Karma x Yunk Collab: Pot of Gold

Yunk wanted to personify Karma’s rainbow, introducing the “Pot of Gold” piece. Everyone is trying to chase the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow, but this piece takes into account how the rainbow personified is possessive over its pot of gold. This piece combines Yunk’s study of body language and poses and Karma’s visionary style.

Yunk Glass' style has evolved over the years, but his current artistic trademarks are his clear-carve pendants and sandblasted and oiled designs that give off a matte appearance. Yunk's current style is predominantly seen in his study of body language and anomalous poses that manifests in his pieces.

Karma is a borosilicate artist whose artistic purpose is sharing peace, love, and unity. His style is easily identifiable through his iconic rainbows. These rainbows reflect his passion for visionary and psychedelic art and the ability to manipulate the glass medium to convey what’s in his mind’s eye. The goal is to have fun, but at the same time, embed authentic aspects of his life into his art, such as good vibes, culture, and community. By creating a piece that speaks to parts of himself, Karma is able to connect with his tribe of art collectors, dabbers, and the heady glass community.

This piece is a combination of the human element and the earth element. The artistic style is heavily inspired by other artists from various mediums such as Alex Grey, known for visionary and psychedelic paintings and installation art. This piece was also created by drawing parallels to hip-hop. While anyone can pick up a torch and start melting glass, creating a piece reflective of the human state is a deeper art. "Rap is something you do, hip-hop is how you live."

What do you look for in a collab?

Karma and Yunk both look for people honestly expressing themselves. Having fun through visionary art is a discipline, just like the fashion industry, painting, hip-hop itself. You can’t be totally serious with art and hip hop. There needs to be a human element to creating, like an energy exchange and flow. Karma and Yunk have had multiple collaborations due to a great combination of authentic style and energy.

How do you balance your art style with the artist you’re collabing with?

Karma: Artist collabs organically evolve as you get to know people on a personal and creative level. We’ve found that we usually attract like-minded people. We're rarely approached by collectors that say “I want you to make this for me”, but rather, “Have you worked with this person, or this idea?” For our first Karma and Yunk collab, we didn’t know each other at all, we met through our love for hip hop artist, KRS1.

Another important factor to balancing two artists during a collab is to avoid keeping necessary deadlines as much as possible. We don’t want to rush authenticity. Function is a huge driver, but highlighting parts we both want to contribute like rainbow patterns, or certain sculptural gestures take time and thought. Balance comes organically when collaborating in a like-minded, passionate space.

How do you know when a piece is done?

Karma: When you put it in a kiln. It’s just like any other pursuit, like asking a chef how they know when a plate is finished! You know your work is done when you’re tired and out for the day. But, there is a “good” type of tired and a “bad” type of tired. Good tired is when you’ve worked as hard as you can, had as much fun as you can in the shop, and you can sleep good. Bad tired can be when you’ve made a lot of money, created a dope piece and it came out how you wanted it to look, but it was all for somebody else’s vision.

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