IN MEMORIAM: Ginny Ruffner (1952 - 2025)

Ginny Ruffner, whose exuberant embrace of art, technology, and the power of imagination defined a life of overcoming obstacles and expanding the possibilities of expression through glass art, died at the age of 72 at her Seattle home earlier this week. Ruffner studied drawing and painting at both the undergraduate and graduate level at the University of Georgia (BFA 1974, MFA 1975), where she became intrigued by glass as an art medium after encountering Marcel Duchamp's paint-on-glass work Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (2015) in an art history class.

Friday January 17, 2025 | by Andrew Page

IN MEMORIAM: Zora Palová (1947-2025)

Leading Slovakian glass artist Zora Palová died on January 11, 2025, at the age of 77. Born in Bratislava when it was part of Czechoslovakia, Palová studied with Václav Cigler in the architectural glass program he led at the Academy of Fine Arts. There she would meet her husband, fellow student Štěpán Pala, with whom she had three sons.

Einar and Jamex de la Torre made their work Meteorite dall’ Influenza Veneziana (2024) as a residency at the Corning Museum of Glass while their retrospective exhibition was on view. courtesy: corning museum of glass

Tuesday December 17, 2024 | by Sophie Faber

Einar and Jamex de la Torre's Glass Meteorite Crash Lands at Corning

We tend to think of a natural disaster as something that happens in one bright instant of overwhelming, unstoppable power. It’s discordant to think of something so devastating as actually fragile at times, and with power that waxes and wanes through various stages of life. Einar and Jamex de la Torre’s latest glass art installation presents the fragility of force, decked out in a host of ancient and modern signals of change. Meteorite dall’Influenza Veneziana appears to us in the form of a large meteorite, studded with glass configurations and trailed by a blaze of color. Here, Murano glass techniques are uniquely presented alongside Mexican and American cultural elements, displaying cultural diffusion and the collaborative nature of glass art.

Friday December 6, 2024 | by Sahana Ramakrishnan

EASE UP ON YOUR HOLIDAY GIFT STRESS WITH THE GLASS QUARTERLY HOLIDAY BUNDLE!

Running out of gift ideas this holiday season? Does a magazine gift subscription seem like the gift is coming in too late? We have the perfect solution! Sign your friend or loved one up for our specially-priced holiday offer, and we will rush them a beautifully wrapped bundle of all the amazing issues of Glass from 2024 -- including our Fall issue that comes shrink-wrapped with New Glass Review as well as our Winter 2024 issue which comes with our annual directory to Glass Education and Suppliers. The magazines will arrive with a hand-addressed card announcing your generosity.

Curator Alyssa Velazquez (center) speaks with some of the featured artists at the exhibition's opening celebration Smash the ceiling, floor and walls; take the broken shards and blow it back. 2024. photo: nathan j shaulis

Wednesday November 20, 2024 | by Sophie Faber

Carnegie Museum assistant curator Alyssa Velazquez pushes boundaries with Pittsburgh Glass Center project

Most of us are familiar, maybe even personally, with the term "glass ceiling." However, the concept of an invisible barrier in the workplace that prevents women and minorities from advancing professionally need not be simply accepted, however grudgingly. In fact, the metaphor can be recast, transformed from something that is scorned but widely accepted into something that becomes the change. The Pittsburgh Glass Center's new exhibition, Smash the ceiling, floor and walls; take the broken shards and blow it back, does exactly this, metaphorically speaking.

Marquee Before And After Helene 1536X864

The Marquee, Asheville's once-bustling art market, before and after the storm. 2024. photo: marquee asheville

Thursday November 7, 2024 | by Sophie Faber

After the hurricane, Asheville glass artists look to an uncertain future, seek to make up for lost sales

The late-September arrival of the remnants of Hurricane Helene, a slow-moving deluge of rain and destructive winds, killed 42 citizens of Buncombe County, which surrounds Asheville, North Carolina. This Western North Carolina city of less than 100,000 is a glassblowing center, where the steady flow of tourists on weekends, especially in the months from October to December, have supported multiple glass artists in their careers. The natural beauty of this mountainous region regularly drew weekend shoppers watching the leaves turn and stocking up on holiday gifts at the burgeoning galleries, artist studios, and craft marketplaces such as the Marquee, which opened in Asheville's River Arts District in 2021. But the trillions of gallons of rain that fell across the Southeast U.S. on September 27th as the hurricane made its way north caused catastrophic flooding across Buncombe County, and especially in downtown Asheville, where the French Broad River crested 24-feet above normal the waters, climbing to the soaring ceiling of the Marquee.

