OPENING: Tiffany's ecclesiastical windows to go on display at Chicago's Driehaus Museum

Opening September 7, 2019, at the Driehaus Museum in Chicago is an exhibition of selected ecclesiastical stained-glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany. In addition to the setting, which shows the windows in appropriate Gilded-Age surroundings of an opulent residence that is now a museum, the exhibit also highlights the stories behind the works. Regular attendees of the SOFA art fair might recognize these windows, which had formerly been exhibited at Chicago's Navy Pier, where the Richard H. Drienhaus Gallery Stained Glass once stood adjacent to the Smith Museum of Stained Glass. (Both shut down for the recent renovation of Navy PIer.) The windows are part of the personal collection of the museum's founder, the investor and art collector Richard Driehaus, who also financed the purchase and renovation of the Driehaus Museum, which opened in 2008.

A view of the naturalistic variety of stones created by husband-and-wife team of Jennifer and Thor Bueno. courtesy: the artists

Thursday August 1, 2019 | by Meghan Hayfield

With clients offering ever-larger spaces, Jennifer and Thor Bueno create expressive stone installations that bring the complexity of the natural world indoors

Jennifer and Thor Bueno, the husband-and-wife team behind Bueno Glass, have been collaborating on large-scale stone sculptures for at least 10 years, and they've been bringing assemblages of these variegated patterns that reference natural geology into the architecture of homes, hospitals, and corporate offices. Their latest installation, entitled Cerulean Streams, is massive in scale and was installed in an unidentified corporate headquarters in Virginia.

Helen Lee, Infinitive, 2018. Glass, neon, plexiglass. H 106 x W 64 x D 64 in. courtesy: bergstrom-mahler museum of glass

Wednesday July 31, 2019 | by Meghan Hayfield

EXHIBITION: Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass tackles a myriad of social issues in group show

The current exhibition at the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass seeks to confront a range of social concerns -- from racist violence to explorations of gender identity -- through the work of varied group of contemporary glass artists. Located in a small Wisconsin city and once known primarily as a showcase of historic paperweights, the Bergstrom-Mahler is an unexpected venue for such an exhibition, and perhaps the broadly disparate works don't quite fit under the vague umbrella of "diversity." But the exhibition titled “Reflecting Perspectives: Artists Confront Social Issues of Diversity and Inclusion” also provided a venue for more confrontational works that encourage viewers to question belief systems and likley challenged viewers with other ways of approaching the world than their own.

Artist Jessica Julius takes over as glass-program head at the renamed Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia.

Tuesday July 16, 2019 | by Meghan Hayfield

Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia debuts a name change and new glass-program head

On July 1, 2019, the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia debuted its newly expanded name and officially became the "Tyler School of Art and Architecture." The change is part of a reorganization of the existing programs at this art school, which is part of the larger institution Temple University. In October 2018, the Temple board of directors voted to eliminate the separate departments of Craft as well as Painting, Drawing, and Sculpture, unifying them under a single "Department of Art." Recently, there has also been a shuffle in Tyler's glass-program faculty, with assistant professor Jessica Julius, who has taught at Tyler for more than a decade, taking over as program head, while her predecessor Sharyn O’Mara will continue as a full-time professor with more time to devote to her own art practice.

Megan Stelljas, Banana Bunch, 2019. Glass. H 6 ½, W 10, D 6 ½ in. courtesy: traver gallery

Thursday July 11, 2019 | by Meghan Hayfield

OPENING: John Drury continues mapping an alternative history of glass art with show at Traver Gallery

“As in Also: An Alternative Too,” a group exhibition curated by Glass contributing editor John Drury opens this evening at the Traver Gallery in Seattle on July 11. The exhibit features work from artists that question the boundaries of glass including Scott Darlington, Jen Elek, Eli Hansen, Amy Lemaire, Robbie Miller, Morgan Peterson, Jerry Pethick, Brian Pike, George Sawchuk, Buster Simpson, Megan Stelljes, Leo Tecosky, and Simon Klenell.

Lino Tagliapietra in front of Aurora. courtesy: schantz galleries

Wednesday July 10, 2019 | by Meghan Hayfield

OPENING: Lino Tagliapietra to attend Friday's exhibition opening at Schantz Galleries in Massachusetts

Glass maestro Lino Tagliapietra will be visiting Schantz Galleries in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, on Friday, July 12, 2019, from 3 PM to 5 PM. It will be the public opening of his solo exhibition titled "Visionary," which features 40 of his latest works. The exhibition honors Tagliapietra for his unusual and intricate explorations that continue to expand the boundaries of the glass medium. The new work reveals Lino's innovative use of color and pattern. Owner Jim Schantz told the Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet that the title of the show is an acknowledgement of the ways the artist continues to experiment and explore new ways to create within the glass medium.

