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Media Relations

IU School of Medicine professor finds joy in making glass blown creations

Head to the second floor of Indiana University Hospital, pass through a door off a quiet hallway, and you'll enter a space of dazzling luminosity where surface after surface of smooth glass throws back every color of the rainbow. This is how you'll know you are approaching the office of IU School of Medicine professor Jeffrey Rothenburg, M.D.

This busy ob-gyn has found time in between deliveries, surgeries and teaching duties to create thousands of blown glass sculptures. Spindly, delicate vessels and broad, hefty bowls line the tops of the partitions outside his office. Within, the room seems to explode in bright cacophony as every possible corner boasts a unique vase, plate or free-form creation.

"Everybody in their life, no matter what they do, is stressed for time with so many competing demands," he explains. "If you find something that you enjoy, time finds itself and it just adds a better quality to all the other components of your life. It helps you work; it becomes a stress reliever."

Rothenberg began working with glass at the behest of his wife Joani, an art therapist. She signed him up for a class after a particularly difficult week in the clinic. Almost a decade later, his mastery of the medium has allowed him to display his work at the Indianapolis Art Center, Riley Hospital for Children and Indianapolis's Jewish Community Center, and to create commissioned pieces for organizations like the IU Kenya Partnership and the Indy 500 foundation.

Despite his artwork's popularity, Rothenberg refuses to accept payment for his designs.

"I actually think I could make money doing this, but then it would be a job," he says. "I haven't been forced to do it as a job, and I think that's something that's kept my artwork fresh. I am free to try new things and new techniques."

One way in which Rothenberg experiments in the studio is to come up with ways to represent different aspects of reproduction. For instance, he has created works to symbolize fallopian tubes, sperm and DNA. He has also created a great many glass phalluses, which he enjoys giving to his urologist colleagues as tokens of good will.

Rothenberg says the links between art and fertility go beyond such symbolic renderings. As a means of reducing stress, he believes art can be a powerful tool for affecting reproductive health.

"My personal bias is that I think fetuses can perceive emotional changes in their mother, and I think anything that a mother can do for her well-being will improve the health of the pregnancy," he says. "Medicine in general is now learning the importance of the arts in healing. It could be anything -- music, dance, movement, literature -- all of them can be very powerful tools in healing. Plus, when you have an outlet like that, you probably also build a social network from it -- and that's also very helpful in promoting good health."

In addition to encouraging patients to nurture their artistic spirits, he also believes in setting an example for medical students, who, he says, are particularly prone to stress.

"Medical students in particular suffer from tunnel vision. I try to remind them that there's more out there. I ask them what's their favorite movie, what was the last good book they read? I want them to think about what they do to keep themselves sane or happy," he says.

"In medicine, there's a lot of burnout. If we're not careful we'll set a poor example for our students -- if we get short and snappy, they see a successful person acting that way and they think that's how it works. Instead we need to model the idea that you need to take care of yourself. Art is one way to do that, but it could be anything you do that feels liberating."

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