Episodes
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From his Micromorphisms to his Opticals and Pinwheels, Dan Alexander explores the mesmerizing world of optical illusions, where intricate designs and mind-bending patterns come to life in stunning glass artistry. From captivating sculptures to breathtaking installations, each piece in this collection is a testament to his artistry and craftsmanship.
Much of Alexander’s inspiration comes from photographs he has taken or his travels. Looking at one micro-aspect of an object, he envisions how that small segment could be used in repetition to create an overall pattern. An example would be looking at one single coral in the ocean and repeating its colors and shape over and over again to make a large glass tile. By rolling that glass tile up hot around a glass bubble or collar, he makes a large vessel. The artist uses the blown glass process to create a three-dimensional canvas on which his murrine and patterns can be displayed.
Says Alexander: “The work I am currently exploring is inspired by nature, textiles, travel, and architecture – more specifically patterns therein. Being an artist and world traveler, I look at the world around me and try to determine how it could be translated to glass.”
Having grown up in a small farming town in northeast Ohio, Alexander has always been interested in art, history, nature, and creating. Upon seeing glass being made for the first time at Hale Farm and Village, Bath, Ohio, he knew this was a trade he had to master. He received his BFA in glass from Kent State University, where he was able to explore glass as an artistic medium while being introduced to working with other materials, history, color theory, and composition.
Following graduation, Alexander studied with some of the top glass artists in the field today and worked in Murano, Italy, with Maestro Davide Salvadore creating large scale blown glass art. Later, he worked for the Corning Museum of Glass as lead gaffer, where he spent six years traveling the world and educating the public about the science and history of glass art. Eventually Alexander decided to take on a new role as the studio director of Third Degree glass factory, St. Louis, Missouri, producing higher volume work, site specific installations, and overseeing studio operations and glass production.
In 2016, Alexander began to branch out and create a name for himself as an independent artist. In recent years he was awarded an emerging artist residency at Duncan McClellan’s Gallery in St. Petersburg Florida, the AACG professional artist residency at GoggleWorks Center for the Arts in Reading, Pennsylvania, and Empire of Glass exhibition/residency in Vienna, Austria. He was nominated for the Glass Art Society’s Saxe Emerging Artist Award and received an international exhibiting artist award from the Effect, Dream, Transform exhibition in Uskudar, Turkiye.
Alexander is currently building a private studio and 501C3 nonprofit in St. Petersburg, Florida, called Art, Education, Gathering Inc. or AEG. Its tagline is: From Glass to Growth – Building Communities Together. AEG will offer community outreach, using glass as a form of STEM education, residencies, mentorships, classes and an emergency program for artists affected by disaster.
Says Alexander: “Education is an extremely important aspect. If the public wasn’t interested in art, many mediums would suffer. The more knowledge we can share with the public, the more sales, donations, and funding will be put into the arts.”
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In her summer 2024 exhibition Trial By Fire at Core Art Space, Lakewood, Colorado, Maria Sheets exhibited a series of colorful, sculpturally dense, illuminated glass panels of portraits and landscapes created in a unique process that combines the mediums of traditional stained glass grisaille/enameling with fused glass “painting” known as Vitreonics. The technique was documented in Justin Monroe’s award-winning documentary Holy Frit. The movie traces artist/designer Tim Carey’s journey through making the world’s largest stained and fused glass window with the help of Italian glass maestro Narcissus Quagliata.
Says Sheets: “Our family experienced a major loss in late 2023 that inspired a radical shift in what I was producing. In an attempt to address this swing of emotional intensity, I found I desperately needed to break some sh#t. Inspired by the project created in the new film Holy Frit, I began to learn Vitreonics. The process, particularly the intense smashing, layering, and heating of glass, gave me the change I needed. Vitreonics brought balance to my creative world and reminded me that though I can and do use my skills to make art that is highly technical, I can also relax into flexibility and levity.”
With a conservation and glass studio located in Evergreen, Colorado, Sheets is a senior conservator of Foothills Art Conservation and a master glass designer, painter and fabricator. She was Chief Conservator of a fire recovery project with the Museum of Biblical Art, Dallas from 2005-2018. A partial list of additional clients includes the Ross Perot Collection, George Bush Family, Gerald Ford, Dallas Museum of Art, Nasher Sculpture Center, and the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Samurai Collection. She served as President of the Conservators Private Practice Group of the American Institute for Conservation and holds a Professional Associates status.
Signed commissioned works in architectural glass include large-scale projects presently housed in museums, universities, houses of worship, businesses and private residences internationally. In 2021, Sheets designed and painted the Legacy Window for Tulsa’s Vernon AME in Greenwood, illustrating 120 years of the church’s history and survival from the Tulsa Race Massacre. Her own work was included in recent juried exhibitions such as American Glass Guild NOW 2016 (juror, contemporary artist Judith Schaechter), Texas National 2018 (juror Jed Perl, international art critic), and Materials Hard and Soft International Craft Exhibition 2019 (2nd place of 1100 entries). She is a resident artist for Valkarie Gallery in Lakewood, Colorado, where her work will be exhibited in a solo exhibition from November 13 through December 8, 2024.
In 2022, Martin Faith, Scottish Stained Glass, Centennial, Colorado, approached Sheets with a project that involved reproducing an artist’s pieces made in the 1970s onto glass. Sheets explains: “He showed them to me, and I gasped, recognizing the work as Judy Chicago’s. I had read her early biographies while I was in college in the ‘90s. My feminist art teacher taught us about her work and the famous piece The Dinner Party, which congress was crucifying along with a number of artists trying to get funding through the National Endowment for the Arts. I even wrote her fan mail.”
Sheets and Chicago met and spent several years working collaboratively in Chicago’s Belen, New Mexico studio. There they created complex airbrushed/masked pieces onto glass. These took five months of research and development as the technique/design would be some of the most unforgiving yet enlightening of Sheet’s life. Last year Chicago had a blockbuster show of the work at New Museum in New York accompanied by a four-page spread in the New York Times as well as an exhibition at Serpentine in London.
Occupying a rare niche in the art world, Sheets was inspired by her great-uncle, a Russian Orthodox priest and iconographer to apply old-world art materials on stained glass to create both traditional religious imagery or modern portraits and scenes rife with politics. Her work Motherboard Madonna was recently exhibited in AI Love You at Niza Knoll Gallery, Denver, Colorado.
Says Sheets: “The gallery got blackballed, but the whole point of show was to discuss the ethical concerns and use of AI as a tool. One could say creativity was used in the creation of this technology and that “paint” is not the only medium. Adapt or die…”
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Episodes manquant?
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In 2021, the town of Nový Bor became the main organizer of the International Glass Symposium (IGS), and once again this small glassmaking town in the north of Bohemia will turn into a true world glassmaking metropolis for a few days. Each of the previous symposia was unique, and this year’s jubilee will be no different. Place and material are the unchanging basis of the tradition, but glassmaking and art are a living, leading and original phenomenon reflecting the times.
This year’s IGS will take place on a much larger scale than previous years. The number of organizers and participants increased, and IGS strengthened its global prestige. Despite all the changes that glassmaking has gone through and that have also affected IGS, Nový Bor region remains an exceptional area with its range of glass processing technologies, from machine production, off-hand blown glass at glassworks to an extremely wide range of refining techniques.
The beginning of the IGS dates back to 1982 when Crystalex in Nový Bor managed something almost impossible. The idea of an international meeting of glassmakers in totalitarian Czechoslovakia became reality. Crystalex invited artists and designers from all over the world to its workshops. Nearly 50 artists from 13 countries came to realize their artistic ideas with the help of the local glassmakers. More than 300 exhibits were created.
Thirty-nine years later, the program structure and the basic idea of the symposium still follow the tradition founded by Crystalex. Many artists also return to Nový Bor regularly. However, the symposium has changed with the time as well. The visit of artists from the “West” is no longer considered exotic and thanks to IGS it’s possible to show the world that Czech glassmakers have not lost any of their famous craftsmanship.
IGS has become one of the most important international events in the art glass field and during its existence it has hosted about 600 artists from all over the world. To make the symposium attractive for the public, not only glass artists are invited to participate, but designers, painters, sculptors, architects, personalities from among fashion and jewelry designers, street art and pop culture, which turns every IGS into a four-day art experience marathon.