The Bullseye Resource Center in Los Angeles. courtesy: bullseye glass company

Sunday July 7, 2019 | by Meghan Hayfield

CALL FOR ENTRIES: Bullseye applications for Spring/Summer 2020 residencies due September 1st

Bullseye Glass Company is now accepting applications for its 2020 winter/spring artist residency program. The residencies take place in five locations: the Bullseye Studio in Portland, Oregon, and in each of the Bullseye Resource Centers, which are located in Santa Fe, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and New York. Accommodations are not provided, except at the Portland location if needed. The deadline to apply for the residencies (taking place between January and June 2020) is September 1st, 2019.

Reforestation of the Imagination is the latest project by Ginny Ruffner, now on view at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Tuesday July 2, 2019 | by Meghan Hayfield

EXHIBITION: With an augmented-reality app she developed, Ginny Ruffner empowers viewers to unleash their imaginations at the Renwick Gallery

Artist Ginny Ruffner's exhibition "Reforestation of the Imagination," which just opened at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, enlists cutting-edge technologies in the artist's ongoing quest to celebrate and explore the power of the imagination. Viewers who attend the exhibition, which is on view through January 5, 2020, are asked to download a unique augmented-reality app on their mobile devices. Ruffner developed it working with Seattle-based animator and media artist Grant Kirkpatrick. With the help of the app, the gallery's monochromatic landscape is transformed digitally, and the six glass tree stumps that stand as targets to aim mobile devices come to life with colorful organic growth. Without the use of technology, the space is desolate. With digital programming, the "trees" bloom spiraling branches and elaborate foliage referencing Ruffner's powerful reimagining of what may result in the near-future from climate change.

Stephanie Sara Lifshutz, You Heard me the First Time, 2019. Neon, mixed-media. courtesy: heller gallery

Thursday June 27, 2019 | by Meghan Hayfield

EXHIBITION: "Collaborations with Queer Voices" celebrates identity and decodes language at Heller Gallery

Artists Matthew Day Perez and Kate Hush asked 10 artists to consider language, which can be especially charged for those in the LGBTQ community. Building on the success of their provocatively named business venture, FagSigns, Perez and Hush then fabricated the artists' ideas into working neon signs, which are debuting at an exhibition that opens this evening, June 27, 2019, at Heller Gallery in New York City. The show entitled "Collaborations with Queer Voices," which is timed to Pride month and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, continues FagSign's conversation about neon's role in electrifying the voices of marginalized individuals.

While on a Fulbright in Finland, Jonathan Capps conducted a hot-shop demonstration for Kirsti Taiviola's (far right) design students at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland. Capps was assisted by Sara Hulkkonen (far left). courtesy: jonathan capps.

Tuesday June 25, 2019 | by Meghan Hayfield

In Finland on a Fulbright Scholarship, artist Jonathan Capps found eager exchange and interest in an American approach to glass

As the economics of handmade glass production are battered by globalization, the centuries-old glass-making culture in Europe is increasingly opening up (see the 2018 Glass Art Society conference in Murano, or the upcoming 2020 conference at Kosta Boda) and looking internationally for ideas of how to reinvent their businesses. One example comes in the story of Jonathan Capps, who graduated from Ohio State with an MFA in glass in 2016. Last year, Capps applied for and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to spend a year in Finland working with the Nuutajärvi Glass Village Cultural Foundation (NGVCF), which operates out of a shuttered historic glass factory and was set up to preserve and study traditions of Finnish glass art. Capps was driven by his interest in learning a Scandinavian approach to working with glass, but it quickly became clear that there was an equal interest in his uniquely American approach. The culmination of Capps’ year in Finland came with a group exhibition titled “Why Not? Finnish American Art Glass,” which is on view at the formerly thriving Nuutajärvi Glass Factory through September 1, 2019. Between his studio research and informal artist residency at Tavastia Vocational College (a local glass school) glass school, Capps soon became aware of a strong interest in his own way of doing things. Through his interactions with artists and teachers at Tavastia, and the welcoming embrace of local glass artists and designers, Capps became intimately involved with Nuutajärvi's search for a new type of glass identity.