Viewing articles by Malcolm Morano

West Branch of the Susquehanna, 2006. Hot worked, slumped, and etched glass on steel. H 48, W 30, D 3 in. collection: connie and jamie egan

Tuesday October 18, 2016 | by Malcolm Morano

OPENING: Meditations on nature in Kathleen Mulcahy’s rich museum retrospective in Pennsylvania

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Museums, New Work, Opening

While artist Kathleen Mulcahy was canoeing on the west branch of the Susquehanna River over a decade ago, a sudden storm came out of nowhere, leaving her no way to escape from the furious pelting rain. The river was too wide, and the waters too rapid. “We were moving into it, and there was nothing I could do but submit," she told the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet in a telephone interview. "And in that moment of submission, of letting go, I put my hand in the water. And after that moment, once I let go, we went right through the storm; and on the other side of it was clear skies and fresh air and beauty like I had never really experienced, from everything — my skin, the way things smelled, the air, everything was beautiful. I remember putting my hand in the water and saying, ‘what will my new work look like because of this?’” The answer arrived in a dream a few months later. "[Upon waking], I quickly grabbed a pencil and sketched this little tiny sketch of the image that I saw.” Mulcahy's first drop piece came soon after, titled West Branch of the Susquehanna (2006), which will be featured in her upcoming exhibition “Opposites Attract: Kathleen Mulcahy and Sylvester Damianos,” at The Westmoreland Museum of American Art opening on November 5, 2016, and running through February 2017.

Brett Swenson, Standards of Measurement, 1 Liter (detail), 2016. Erlenmeyer flask, obsidian, heat, borosilicate glass shelf. H 10, W 10, D 9 inches. courtesy: norte maar.

Friday October 7, 2016 | by Malcolm Morano

SEEN: Independent exhibition in Brooklyn celebrates visions of glass worlds by a new generation

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, New Work, Seen

"Paracosm" is a technical term for an imaginary world. The most famous examples are literary, like J.R.R. Tolkein's Middle Earth or C.S. Lewis's Narnia; but in the visual arts, narrative works are often set in manufactured worlds. In an independently organized exhibition in Brooklyn, New York, the work of six experimental artists has been organized into “Paracosm: new worlds in glass,” which showcases the capacity of glass art to provide a transporting experience in a wide range of works, all with a conceptual foundation. Brooklyn’s Norte Maar, a nonprofit focused on “connecting emerging artistic communities and uniting cultural forces to foster artistic expression and raise the imaginative energy in us all,” is the setting for this fanciful exhibition, which runs through October 23, 2016.

Charlotte Potter, Bovidae Goat. Hand-sculpted glass, wood, metal, plastic, fabric. H 16, W 11, D 7 1/2 in. courtesy: walker contemporary.

Friday September 30, 2016 | by Malcolm Morano

Man and nature collide in Vermont contemporary gallery group show featuring Charlotte Potter

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, Exhibition, New Work

The complex relationship between the human and the natural worlds is rich territory for an art gallery set in the town of Waitsfield, Vermont, with its long history of forestry and agriculture. Through mid-October, art dealer Stephanie Walker has turned over her Walker Contemporary gallery space to an exhibition entitled “What Have We Done?”, which examines artists “grappling with the often precarious human versus nature relationship,” according to the gallery’s website. Among the five artists with work on display is the native-born Charlotte Potter, who grew up in Waitsfield before embarking on a notable career as a multi-media artist with a focus on glass. Holding a 2010 MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, Potter is currently the studio manager/program director of the Chrysler Museum of Art’s Glass Studio, in Norfolk, Virginia, and her evolving artwork is represented by New York City's Heller Gallery. Potter's glass deer and elk antlers have actually been incubating in the artist’s mind and studio practice since 2008, and are recontextualized by showcasing them alongside paintings and drawings in which, as the gallery puts it, humans’ “meddling interference in the natural order of things…takes center stage”

Silvia Levenson, "Until death do us part," 2014. Kiln-cast glass. H 21 1/2, W 12, D 12 in. courtesy: bullseye project. photo: marco del comune.

Saturday September 24, 2016 | by Malcolm Morano

Silvia Levenson and Bruno Amadi to be awarded 2016 Glass In Venice Prize today

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Award, News

Argentinian-born artist Silvia Levenson and Italian glass master Bruno Amadi have just been announced as the recipients of the 2016 Glass in Venice Prizes. Supported by the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere, ed Arti and the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, the Glass in Venice Prizes have been honoring outstanding glass artists for five years. Each year, two prizes are awarded: one to glass masters who have “distinguished themselves in glass art in the wake of the Murano tradition,” and another to international glass artists “who, using different techniques and methods, have chosen glass as their means of expression,” according to the Prize’s press release. The award ceremony will take place in the Palazzo Franchetti this evening, Monday, September 26th, at 5:30 PM. In addition, the work of the winning artists will be on display in the foyer of the Palazzo Loredan until October 24th, 2016.

Sarah Blood creates pieces for her exhibition "Between Further and Farther," at the Chrysler Museum Glass Studio, one of three partners in the NEAR residency program. courtesy: the meridian group.