The world is being introduced to Nový Bor, Liberec Region and the Czech Republic as a significant glass destination. The event has an enormous significance for the local glass region, for promotion of Czech glass and Czech glassmaking craft in the world. It contributes to preserving intangible cultural inheritance, and finally, it serves an important function for collectors.
The 15th edition of the International Glass Symposium (IGS) will take place from October 3 to 6, 2024 in Nový Bor in North Bohemia and its surrounding area. Preparations have been underway since spring to ensure the participation of more than 40 selected artists or creative pairs from 15 countries around the world. They will create their works of art in collaboration with top glass craftsmen of various professions, whether they are master glass blowers, grinders, engravers, or glass painters, but also experts in the field of slumped or melt glass and other techniques. Several glass companies and specialized workshops and operations will be available to them, including Ajeto. Petr Novotný (1952-2024) enters the Hall of Fame of the International Glass Symposium next week,
https://www.igsymposium.cz/aktuality-en
In celebration of IGS 2024, ToYG speaks with David Ševčík, the director of Glassworks Ajeto as well as Ricardo Hoineff, who moved to Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1991. In 2010 at the age of 41, Hoineff decided to take a two-week glass course that turned into three years of creation and production of art glass at the Higher Vocational School of Glassmaking Nový Bor. He is still kiln forming art glass in Slunečná, North Bohemia.
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Gene Koss uses glass as a medium of pure sculptural expression resulting in monumental sculptures of cast glass, steel and light. He developed innovative techniques to transform his memories of the mechanized Wisconsin farm of his youth into foundry-based glass sculptures. He combines glass and steel found objects to create small-scale sculptures that often also serve as studies for his larger-scale works.
Opening on September 20, 2024 and running through February 9, 2025, The Bergstrom Mahler Museum of Glass (BMM), Neenah, Wisconsin, presents a major solo exhibition of Koss’ work: From Farm to Flame. Says Casey Eichhorn, Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at BMM: “Gene Koss’ career in glass has been one informed by experience, and driven by creative experimentation. Alongside two of his sketchbooks, Farm to Flame showcases the tangible results of these experiments in the form of 14 sculptures of glass, steel and wood – each highlighting a specific point in time in the artist’s illustrious career.”
After receiving a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin at River Falls in 1974, Koss then earned a Master of Fine Arts from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University, in Philadelphia. In 1976, he moved to New Orleans to develop a new glass facility and program for Tulane University, and subsequently became head of the department.
“Gene’s career at Tulane University helped shape the Newcomb Art Department, and he is a pivotal figure in the teaching and creation of glass art in the South,” said Stephanie Porras, chair of the Newcomb Art Department.
Koss is the recipient of several awards including the National Endowment for the Arts, The New Orleans Community Arts Board and Pace-Willson Art Foundation grants. His work has been exhibited at the New Orleans Museum of Art; the Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans; the Masur Museum of Art in Monroe, Louisiana; the Sculpture Center in New York City; as well as the International Biennale for Contemporary Art in Florence, Italy. It has been published in International Glass Art, Contemporary Glass-Color, Light & Form and Glass Art from Urban Glass publications. Koss is represented by Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans, LA. His work is in many prominent collections including the Pan American Life Collection in New Orleans and the Corning Museum of Glass in New York. The Arnoldsche Art Publishers of Germany released a 2019 retrospective monograph of his work, Gene Koss Sculpture.
Creating Koss’ majestic works in glass and steel requires demanding techniques to realize their monumental scale. These massive volumes of glass are married with elaborately engineered steel elements. The artist casts molten glass directly from the hot furnace, working with teams of highly-skilled assistants and rigging elaborate systems for transporting his finished abstract works for display in museums, galleries and public spaces. Working with serial cast glass parts to enlarge scale and combining these elements with iron and neon, he has raised glass sculpture to the realm of public art. Koss’ work has had a profound impact on American artists working in both steel and glass media.
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Those who watched to completion the hit Netflix competition series Blown Away 4, will no doubt remember Ryan Thompson’s final gallery installation, Where You Are is Where You Need to Be. In all black glass, he created large vessel forms that served as sentinels to the recording of time. A blown glass pendulum in the center of the room recorded each moment in a footed reliquary of white sand below it. Its existential message spoke to the viewer silently. Permanently.
Thompson states: “This installation was created to satisfy a need to slow down, contemplate, and analyze my artistic path and my creative process. The unnatural pace at which Blown Away required its competitors to conceptualize and create caused a mental fatigue unlike anything I had ever felt. As difficult as this experience was, my journey as an artist has never been a straight line, and whether an experience has been positive or negative in the moment, in the end, it was exactly what it was supposed to be. Where You Are is Where You Need to Be is a space created to meditate and reflect on my trajectory both as a person and as an artist.”
Hailing from Sandusky, Ohio, near the shores of Lake Erie, Thompson and his sister Leah grew up with a love of the outdoors, sports, and all things creative. These interests were endlessly nurtured by their parents Jim and Kathy Thompson. Ryan’s passion for music began in the 5th grade when a group of friends with a band needed a drummer. His love for music and percussion remains today.
After completing high school, Thompson attended Bowling Green State University (BGSU), Bowling Green, Ohio, to study Visual Communication Technology, a degree program he found to be lacking in creative freedom and excitement. In his third year, he enrolled in an Intro to Glass Blowing course on the recommendation of a friend, and the trajectory of his life was altered forever.
For the next 3 years, Thompson poured every ounce of his energy into learning to control his molten material. The example of excellence in this craft demonstrated by his peers and instructors such as Scott Darlington set the bar of achievement high. He focused on fundamental skills in the form of vessel and goblet making, utilizing the Venetian processes and techniques he found most exciting and inspirational.
After graduation, Thompson began working at the Toledo Museum of Art Glass Pavilion as a studio artist and workshop instructor, as well as a production glassblower at many local glass shops in the birthplace of the Studio Glass Art movement. During his time in Toledo, the artist was fortunate to work with many world-renowned glass artists, honing his skills and expanding his network of colleagues in this community-orientated profession.
In 2018, Thompson accepted a production glassblowing position at Greenfield Village (The Henry Ford Museum) in Dearborn, Michigan. The job allowed Ryan to continue to broaden his skill set and expand on his experience as a production glassmaker. In 2021, he was promoted to shop lead and began coordinating the team’s production efforts, designing new product and maintaining the equipment that makes glass blowing possible.
After participating in Blown Away 4, on May 1, Thompson relocated back to Toledo, Ohio, and became the new owner and operator of Gathered Glass, a public glass studio that offers hand-made glass, glassblowing workshops, and public events in the heart of The Glass City. This opportunity is something he has dreamt about for the last decade and is hard at work making the business his own. Thompson’s partner, Kayla Kirk of Charmed Ceramics, is in the process of building a pottery studio on the second floor that will offer similar programming as well as hand crafted pottery for the home. The studio will be renamed Huron Street Studio and will celebrate its Grand Opening at 23 N. Huron St. in downtown Toledo, September 14, 2024.
Thompson will also participate in an Artist Residency at the Museum of Glass Tacoma from October 9 – 13, 2024.
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Artist, pioneer, and mentor, Peter Layton is one of the founding fathers of British Studio Glass. He discovered the art form while teaching ceramics in the US in the mid-1960s and has played a major part in elevating glass from an industrial medium to a highly collectable art form. Most importantly, he gave it a home in the UK.
This month, London Glassblowing presents Glass Heaven, an exhibition uniting two exceptional glass artists: Layton and Tim Rawlinson. The show opened August 2 and will run through September 1, 2024. Representing the next generation of glass talent, Rawlinson combines innovative approach and vibrant compositions to offer a fresh perspective, challenging conventional boundaries and resonating with today’s artistic landscape. Layton, a veteran in the glass world, has captivated audiences for decades with his bold, expressive works. His 50-year journey from the studio’s beginnings on the Thames to international acclaim highlights his role in elevating glass art.
Born in Prague in 1937, Layton is one of Europe’s pre-eminent glass designers. He has directly influenced several of his country’s leading glassmakers and inspired many more. Arriving in England in 1939, there he began his education. While at grammar school, he met another boy who had also won the attention of his art teacher – his name was David Hockney. Layton attended Bradford Art College, then went to London’s Central School of Art and Design, to specialize in ceramics, where he was taught by several of the most respected potters of the time.
