartfelt notes she didn’t and a “frightening,” “motivating” experience at a glass factory in Murano, Italy. “This is the most exposure that glassblowing has probably ever gotten,” she says. Czeresko, who sits on the board of the New York nonprofit UrbanGlass, reports that people are already signing up for classes because of “Blown Away” - to the point that they need more classes for beginners. “To me, it’s almost a political act,” she says in the series, “to occupy the hot shop as a fierce female glassblower.” As an accomplished, unapologetic and, yes, demanding woman artist, Czeresko must confront sexist reality TV tropes in addition to art world misogyny. Whether you consider her the villain or the heroine of “Blown Away,” Czeresko, who days ago turned 58, has emerged as the unlikeliest reality TV star since Wendy Pepper, the Middleburg, Va., mom who stirred up controversy in the debut season of “Project Runway.” With thick-rimmed specs, blunt bangs and a flair for provocative, political work, Czeresko cuts a striking figure in the 10-part competition - easily binge-able at 23 minutes an episode - and it’s not only because her projects, such as sprouted potatoes and larger-than-life breakfasts, are likely to elicit strong responses of their own. “I think I’m a very polarizing personality,” she says to camera. In the first episode of the glassblowing showdown, the Tulane University-trained, New York City-based artist - a 30-year veteran of the craft - introduces herself as an acquired taste. “Rude.” “Narcissistic.” “Feminist queen.” “The best part of that entire show.” As the Twittersphere has caught up with “Blown Away,” the Canadian reality-competition series that’s taken Netflix by storm, one thing is clear: Deborah Czeresko was right.
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