Saturday September 17, 2016 | by Malcolm Morano

Alfred professor Sarah Blood kicks off new Norfolk, Virginia, residency and exhibit program

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Artist Interviews, Events, Exhibition, News

A new Norfolk, Virginia, residency collaboration between The Chrysler Museum of Art, Glass Wheel Studio, and the Rutter Family Art Foundation, has culminated in “Between Further and Farther,” an exhibition currently on display at the Rutter-family-owned gallery and nightclub, Work|Release. Mixed-media artist Sarah Blood — the first recipient of the New Energy Artists Residency (NEAR) — used her residency to wrestle with ideas of actual and perceived distance and explore different ways to engage with the form of the paper airplane. The outcome, “Between Further and Farther,” incorporates mixed-media sculpture, large-format photography, video, and performance. Art goers of the Hampton Roads area can view the exhibition at Work|Release until September 24th.

BFF and School Night, 'EZ on Them Tootz.' courtesy: pilchuck seattle.

Thursday September 15, 2016 | by Malcolm Morano

Leading glass school de-stigmatizes pipemaking, exhibits top makers’ work in Pioneer Square gallery

FILED UNDER: Exhibition, News

The cleverly-titled exhibition "High Design," on view at the Pilchuck Glass School's Seattle exhibition space through September 29, 2016, showcases the work of five glass pipemakers who are some of the best-known figures in a subculture of functional flameworking that is seeing increasing engagement with the larger glass art world. The exhibition was spurred by two factors. First was a 2012 ballot initiative to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, which removed some of the legal shadows that kept pipemaking officially or unofficially off-limits for many glass programs. The other was the personal initiative of Pilchuck artistic director Tina Aufiero, who has challenged the rejection of glass pipes, and even offered a class — “C’est une Pipe” — at the most recent summer sessions at the Stanwood, Washington, program that openly taught techniques for making marijuana paraphernalia from glass.

Heike Brachlow, Anima, 2016. Cast opaline glass. H 15 3/4, W 17, D 12 1/4 in. photo: ester segarra

Thursday September 1, 2016 | by Malcolm Morano

OPENING: Traver Gallery showcases two glass approaches in dual Thompson and Brachlow exhibits

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, Exhibition, New Work, Opening

For the month of September 2016, Traver Gallery is displaying new works by artists Heike Brachlow and Cappy Thompson. Aside from their shared use of color as a primary aspect of their work, they are otherwise strongly divergent in their approach to the material. This month's exhibition will see both artists exploring new techniques. Brachlow will showcase the latest works in her "D-Form Series" solid-glass sculptures whose forms were discovered through joining together two flat shapes with identical perimeter lengths. And Thompson will move beyond her prior body of vitreous enamel paintings to unveil a new series of transparent engraved vessels.

Chris Lebeau, executed by L. Moser & Söhne, "One-off pieces," 1926-1927. Glass. H 14 in. (tallest) courtesy: gemeentemuseum den haag.

Saturday August 27, 2016 | by Malcolm Morano

OPENING: Glass survey exhibition spanning 2,000 years set to debut in The Hague

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, Museums, News, Opening

A sizable sampling of the holdings of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag’s two-millennia-spanning glass collection will be showcased in "Look! Glass," an exhibit of 400 glass objects from across history. A single, long table will tell the history of the drinking glass through some 200 objects, from Ancient Roman glass to contemporary vessels. The massive survey will be complemented by a selection of contemporary Dutch glass, a gallery of works by Italian glass maestro Lino Tagliapietra, and a display comparing and contrasting the forms across time.

Thaddeus Wolfe has developed a signature method of casting geometric forms using a unique process involving sytrofoam forms. photo: joe kramm. courtesy: r & co, new york

Thursday August 25, 2016 | by Malcolm Morano

Thaddeus Wolfe awarded 2016 Corning Rakow Commission

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Award, Museums, News

Brooklyn-based artist Thaddeus Wolf has just been named the recipient of The Corning Museum of Glass’ 2016 Rakow Commission. Awarded annually to an emerging artist whose work has yet to be represented in the premier glass museum’s collection, the $25,000 award is designed to encourage “emerging or established artists to venture into new areas that they might otherwise be unable to explore because of financial limitations,” according to the official commission announcement. Wolfe's geometrically intricate mold-blown vessels will present many technical obstacles as he expands in scale. The choice of Wolfe for this honor provides some insight into the sensibilities of newly installed curator of modern and contemporary glass Susie Silbert, who has taken over this prominent role from recently-retired predecessor Tina Oldknow.

Hot glass being shaped in a block at the North Carolina Glass Center. photo: jacob biba.

Tuesday August 16, 2016 | by Malcolm Morano

Glass art on the rise in Asheville as nonprofit buys private facility, plans new studios in 2017

FILED UNDER: Announcements, News, Opening

North Carolina has multiple connections to glass art, from the remarkable residencies and classes at Penland to the glass supplier Spruce Pine Batch, run by the son of Studio Glass pioneer Harvey Littleton, who relocated to the state in 1977. Now the city of Asheville, North Carolina, which the state art council cites as home to "the third-largest number of craft artists in the United States," will get a boost for glass artists with the recently formed North Carolina Glass Center, a nonprofit art center gearing up to move into a brand-new facility in spring of 2017. NCGC will occupy state-of-the-art studios at River Arts Makers Place (known as RAMP), a multi-use 50,000-square-foot facility that will house facilities from a variety of institutions, including the University of North Carolina Asheville. The new glass center aims to offer studio rentals, glass classes and workshops, as well as gallery space. But even before the new building comes online next year, the new nonprofit is already in business, having purchased the assets of the privately-held Asheville Glass Center as of June 1, 2016. NCGC's executive director Kari Rinn, formerly the director of creative arts at Haywood Community College, told the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet that the nonprofit plans to vastly expand the glass education programs while keeping the public access that Asheville Glass Center offered.

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.