On graduating, Layton was offered a teaching job in Iowa University’s Ceramics Department. Once in the US, in 1966, he participated in one of the first experimental glass workshops with Harvey Littleton and was bewitched by the immediacy and spontaneity of hot glass. He went on to expand his connections and friendships on this side of the pond to include participating in a Los Angeles exhibition with Marvin Lipofsky, a San Francisco show with pop artist Mel Ramos, and an exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago with Viola Frey.
Back in Britain, in 1969 Layton helped Sam Herman build the first furnace at the Glasshouse in Covent Garden, and he subsequently established his own small glass studio at Morar in the Highlands of Scotland, a Glass Department at Hornsey College of Art (Middlesex University) and, in 1976, the London Glassblowing Workshop in an old towage works on the Thames at Rotherhithe. In 2009 Layton’s London Glassblowing Studio and Gallery moved to much larger premises in Bermondsey. Since its opening, London Glassblowing has nurtured and produced some of the world’s leading glass artists, including (most recently) Elliot Walker of Netflix Blown Away fame.
Layton’s colorful and painterly works of glass art can be found in numerous public and private collections, both at home and abroad, including the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. He has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally, receiving an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Bradford for his contribution to arts and crafts in Britain. Layton is also the founder of the Contemporary Glass Society, which is Britain’s foremost organization supporting and championing the work of glass artists, both established and new. A vigorous proponent of glassblowing as an art form, Layton has authored several books, become an Honorary Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers, an Honorary life member of the Contemporary Glass Society as well as been given the Freedom of the City of London.
Layton has always taken inspiration from his environment, natural or manmade: a stone wall on a snowy day, the London skyline, or works by great painters. From a mere detail, a flash of a Klimt orange or a slick of oil on the Thames, he creates painterly works with a masterly use of color. The artist is inspired by whatever is around him. For example, during the winter of 2009, the heavy snow turned his long commute by train into an intriguing black and white world full of movement and texture, shaping his recent Glacier series. He has also created a number of conceptual pieces that reflect his specific concerns with issues such as ecology, religion and racial conflict.
Layton says: “A fellow artist recently described a piece that I had made for her by saying, ‘…it’s as though it holds all my travels in light.’ Lovely compliments like that spur me on. You never, ever create the perfect piece of glass and there are always new ideas, techniques and challenges to master. Glass is such an underrated medium – there is a fluidity and uncertainty about it that I choose to embrace rather than overcome. Every piece is an adventure.”
From October 8 – 13, 2024, PAD London returns to the iconic Berkeley Square in Mayfair, where London Glassblowing will be showcasing an extraordinary selection of work from their talented makers alongside designers and galleries from over 20 countries worldwide. To coincide with PAD and Le Verre, London Glassblowing is offering a series of exclusive events, providing a unique opportunity to explore and learn more about the captivating medium of glass.
For more information visit
https://londonglassblowing.co.uk/blogs/exhibitions/pad-london
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Kristina Logan makes unique and complex beads in intricate patterns whose sometimes knobby forms recall the remarkable eye beads made in ancient China. Yet Logan’s style is purely contemporary, reflected in work that stands out for its originality, sophistication, and innovation. She is not only interested in beads as body adornment but also as decorative elements for boxes, candlesticks, goblets and teapots.
Logan states: “Beads are part of my lifelong fascination with art and ornamentation. Glass beads form a historical thread, connecting people and cultures throughout our history.”
In 2002, Logan was one of only four artists selected for exhibition in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery Invitational Four Discoveries in Craft. “Logan’s beads exist in their own right as art… ,” writes Kenneth Trapp, Curator-in-Charge at the Renwick Gallery.
Articles about Logan’s work have appeared in numerous publications including ORNAMENT magazine, GLASS magazine, Beadwork magazine, Bead & Button magazine, Lapidary Journal, and La Revue de la Céramique et du Verre. Her work has been collected by the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Renwick Gallery, The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, the Corning Museum of Glass, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Musée du Verre de Sars-Poteries, France. The artist served as president of the International Society of Glass Beadmakers from 1996 to 1998.
Logan’s work and desire to educate has been an inspiration for many glass beadmakers throughout the world. She travels extensively throughout the United States and Europe teaching workshops and lecturing on contemporary glass beads and jewelry at places such as The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass, UrbanGlass, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Penland School of Craft, Carlisle School of Glass Art, Millville, New Jersey, Musée-Atelier du Verre à Sars-Poteries in France, and Centro Studio Vetro and Abate Zanetti in Venice, Italy. The Corning Museum of Glass produced a DVD video in 2009 of Logan’s flamework beadmaking as part of their Master Class Series. An excerpt and full version of the video is available on YouTube and on Logan’s website.
https://www.kristinalogan.com/videos
Having taught at The Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass earlier this year, Logan is now focusing on several projects that have been incubating over the years, including casting small vessels and encrusting them with beads and metal – some that stand alone individually and also as a group of 12 vessels that represent a personal calendar or living reliquary. She also continues working on a new collection of beads centric necklaces. And most importantly, Logan is documenting more of her work on YouTube.
She says: “I would like to document with videos more of what I do. I am not ready to teach online or offer specific tutorials, but I would like to use YouTube as a way to share footage from my studio. I am thinking about this as an extension of my creative process–I love being behind a camera. I love being a maker, and I have been so fortunate to learn from others over the years. I want to be part of what I see as a cycle of learning and giving back. As I age, I also think about how I would like to document what I do for my kids and future artists.
“I have been fortunate enough to have made a living at what I do, and I would like to be honest about how I have done that.”
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More than 50 years after Henry Halem designed a series of cast glass sculptures inspired by the Kent State shootings, he decided to bring the imagery back to life. At a time when the Vietnam War empowered social activism and fueled political debates, the May 4, 1970, Kent State shootings seemed to take center stage, influencing several genres of music and art. Among these works was Halem’s glass sculptures.
“The imagery was based on the shootings at Kent State and the blindness that the political system had in relationship to what young people were about in protesting the war. They were blind to the generation that was protesting. And, so, I made these blinded images that had their eyes covered,” Halem said.
Today, Halem is at it again, creating another series of blinded sculptures, but this time for a different reason. He has created seven blinded sculptures in the series so far, three of which are on view at Habatat Galleries Detroit.
“I revived the imagery,” Halem said, “the blind imagery, to reflect the narrative of our blindness to the destruction of the earth, and who we are, what we are.”
As a teenager growing up in the Bronx, Halem learned to throw pots at the Greenwich House Pottery in New York’s Greenwich Village. Now, at 86 years old, he’s still making art.
Holding a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from George Washington University, Halem did post graduate work at the University of Wisconsin as an assistant to Harvey Littleton in 1968. In 1969, Halem founded the glass program at Kent State University (KSU) and taught there for 29 years, subsequently teaching at Pilchuck Glass School and Penland School of Craft. He was one of the founders of the Glass Art Society and served as its first president.
Halem’s body of work ranges from his early blown vessels to Vitrolite glass collages, glass castings to enameled and painted glass wall panels. His narrative boxes have been described as “… ordinary glass boxes filled with enigmatic objects and reverse glass drawings and paintings.” He is known for powerful responses to political events – the 1970 Kent State shootings, 9/11, and a memorial for American soldiers who died in Iraq.
Exhibiting extensively throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan, Halem’s work is in the permanent collections of The Corning Museum of Glass, Cleveland Museum of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Toledo Museum, Detroit Institute of Art, High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Hokkaido & Niijima Museums in Japan, and the Decorative Arts Museum, Prague. He has been honored by the Glass Art Society and the American Crafts Council; he received the Governor’s Award from the State of Ohio as well as the President’s Medal for Outstanding Achievement from KSU. He penned Glass Notes: A Reference for the Glass Artist and is still an authority on all things glass.
Throughout the years, Halem has amassed a diverse set of techniques that are put into action with a little bit of know-how. No matter what he does regarding art, it gets “distilled” through what he has learned from one of his favorite books, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
“The moral of that book was, in order to fix something, you have to know how it works,” Halem said. “So, my search is into finding out how things work. That, and my belief that the artist’s job is to question authority in itself, is what drives me.”
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An artist using the allegorical power of medieval stained glass as a vehicle for contemporary expression, Pinkie Maclure marries traditional craft techniques with a radically different aesthetic. Stained glass was invented in the 12th century to communicate to a largely illiterate population, its vivid colors having a seductive quality that’s hard to resist. However, its narrative role has been largely abandoned in recent years, which is something Maclure hopes to change through her architectural installations and highly-detailed stained glass light boxes that reflect her commentary on the modern world around us.