Te Rōngō Kirkwood, The Seer, the Seen, the Seeing, 2024. Blown glass. photo: jen raoult

Saturday November 2, 2024 | by Sophie Faber

New Zealand artist Te Rōngō Kirkwood awarded 2024 Rakow Commission

The 2024 Rakow Commission from The Corning Museum of Glass has been awarded for the first time to an artist from New Zealand. Te Rōngō Kirkwood, a mixed-media glass artist, is also the first indigenous Māori artist to be selected for this prestigious commission to make a work for the Corning permanent collection. Her pieces, made with both blown and fused glass in addition to other materials, bring the vibrancy and power of Māori culture to New York State this fall.

Jacob Patrick, the founder of Amalgamation Pictures in Los Angeles, served as director, producer, and cinematographer of SONO LINO. photo: ivan lizarde

Friday October 18, 2024 | by Andrew Page

CONVERSATION: The director and producer of "SONO LINO" shares his fresh take on Maestro Tagaliapietra

The New York premiere of SONO LINO ("I am Lino") is scheduled for this coming Sunday, October 20th, as part of the Chelsea Film Festival, and, if you think it's one more love letter to the genius of the maestro, you might be surprised. The filmmaker, Jacob Patrick, is not a veteran documentary maker about glass, but instead is a wide-ranging producer, director, and cinematographer, who brings a fresh perspective to his subject. Sono Lino is not another compendium of luscious shots of colorful sculpted forms emerging from the smoke and fire of the hot shop, though there are plenty of artful compositions of Lino in action. But at its heart, the film is a character study, an investigation into who Lino is, and engages how he has impacted so many lives around him. Of course, any film about someone as skilled and visionary as Lino would have to explore his level of finesse and skill, and there are plenty of gorgeously composed shots at the bench, but it's the interplay of personalities that most interested Patrick. The Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet caught up with the filmmaker to discuss this project a couple of days before its New York debut.

Thursday August 22, 2024 | by Andrew Page

HOT OFF THE PRESSES: The Fall 2024 Issue of Glass (#176)

The Fall edition of Glass (#176), bundled with New Glass Review (#44) and adorned by a striking work by Layo Bright on its cover, is on its way to subscriber mailboxes and select retail outlets. A native of Nigeria, Bright left her career as a laywer behind when she moved to the U.S. to study fine art at the School of the Visual Arts in New York City. It was here she discovered glass through a class she took at UrbanGlass (the arts nonprofit that publishes Glass), and she had found a key material to work with in her multi-media art practice, which curator and critic Jabari Owens-Bailey explores in an in-depth feature.

Work by 2018 Chrysalis award winner Dean Allison. Breakdown, 2016. Cast glass, steel, and paint. H 18, W 17, d 10 in. courtesy: james renwick alliance

Thursday August 1, 2024 | by Sahana Ramakrishnan

CALL FOR ENTRIES: 2024 Chrysalis Award for Emerging Artists

Among the various activities of the James Renwick Alliance for Craft (JRACraft) -- an independent national nonprofit that supports scholarship, education and public appreciation of craft art -- is an annual award the group presents to an emerging artist working in a craft material. The JRA's Chrysalis Award, started in 2016, includes a $5,000 prize to promote and inspire US-based craft artists. If you're just starting out or have a few years of experience, the criteria to apply is that you haven't had your work featured in a major museum such as the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which the JRA works closely with to support its programs. Chrysalis applicants are reuquired to have completed a four-year academic program or equivalent training within the past five years.

Glass: The UrbanGlass Quarterly, a glossy art magazine published four times a year by UrbanGlass has provided a critical context to the most important artwork being done in the medium of glass for more than 40 years.