UrbanGlass is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2007-8 Visiting Artist Fellowships: Emerging Artists Sam McMillen and Erika Tada and Established Artist Jaffa Laam Lam.
Fellowships are for an eight week period and include access to all areas of the Studio on a scheduled basis, technical support and materials as stipulated in the Fellowship Agreement. The Emerging Artist Fellowship is designed to provide recent graduates with a bridge between the academic and professional world. The Established Artist Fellowship is offered to working artists with established careers. Both fellowships afford artists the opportunity to develop a new body of work and explore new techniques. Artists are chosen on the basis of past work and plans for utilizing UrbanGlass facilities.
Sam McMillen began working with glass as an apprentice in a production glassblowing studio in Bellingham, WA, in 1998 at the age of 16. He studied at Skagit Valley College, the Pratt Fine Arts Center and Pilchuck Glass School. His art has been exhibited at Western Washington University, Bumbershoot Arts Festival “Bumberbiennale‿ and at Priceless Works Gallery in Seattle, WA. He currently assists in the creation of work for artists such as Dan Dailey, Benjamin Moore and Michael Goddard, and operates a studio in Seattle, WA, where he creates his own work.
Erika Tada received her BFA in glass from Joshibi University in Art and Design in Kanagawa, Japan, in 1998, and her MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). She has received numerous scholarships and was awarded first place at the international student exhibition of the GAS conference in Adelaide, Australia, in 2005. She exhibits internationally at galleries in Japan and throughout the United States including SOFA, and was selected for the UrbanGlass 2007 MFA Exhibition.
Jaffa Laam Lam is a Hong Kong based conceptual sculptor specializing in site specific work of mixed-media sculptural installations that include woodcarving, water, light, plastic, glass, soft materials and metal. Lam co-founded and chairs the AiR Association Ltd. in Hong Kong, and teaches sculpture at the Hong Kong Art School and the Hong Kong Institute of Education. She exhibits her work internationally, including the recent 2006 SOFA CHICAGO. She received her BFA, MFA, and Diploma in Education at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.