Maclure states: “My goal is to seduce the eye, but crucially, to deal with contemporary subject matter, telling darkly humorous stories from modern life.”
For example, in her piece Beauty Tricks, the artist questions interpretations of beauty and a multitude of thorny contradictions. Her central figure is based around a classic Madonna, but she has liposuction lines on her torso and hypodermic needles and scalpels adorning her halo. Her nipples have been censored. Two little girls gaze up at her beautiful pink frock from a grey world of abandoned plastic containers. A woman fires a gun at a mirror, smashing it to smithereens. To her left, a grandmother knits a web of Barbie dolls and to her right is a bulimic Rapunzel. The palm trees refer to the palm oil industry; the roses symbolize feminine beauty. At the top, Satan is hopping across the towers of Oxbridge with a pile of books heaped on his back, stealing all the knowledge while the women are distracted. This work was acquired by the Stained Glass Museum for the national collection of stained glass and is now on permanent display in Ely Cathedral.
Maclure was raised in a small fishing town in the northeast of Scotland by an atheist mother, a talented musician who loved to sing sacred music. A prolific child artist, she drew on old wallpaper samples in front of the television every night, but was later put off by a sexist art teacher and turned to music and performance instead. As a singer-songwriter, she has recorded 10 albums over 30 years and performed internationally.
To support her music career, after 25 years of depending on low-paying jobs, Maclure found work helping a friend in a commercial stained glass studio. It was not very creative, however, she did start to study the history of stained glass and became disheartened by what she saw as the contemporary dumbing down of this extraordinary medium.
She says: “I noticed that many churches now avoid using any imagery and that fewer stained glass artists have the very particular skills required to paint images on glass. In contrast with the heady, dazzling power of figurative medieval glass, many 20th-century stained glass windows had become simple blocks of cheap, colored glass, often designed and mass-produced by glaziers, with no artistic intent behind them – their function was reduced to something purely physical; a kind of upmarket net curtain.”
Maclure decided to develop her painting, sandblasting and engraving skills in order to harness the spiritual power of stained glass, exploring the big issues of today such as climate, women’s rights, addiction and grassroots activism. Instead of removing the images, she changes them. Her references include bible stories, folklore, tabloid newspaper headlines and personal experiences. She uses stained glass as a language, as they did in the Middle Ages.
“I love the peculiar character of very old, broken windows, which have been repaired many times over the centuries. They have a particular poignancy which reminds us of our mortality and the fragility of the earth.”
For Maclure’s 2023 solo exhibition at CCA Glasgow, Lost Congregation, she combined large-scale stained glass, 3D sound, film and live performance, to create a fictional, abandoned rural chapel, haunted by its lost congregation. This multi-media installation questions our relationship with the land and celebrates the way nature and grassroots activism, such as compost-making, can reclaim abandoned places. The show attracted record numbers to the venue and was extended by a month.
Scotsman review of the exhibition;
https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/art/art-reviews-monster-chetwynd-pinkie-maclure-nicolas-party-cathy-wilkes-jala-wahid-4222378
The central work in the show, The Soil was a room-sized installation evoking an abandoned chapel where ivy grows up the sides of the old pews and the wind whistles through the broken door. At one end is a resplendent stained-glass window featuring a woman gardener, hands clasped in a secular prayer, urinating on her compost heap (human urine being an ideal activator of compost). A soundscape of whispers, children’s voices and snatches of song adds to the atmosphere. It’s both monumental and irreverent, elevating the humble pursuit of gardening while thumbing its nose at the grandiose history of the medium. While concerns about vanishing communities, climate change and damage done to topsoil by intensive farming are all present in this work, there is also a businesslike cheerfulness to the welly-wearing modern saint and her no-nonsense pursuit of her purpose. The Soil was subsequently on display at Two Temple Place, London, from January 27 – April 21, 2024.
In the collection of the National Museum of Scotland and recently exhibiting at Homo Faber (Venice), Collect (London), the Outsider Art Fair (New York) and the John Ruskin Prize (Manchester), Maclure has been the recipient of a number of awards, including the Sequested Prize, John Byrne Prize, Zealous Craft Prize and Jerwood Makers. Her work Two Witches (Knowledge is Power) was selected for publication in the 2024 issue of New Glass Review, the Corning Museum of Glass’ survey of cutting-edge glass. Two Witches was also on view at the John Ruskin Prize group exhibition at Trinity Buoy Wharf, Poplar, London back in February. The National Museum of Scotland acquired Self-Portrait Dreaming of Portavadie in 2021. Maclure plans a solo show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in the near future.
“I find medieval stained glass bewitching and daring… I want to elevate the medium into a contemporary art form, using its seductive beauty and historical associations to stimulate debate and to tell my own stories.”
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An American glass artist best known for his modern approach to centuries-old techniques, Rocko Belloso specializes in murrine, cut and flip, stringer drawing, and sculpture. He is an innovator in his combination of these elements as well as his custom color mixing methods. His work presents an updated aesthetic with influences from comic books, cult movies, metal music, and lowbrow art, ranging from stylized depictions to hyper-realistic portraits.
As a young teen, Belloso anticipated attending art school to become a cartoonist, but his plans changed in 2003 when he saw the two-dimensional rendering possibilities of murrine glass. He consequentially accepted a glassblowing apprenticeship and employment at Third Eye Design in California, where he spent the next seven years as a production artist, assigned to making mostly dry pipes.
In his free time, Belloso took classes from artists including Scott Deppe, Jesse Taj, Marcel Braun, and Jason Lee, whom he respectively credits with learning murrine, chip stacking, line-work, and reticello. In 2010, Belloso began doing hourly work for an independent glass distributor, affording him more freedom to explore these specialized techniques. In 2014, as his murrine work gained popularity in flameworking circles, the artist took the leap and began working for himself.
Since becoming an independent artist, Belloso has received accolades for his unique work, which has been displayed at galleries and created at live demos across the country. His art has been included in various glass competitions, for which he has received medals and first-place awards. He has also served as a judge at the World Series of Glass and Champs Glass Games. The artist was recently a selected competitor among some of the best boro artists in the industry at Midwest Meltdown. To date, Belloso has been an integral part of every Molten Build – the brainchild of friend and artist Adam Hoobrey aka “Hoobs” – an incredible collaboration with some of the most skilled torch artists, resulting in massive, detailed functional boro sculpture.
As a result of his extensive knowledge and groundbreaking applications, Belloso has been invited to teach workshops at institutions including the Corning Museum of Glass, Carlisle School of Glass Art, and numerous glass studios coast-to-coast. He just finished a glass sculpting class at Salem Community College Glass Center and will be teaching Creating Narratives in 2D: Borosilicate Cut & Flip Techniques, August 3 – 14, 2024, at Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington, with Eriko Kobayashi as his TA. Info and registration:
https://www.pilchuck.org/programs/session_5_storykeeping
Over the past year, Belloso and flameworking icon Paul Stankard have been transferring the soft glass techniques Stankard pioneered into borosilicate glass. The duo recently demonstrated the processes at Salem Community College’s International Flameworking Conference, held March 15 – 17, 2024. They are currently developing a new body of work, Momento Mori, for future exhibition at WheatonArts, Millville, New Jersey, dates TBA.
Stankard states: “Rocko Belloso, who is a master in the borosilicate world, was able to interpret my botanical vocabulary in a way that has inspired me, knowing that a new botanical aesthetic is going to evolve in borosilicate glass. I was assisting Rocko with keeping things hot, organizing the vacuum pick-up for the honeybees, and all-around taking advantage of his incredible talent. I’m fascinated with the possibility of different aesthetic results that could develop by using borosilicate glass. The quality of the colors and clear glass rods is impressive. It takes a lot longer to encase the components and ball up the glass; that said Rocko brings skill and patience to the task. I prefer the title Boro Flower Balls and believe that future collectors will embrace this new work – going beyond the paperweight world with enthusiastic collectors building large collections with a wide range of artists represented.”
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Housed in a 19th-century cheese factory, Audrey Handler’s studio was founded in 1970 and is one of the oldest continually operating glassblowing facilities in the country. Through demonstrations she gave there and workshops she taught on the road at places such as Penland School of Craft and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, she helped spread the idea that glass could be used as a medium for personal artistic expression.
A pioneer of the Studio Glass Movement, Handler started working in glass in 1965 as one of Harvey Littleton’s first female glass students. He and his students experimented and learned together, renting old glassblowing films from the Corning Museum of Glass and trying to emulate the techniques. “It was so exciting,” Handler recalls. “Every day was something new.”
As a glassblower, Handler creates fruit forms, glass platters, and vases but also sculptural environments that comment on universal experiences, usually domestic in nature. These sculptures reflect small worlds and landscape portraits with life-sized objects and tiny sterling silver or gold people that evoke a surrealistic time and place. In well-known series the artist calls Monuments in a Park, Pear in a Chair and Wedding Pair, glass, wood and precious metal combine to tell a story. These works are made in collaboration with her husband, John Martner, who fabricates the tiny wooden chairs and love seats.
Wrote James Auer, Art Critic, The Milwaukee Journal: “By combining pieces of hand-blown fruit, in particular apples and pears, with tiny, hand-cast silver figures, (Audrey Handler) creates bizarre, Lilliputian landscapes that evoke universal human emotions and experiences. …this universality – combined with a neat sense of humor – is Handler’s principal strength. It permits her to invest her work with a cutting satirical edge, to the point where her miniaturized depictions of conventional household scenes and cliched gender role models become winning little exercises in small-town surrealism.”
Handler was a board member of the Glass Art Society, an international organization she helped create in 1971. She holds a BFA from Boston University School of Fine and Applied Arts and a MS and MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Department of Art. Her work was represented in the New Glass 1979 and New Glass Now 2019 exhibitions and published in the Corning Museum’s survey of cutting edge-glass art, New Glass Review, in issues 5, 16 and 43. In 2014, Handler was awarded the Wisconsin Visual Arts Lifetime Achievement Award, joining fellow honorees Frank Lloyd Wright and Georgia O’Keeffe. The artist currently serves on the Glass Advisory Board of the Bergstrom Mahler Museum of Glass in Neenah, Wisconsin.Handler’s sculptures can be found in collections and museums worldwide. During 2023 and 2024, her work was exhibited at the Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin, in two separate group shows: Women in Glass and Wisconsin Artists: 1960 – 1990: A Survey. Her work is on view now at the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia, in 60 Years of Studio Glass, 2022 to present, and at the Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, Wisconsin, in Recent Acquisitions, 2021 to 2023, and an ongoing exhibit of her work from 1965 to present. Her latest endeavor involves creating new mixed media sculpture and painting with low-fire glass paints on tiles and glass, creating landscapes of the prairie seen from her studio window, areas around Wisconsin and visions of landscapes from her many travels. These glass paintings are an extension of her work with blown glass – an endeavor which spans more than 50 years – as well as a return to her roots as an oil painter.
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The inspiration for Jonathan Capp’s art comes from the experiences that shape his life. Whether hiking the Appalachian Trail, coaching Little League Baseball, becoming an archaeological illustrator halfway around the world, or competing on Blown Away, he channels those experiences into ideas and fully embraces life as a part of his art.
Capps states: “I welcome new ideas and innovations in the studio, bringing fun, energy, and an inspiring enthusiasm into the hot shop.”
Raised in Knoxville, TN, Capps spent much of his youth outdoors, camping, hiking, and playing baseball. After moving to Kentucky in 2001, he developed a passion for glassblowing during undergraduate school at Centre College in Danville, KY, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2005. For the following decade, he worked as a freelance glassblower, artist, and designer, traveling extensively to learn, teach, and pursue the mastery of his craft. During this time, he received several residencies and scholarships, including Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, The Pittsburgh Glass Center, Corning Museum of Glass, Penland School of Crafts, and an International Artist Residency at Lasikompannia in Nuutajärvi, Finland.
After “thru-hiking” the Appalachian Trail in 2013, Capps attended graduate school at Ohio State University and, in 2016, earned a Master of Fine Arts degree. He received several awards and scholarships, most notably a travel grant and fellowship as an archaeological illustrator in the remote Oğlanqala region of the Autonomous Republic of Naxçivan, Azerbaijan.
In 2018 and 2019, Capps was awarded a U.S. Fulbright Arts Grant to research Finnish glass and design for a year in Finland. In 2020, he was chosen to serve as an Alumni Ambassador to the U.S. Student Fulbright Program; today, he continues to engage in outreach and recruitment for the Fulbright Program and Finland’s National Fulbright Foundation. His work is held in the permanent collection of the Finnish Glass Museum and the Prykäri Glass Museum in addition to private collections.
Capps has taught and exhibited extensively in the United States and Internationally. Throughout his career, he has worked with many glass artists and master craftspeople, developing a diverse practice that fluently moves between traditional techniques and experimental methods, pushing the boundaries and seeking new applications of the glass medium.
He says: “My studio practice is rooted in the multicultural traditions of the glass craft; significantly, the physical nature of glass blowing requires reliance on others to create art successfully. For me, learning and then mastering a variety of glass techniques is where the culture behind the craft comes alive.
“My work in the visual arts is rooted in the hot glass studio. My research has developed, over time, into a global practice of interdisciplinary collaboration, social engagement, and cultural exchange. I have learned that there is something in my use of the glassmaking tradition that goes beyond form and function, and enters into the realm of experience, relationships, and communication.”
Most recently, Capps competed in Season 4 of the hit Netflix series Blown Away. On Saturday, May 18 at the Glass Art Society convention in Berlin, Germany, Capps will demonstrate at Berlin Glassworks from 10 a.m. to 12 – an opportunity he won on the show. From June 10 – 14, he will teach a summer intensive at the Pittsburgh Glass Center, Lifting the Veil, and present a free lecture on June 11. He will also be the featured guest artist for this year’s Gay Fad Studio’s Festival hosted at the Ohio Glass Museum.
https://www.gayfadstudios.com
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Early in his career, Paul Stankard used to trade paperweights for gasoline and car servicing with John Graeber. In 1989, through his uncle John, David Graeber wound up casually visiting Stankard’s studio and weeks later was invited to come and work with him. Young Graeber started learning about glass in the deep end of the pool. Thirty-five years later, he continues to work with Stankard about a day a week.
Having mastered numerous glassmaking techniques and having developed his own working style and visual aesthetic, in 2009 Graeber started his own art glass business. One thing he shares with his mentor Stankard is a deep appreciation for and interest in imagery from the natural world. His paperweight subjects include Chysanthemum, so life-like you want to reach out and pluck them from their crystal orb. Fall Harvest, including pumpkins and blueberries in floral arrangements that celebrate their season with color and vibrancy. And Fruits of Discovery that pays homage to the enchanting yellow lemon trees of Italy.
Graeber says: “My stories in glass have evolved over time. However, one fact, my love of nature, remains constant. Many of my creations celebrate the memory of a loved one or the joy of a special event. All capture nature’s elegance and remarkable diversity.”
In order to create paperweights that reflect nature precisely, Graeber studies his subject matter carefully. A major source of natural inspiration is the million-acre Pinelands National Reserve, which has served as a living laboratory. He is always trying to “find a new illusion,” a new way to express the transcendence he experiences in those environs. Despite his stunning and widely collected artworks, Graeber prefers to be regarded as a craftsman continuing the South Jersey glass tradition into the 21st century.
A life-long “Jerseyman,” Graeber honed his craft under the watchful eye of teachers, mentors, and friends including: the late George Vail, who introduced him to the world of architectural reconstruction and forensic sculpture; William “Bill” Marlin, Ed.D., a dedicated teacher and established painter; Stankard, the internationally acclaimed glass artist who encouraged him to strike out on his own; and the late Ed Poore, a renowned master cutter whose skill has enhanced several of Graeber’s paperweights.
Graeber has created both a life and a living from the magic of glass. His intricate glass paperweights and impressive flameworking techniques are on display and can be accessed through the L H Selman website as well as Graeber’s own website. He is careful to always keep in mind how much more there is to know and that you always need to be learning something new to expand your horizons as an artist. He is restless and often makes no more than a few paperweights of a particular design before he needs to explore another direction.
Two years ago, Graeber met filmmaker Dan Collins at an event, and the two decided a documentary film was needed focusing on the paperweights and artistic contributions of Stankard. Graeber took on the role of executive director and began fundraising for the project in earnest. Since January, Flower and Flame has thrilled hundreds of viewers at packed regional venues, including the Morris Museum, Perkins Center for the Arts and Salem Community College’s International Flameworking Conference. The next showing will be at the Paperweight Collectors Association convention May 15 – 18 at the Warwick Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island. Plans for national distribution are ongoing and will be updated on the film’s official website as they develop. The film is an official selection of the G.A.S. Film Festival in Berlin, Germany (May 16, 2024), and the Jersey Shore Film Festival (June/July, 2024).
Considering art to be a vehicle for sharing and giving back, Graeber started a glass program five years ago at the nonprofit Perkins Center for the Crafts in Collingswood, New Jersey. There, he recently organized a showing of Flower and Flameto raise money for veterans – a group to whom the artist is particularly interested in teaching glass. Graeber has also given his time and energy to the nonprofit Project Fire, located on Chicago’s West Side, and helmed by glass artist Pearl Dick.
He states: “I have a passion for the simple gifts of nature: the timeless beauty of a rose, the industriousness of a small bee, or the untamed wildness of a sunflower. Working in glass allows me to explore this passion, and under the tutelage of master glass artist, Paul Stankard, I refined my passion to the art of capturing nature – frozen for eternity in a paperweight.”
More about Flower and Flame
1. Film Reviews
Andrew Page of Urban Glass: REVIEW: An exquisitely crafted film examines Paul… | UrbanGlass
Richard Pope, The Independent Critic: https://theindependentcritic.com/paulstankard
2. Upcoming Screenings |
Many not listed here are in planning stages. The updated list is at www.flowerandflamefilm.com/screenings 4/18 Levoy Theatre, Millville, NJ 5/16 Official Selection, GAS Film Festival, Berlin Germany 5/18 PCA Convention, Warwick, RI Late June (TBD) Official Selection, Jersey Shore Film Festival 7/10 Common Ground on the Hill, McDaniel College, Westminster, MD3. How can people host a screening?
Answers to screening inquiries and general questions can be found here at our FAQ: FAQ | Flower and Flame (flowerandflamefilm.com)
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Said Blown Away Season 4 winner, Morgan Peterson, “I’m not just the creepy weirdo lurking in the background anymore. I’m right up front.” As champion of Netflix’s 2024 glassblowing competition series, the Seattle-based artist received a whopping cash prize of $100,000, a paid residency in Venice, Italy, with glass legend Adriano Berengo, and a residency at the world-renowned Corning Museum of Glass. Growing up in Boston, MA, Peterson’s watched horror films and Unsolved Mysteries with her Godmother, introducing her to the unnerving and creepy style so associated with her unique work that uses metaphor and imagery to address themes of pop culture and addiction.
On Blown Away 4, from her initial bathtub-toaster combo titled Best Friends to a knife thrower’s impeccably made knives, black and white targets, and puddles of blood to her unforgettable monster mushroom, dark humor and twisted style set Peterson’s work apart- not just from other artists on the show, but from other artists making work in glass today. Her final gallery, 6 Crime Scenes, included 80 glass objects and was described by guest evaluator Berengo as “fresh, new, and very contemporary.” The crime scene installation was based on six murders that occurred in Chicago during the 1920s and inspired by the artist’s obsession with the musical Chicago.
Peterson graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design with a dual degree in 2006. Upon completion of her degrees, she relocated to Seattle, WA, to pursue a career and continue her education and advancement in the arts. She has worked for many notable artists including Buster Simpson and Bruce Mau, and is a full-time team member for Dale Chihuly. Heavily involved with Pratt Fine Arts and Pilchuck Glass School, she is not only a member of the staff but also an instructor.
Included in The Young Glass Exhibition, hosted by the Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, which is an international competition that only occurs once a decade, Peterson has also participated in multiple group shows in 2019, including Pittsburgh Glass Center, The Habatat Invitational, CHROMA (Nashville, TN), Traver Gallery (Seattle, WA), REFRACT (Seattle’s Glass Art Fair), and the Irish Glass Biennale (Dublin also in 2023). In 2020 and 2022, the artist exhibited virtual solo shows through Habatat in Royal Oaks, MI. Her first in person solo exhibition was held at Method Gallery, Seattle, WA, in October 2021.
Since winning Blown Away 4, Peterson says she has been “very busy in the best ways possible.” Her latest work will be on view in Once Upon a Crime In Hollywood, opening Saturday, April 13, 6 p.m. -10 p.m. at the new Nathie Katzoff Art Gallery, 8900 Beverly Blvd., West Hollywood. PLEASE RSVP – [email protected]. Her Corning residency takes place April 22 – 28, and she’ll participate in a group show at Traver Gallery in Seattle this October.
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Principally a sculptor who employs cast glass and drawing as primary methodologies, Clifford Rainey creates work that is interdisciplinary, incorporating a wide spectrum of materials and processes. A passionate traveler, his work is full of references to the things he has seen and experienced. Celtic mythologies, classical Greek architecture, the blue of the Turkish Aegean, globalization and the iconic American Coca-Cola bottle, the red of the African earth, and the human figure combine with cultural diversity to provide sculptural imagery charged with emotion.
A British artist whose work has been exhibited internationally for 50 years, Rainey was born in Whitehead, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, in 1948. He began his career as a linen damask designer and worked in William Ewarts linen manufacturers from 1965 to 1968. Later, the artist studied at Hornsey College of Art, the Walthamstow School of Art, where he specialized in bronze casting, and the Royal College of Art, where he received his MA and specialized in glass. Between 1973 and 1975, Rainey ran his own glass studio in London and won a commission for a small sculpture to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II. In 1984, the artist moved to New York and established additional studios there.
Rainey’s sculptural work has been exhibited internationally including: The Ulster Museum in Northern Ireland, The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, The Kunstmuseum in Dusseldorf, Germany, The Millennium Museum in Beijing, China, and the Museo de Arts Contemporaneo in Monterrey, Mexico. His work is in the permanent collections of numerous museums including: The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland, The DeYoung Museum, San Francisco, California, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Art and Design, New York, The Fine Arts Museum of Boston, and The Montreal Museum of Fine Art, Canada. Rainey has realized a number of public art commissions including: The Lime Street Railway Station in Liverpool, England, the Jeddah Monument in Saudi Arabia, and the 911 Communication Center in San Francisco. He is a recipient of the Virginia A. Groot Foundation Award, Chicago, and the 2009 UrbanGlass Outstanding Achievement Award, New York.
Balancing his commitment to studio practice with his desire to share knowledge, Rainey has lectured extensively around the world. He lectured at The Royal College of Art in London for seven years and was a Professor of Fine Art and Chair of the Glass Program at The California College of the Arts from 1991 through 2022.
On October 8, 2017 at 10:30 p.m., Rainey and his partner, Rachel Riser, were awakened by a neighbor’s frantic telephone call warning them that a wind-driven wildfire had kicked up and was blazing toward their shared Napa, California, residence. They needed to get out immediately. Far more devastating than the destruction of his home and studio was the complete loss of all the artwork on the property — not only two year’s worth of work for an upcoming exhibition, but the artist’s archive of drawings of every project he’d ever done, as well as a collection of his strongest work he was planning to donate to a museum.
Rainey still resides in Napa, California, and in March 2024 took time away from rebuilding his studio to participate in an artist residency at the Museum of Glass, Tacoma. There, he advanced ideas and processes originally seen in works he lost to fire.
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Enjoy this stained glass panel discussion with top industry professionals and educators Judith Schaechter, Stephen Hartley, Megan McElfresh, and Amy Valuck. Topics addressed include: what is needed in stained glass education; how the massive number of Instagrammers making suncatchers and trinkets affect stained glass; how to promote stained glass in a gallery setting; and how to stay relevant as stained glass artists.
The panelists:
By single-handedly revolutionizing the craft of stained glass through her unique aesthetic and inventive approach to materials, Judith Schaechter championed her medium into the world of fine art. The content of her work – some of which gives voice to those who experience pain, grief, despair, and hopelessness – resonates with viewers, leaving a profound and lasting impression.
Schaechter has lived and worked in Philadelphia since graduating in 1983 with a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design Glass Program. She has exhibited her glass art widely, including in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, The Hague and Vaxjo, Sweden. She is the recipient of many grants, including the Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in Crafts, The Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, The Joan Mitchell Award, two Pennsylvania Council on the Arts awards, The Pew Fellowship in the Arts and a Leeway Foundation grant. Her work is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Hermitage in Russia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Corning Museum of Glass, The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution and numerous other public and private collections. Schaechter’s work was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, a collateral exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2012, and she is a 2008 USA Artists Rockefeller Fellow. In 2013 the artist was inducted to the American Craft Council College of Fellows. The Glass Art Society presented Schaechter with a Lifetime Achievement award in 2023, and this year she will receive the Smithsonian Visionary Award.
Schaechter has taught workshops at numerous venues, including the Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle, the Penland School of Crafts, Toyama Institute of Glass (Toyama, Japan), Australia National University in Canberra, Australia. She has taught courses at Rhode Island School of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy, and the New York Academy of Art. She is ranked as an Adjunct Professor at The University of the Arts and Tyler School of Art Glass Program, both in Philly .
Born in Philadelphia, Stephen Hartley began his craft career working on a variety of historic buildings and monuments throughout the region. In 1999, he moved to South Carolina to attend Coastal Carolina University, where he earned his undergraduate degree in History. He then relocated to Savannah, Georgia, and continued to work in the traditional crafts and conservation fields while attending graduate school. After completing his MFA in Historic Preservation at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Hartley was employed as an instructor at various colleges within the Savannah area. He earned his PhD from the University of York in 2018 where his dissertation thesis studied the historical and modern frameworks of trades training in the US and the UK.
Hartley eventually returned to the Philadelphia area and accepted the position of Head of Building Arts at Bryn Athyn College, where he formulated the first Bachelor’s of Fine Arts (BFA) in traditional building within the United States. Hartley, currently an associate professor in Notre Dame’s School of Architecture, wants his students to have a deeper appreciation for the work craftspeople do to fulfill an architect’s vision—by learning the vocabulary of the trades, understanding their history, and, when possible, trying out the tools.
Executive Director of the Stained Glass Association of America (SGAA), Megan McElfresh has dedicated her professional life to community service and the art and science of stained glass. With a background in fine arts and operations management, she joined the Association as a professional member in 2015 and became the Executive Director in the fall of 2017. Growing up in small stained glass studios, McElfresh continued to build on her technical skills in the medium by seeking mentorship opportunities throughout college. Some of the highlights of her glass studies were traveling to Pilchuck Glass School and time spent at the nationally recognized kiln forming resource center, Vitrum Studio.
Prior to working with the SGAA, McElfresh worked in a variety of roles from operations management at a life sciences firm in Washington, D.C. to IT and web support for small non-profit art organizations. In 2011, McElfresh moved from Northern Virginia to Buffalo, New York, and founded her studio, McElf GlassWorks. With a passion for her professional career as well as her new community, she never turned down an opportunity to collaborate with neighborhood teens and local programs to provide enthusiastic and creative educational enrichment. In her personal work, McElfresh uses her artwork in the advocacy of issues she became passionate about during her time working at a forensics laboratory concerning subjects like domestic violence and rape, and DNA backlogs. Her studio work has been featured in the Stained Glass Quarterly, Design NY, The Buffalo News, and Buffalo Rising.
Find out more about the SGAA’s 2024 conference here:
Conference 2024: Sand to Sash | The Stained Glass Association of America
Amy Valuck is a stained glass artist and conservator based in Southeastern Pennsylvania, and the current president of the American Glass Guild. She began her apprenticeship in 1998 at The Art of Glass in Media, PA, and in 2014 went on to establish her own studio, Amy Valuck Glass Art, now located in West Chester, PA. Her studio’s primary work is the restoration and conservation of historical windows from churches, universities, and private residences. As a conservator she specializes in complex lead work, plated windows, and replication painting. Valuck also maintains a personal art practice, producing autonomous stained glass panels for private commissions and public exhibition, including the AGG’s American Glass Now annual exhibit. Her personal work is heavily influenced by the fabrication and painting techniques of historical windows but frequently includes experimental fused glass elements.
Valuck is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, who earned her BFA degree in jewelry and light metals. Her work in jewelry earned awards including the first annual Cartier Prize, and the MJSA (Manufacturing Jewelers and Silversmiths’ Association) Award. She has served on the board of directors of the American Glass Guild since 2017 and has participated as a lecturer and instructor at several of the AGG’s annual conferences. Registration is now open for the 2024 Grand Rapids conference, July 9 – 14.
Find out more about the AGG’s 2024 conference here:
https://www.americanglassguild.org/events/agg-2024-conference-grand-rapids-mi
For further exploration of panel discussion topics:
The Campaign for Historic Trades Releases First-of-its-Kind Labor Study on the Status of Historic Trades in America – The Campaign for Historic Trades
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Kazuki Takizawa’s 2015 installation entitled Breaking the Silence represents the artist’s interpretation of a person’s breaking point and the juxtaposition of balancing inner struggles with oppressive external forces. The installation incorporated performance aspects and sound, where slanted vessels filled with water until submitting to the liquid’s weight, falling over onto a table. Takizawa’s work provided a new perspective for interacting with glass, going beyond form and technique to provoke a deeper level of engagement.
Impressed by how humble and open Takizawa was when discussing the deeply personal experiences reflected within his art, Emily Zaiden, director and curator at Craft In America Center, Los Angeles, offered the artist a solo exhibition. She states: “I was drawn in by Takizawa’s metaphorical use of the material to articulate new themes through new forms and new applications. He is dealing with subject matter that has been untouched and under-represented, particularly in his medium, and sharing this vital message through compelling sculptural works of beauty is perfectly in line with our mission.”
For Takizawa’s 2017 Craft in America exhibition, Catharsis Contained, the artist designed and fabricated another unique installation, creating an aural experience produced by suspending colored glass bulbs enclosed in a swaying metal structure. The rocking motion of the work, entitled Breaking the Silence II, caused the blown bulbs to gently bump into one another, producing a soothing, tinkling sound inspired by the artist’s visit to a temple in Thailand. Takizawa combined a sonic atmosphere with the rich visual experience of repeated glass forms in various subdued hues to inspire a conversation about a topic rarely addressed in art – suicide. The work was inspired by the artist’s struggles to support his brother who has wrestled with mental health issues and suicidal ideation.
https://www.kazukitakizawa.com/breaking-the-silence-2?pgid=j6vrle9h-71bf472c-84df-4a19-b456-59e74a495e43
As an artist who himself lives with bipolar disorder, Takizawa uses glass as a means to explore his inner reality and destigmatize mental illness. With an aim to give the invisible shape, Takizawa crafts elaborate vessels and installations, each with a unique story. Universally rooted in a dialogue around mental health, his series examines broad themes such as attaining minimalism among chaos as well as his personal narratives around the topic of living with Bipolar Disorder and suicide prevention. Takizawa has traveled to numerous communities in and outside the US to share his work and act as an advocate for mental illness. His practice offers an uncommon and inclusive space to increase awareness and start a conversation.
Takizawa is a Japanese glass artist based in Los Angeles, California. He graduated from the University of Hawaii at Manoa with a BFA in glass art in 2010 and owns and runs KT Glassworks, LLC in the historic West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles.Takizawa’s work was exhibited in Monochromatic, which opened at Duncan McClellan Gallery (DMG) in St. Petersburg, Florida, on February 10 and included his latest Minimalist series. A few pieces from his Container series can be seen at Hawk Galleries, Columbus, Ohio, and additional sculptures are on view in an exhibition called The Optics of Now: SoCal Glass at Palos Verdes Art Center, curated by Zaiden from Craft in America Center. The show runs through April 13, 2024. From November 1 through December 25, Takizawa’s work will be exhibited at the Glass Invitational exhibition at Blue Spiral 1 Gallery in Asheville, North Carolina. In 2024, the artist endeavors to offer more artist talks with a focus on his perspective on mental health.
Says Takizawa: “I started speaking about mental health including my experience living with bipolar disorder and suicide prevention back in 2015, wondering if I would ever regret this decision. But the entire journey since then has been nothing but empowering, and I don’t regret this at all. I just wanted to be someone who could freely speak about things related to mental health without the stigma. And I felt the need to do something about helping someone who had suicidal ideation at the time. Since then, I have continued to make new work to support my story and to continue speaking.”
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
We can all help prevent suicide. The 988 Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals in the United States. Just dial 988.
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Jessica Loughlin’s work is characterized by a strict reductive sensibility and restricted use of color. Fusing kiln formed sheets of opaque and translucent glass together in flat panels or in thin, geometric compositions and vessels, she alludes to shadow, reflection and refraction. Loughlin’s work is influenced by the flat landscapes and salt lakes of South Australia, and the recurring motif of the mirage appears in much of her work. Each piece makes its own poetic statement.
“My work investigates space, seeing distance and understanding how wide-open spaces, particularly of the Australian landscape, affect us. I am fascinated by the unreachable space. The view we look upon, but can never reach. In this minimal landscape, all elements are stripped back, light becomes the landscape, and I am left looking at space, the space between here.…and there. This viewed distance is a place we can never reach, never get to, for as we move towards it, it moves away from you. Is this a real place or is it a projected space of the imagination. My work does not aim to represent this landscape directly but rather induce a state of looking inward and outward simultaneously.”
Originally from Melbourne, Australia, Loughlin is a graduate of the Canberra School of Art under the tutelage of late Stephen Procter. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the Corning Museum of Glass, the National Gallery of Australia, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh GB, and the Musee de Design et d’Arts Appliques Contemporains in Lausanne, Switzerland. A studio artist for over 20 years, Loughlin has exhibited both nationally and internationally. In 2020, she was only the second Australian to have work selected as a finalist in the Loewe Craft Prize. In 2018, she was awarded the Fuse Glass Prize, and in 2004 and 2007, the Tom Malone Art Prize. She is represented by Sabbia Gallery, Sydney, Australia, and Caterina Tognon, Venice, Italy.
A committed and passionate artist who is highly regarded both in Australia and internationally, Loughlin combines her thoughtful and instinctual approach with extraordinary technical skills. With a gentle color palette of soft muted hues, her work often explores ideas of evaporation, space and distance, all inherent in the Australian landscape.
Loughlin’s work was on view in late 2023 in a solo exhibition near | far at Sabbia Gallery, Sydney, and her piece of light is on national tour as part of the Jamfactory Icon series, accompanied by a monograph of her art Jessica Loughlin: from here published by Wakefield Press. In 2024, Loughlin was selected for and will participate in the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia, March 29 through June 2.
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Apollo 8, which launched on December 21, 1968, was the first mission to take humans to the moon and back. While the crew did not land on the moon’s surface, the flight was an important prelude to a lunar landing, testing the flight trajectory and operations getting there and back. Capt. James A Lovell, Apollo 8 astronaut, shared his memories of that historic mission: “Then, looking up I saw it, the Earth, a blue and white ball, just above the lunar horizon, 240,000 miles away…I put my thumb up to the window and completely hid the Earth. Just think, over five billion people, everything I ever knew was behind my thumb…I began to question my own existence. How do I fit in to what I see?”
Inspired by this wonderment and interest in perspective, glass artist Josh Simpson embarked on his own exploration of the cosmos. Born on August 17, 1949 and educated at Hamilton College, in Clinton, New York (1972), much of Simpson’s career in glass has been dedicated to communicating his fascination with the earth and its role as our planet, first through entertaining demonstrations for middle schoolers, then with art lovers worldwide. He has enthusiastically shared his glass art in much the same way the astronauts shared their experiences – with any man, woman or child whose heart fills with excitement just thinking of the possibilities.
Since the 1980s, Simpson has been hiding his glass Planets all over our Earth. In 2000 he launched the Infinity Project, which invites people around the world to hide Planets in exotic, mysterious, and sometimes even seemingly mundane – but personally meaningful – locations.
Simpson’s space-inspired glass art includes Planets, vases, platters, and sculpture. The artist has dedicated more than 50 years to inventing new glass formulas and making unique objects that embody his fascination with color, form, light, pattern, complexity, and the working of the universe. His iconic Planets evoke imaginary worlds that might exist in distant undiscovered galaxies. His New Mexico Glass suggests star-filled night skies and swirling blue seas, while Corona Glass evokes deep-space images captured by the Hubble Telescope.
Simpson’s work has been exhibited in the White House and numerous international museums. Select pieces are currently on permanent display at the Corning Museum of Glass, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum, Yale University Art Museum, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and many more.
Says Simpson: “I am moved by the beauty of the night sky and other astronomical phenomena. Physics and cosmology fascinate me, as does high temperature chemistry, powered flight, and all things mechanical. I am mesmerized by color, form, contrast, iridescence, tessellating patterns, and complexity.”
Located in the rural hills of Western Massachusetts, Simpson’s studio can be found in a converted dairy barn beside his home. Every night, the last thing he does is walk from the house to his studio to check the furnaces. Seeing an aurora borealis, watching a storm develop down the valley, or looking at the sky on a perfect summer night, compels him to translate some of the wonder of the universe into his glass. This process doesn’t happen in any planned way, but gradually and unpredictably. He never tries to replicate what he sees around him, and in fact often doesn’t recognize the source of inspiration until someone points it out later.
Simpson states: “Molten glass consists of sand and metallic oxides combined with extraordinary, blinding heat. The result is a material that flows like honey. When it’s hot, glass is alive! It moves gracefully and inexorably in response to gravity and centripetal force. It possesses an inner light and transcendent radiant heat that make it simultaneously one of the most rewarding and one of the most frustrating materials for an artist to work with. Most of my work reflects a compromise between the molten material and me; each finished piece is a solidified moment when we both agree.”
In his most recent book, Josh Simpson 50 Years of Visionary Glass, 500 beautiful photos and informative (and humorous) narration by the artist, reveals the evolution of Simpson’s evocative glass art over the past 50 years. In-depth looks at his several signature series and experimental works illustrate how the artist has continually explored new ways to express—in glass—his fascination with outer space, the natural world, and the workings of the universe. Text and photo spreads narrate the story of Simpson’s glass, details of his life and process, and his contributions within the craft world. Text by experts in the glass world, including William Warmus, Tina Oldknow, Nezka Pfeifer, and others, supplies additional views. In addition, strategically placed comments from numerous museum curators, along with insights from astrophysicists and space flight professionals, present a unique perspective on the meanings and broad appeal of his unique glass.
From playing the spoons, to winning story slams and flying high performance planes to the wrong number that resulted in him marrying astronaut Cady Coleman – enjoy this fascinating conversation with Josh Simpson.
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Wesley Fleming brings the fantastic realism of the microcosmos to life in glass. An ambassador for smaller denizens of the earth, his passion for nature sparks awe and curiosity in others. Growing up in the countryside, his favorite pastime was exploring beneath logs and rocks in the woods or reading science fiction and comic books. Hence the natural world and his own imagination became his muse.
Says Fleming: “I hope to rekindle awe and curiosity for nature with my fantastic realism. I’ve focused more than two decades honing my flameworking skills and trying to capture the essence of actual species with intricate detail of tiny stamen or antennae. Today, I conjure plants, animals and mystical beings by merging the fantastical with the real through choice of color palette and referencing familiar archetypes. Regardless of the end result, I love the alchemical potential of sculpting glass – a brittle and cold substance transformed by fire into a pliable and molten material.”
In 2001, Fleming began working with glass, learning via apprenticeship under the tutelage of Italian maestros Vittorio Costantini and Lucio Bubacco in Venice, Italy. He subsequently gained valuable experience working for Josh Simpson and the MIT Glass Lab. His work has been included in numerous publications, exhibited around the United States and included in the permanent collections of the Corning Museum of Glass, Kobe Lampwork Museum, Tacoma Museum of Glass and Racine Art Museum.Recently, Fleming was commissioned by Wes Anderson to make glass flowers, which were animated by a studio in London for his 2023 movie Asteroid City. Along with his wife, Rebecca, the artist demonstrated his techniques at Denizli Glass Bienali in Denizli, Turkey, where she played her composed pieces on the cello while Fleming worked at the torch. In March 2020, his first solo museum exhibit was scheduled to open at Brattleboro Museum and Art Center in Brattleboro, Vermont. Sadly, opening day the museum was cancelled due to the Covid pandemic.
Says Fleming: “Insects have been my main focus for many years, but recently I have been very inspired by the Blaschka Glass Flowers at Harvard and have been working on developing my plants and flowers. This was what was so exciting for me about the Brattleboro exhibit – that I was given trust and free rein to make my new passion and to focus on local wildflowers, which I see on the regular hikes I do around my home.”
In 2024, Fleming will co-teach “Bugs, Figures, Plants, & Beyond” with Emilio Santini at Penland School of Crafts, April 28 – May 3. He will also co-teach “Collaborative Soft Glass Sculpture” with Michael Mangiafico at Touchstone Center for Crafts, August 5 -9 . - Montre plus
