The upcoming 2025 UrbanGlass Academic Symposium (Nov 6–8) will offer high-level presentations and discussions on the theme of "Crafting Mastery"

Founded in 2013 as the Robert M. Minkoff Foundation Academic Symposium at UrbanGlass, the 2025 UrbanGlass Academic Symposium is readying for its latest iteration, which is coming up from November 6–8, 2025, in the world art capital of New York City. The event which draws educators and students in glass from around the world for lectures and workshops discussing this year's theme of "Crafting Mastery", will kick off with a Thursday night gallery tour to visit contemporary art galleries showing work in glass. The four-gallery tour will culminate in a reception in the Manhattan neighborhood of Tribeca at Cristin Tierney Gallery, which is exhibiting mixed-media work by Judy Pfaff, much of it featuring neon.

Thursday October 16, 2025 | by Andrew Page

Corning Museum of Glass taps Cornell University art museum director to become its next executive director and president

Jessica Levin Martinez, currently serving as the director of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, has been officially announced as the next president and executive director of the Corning Museum of Glass. Martinez will take over from Corning's Karol Wight, who announced her retirement in April 2025. Martinez's start date at Corning, February 2, 2026, gives her several weeks of overlap with Wight to help her get up to speed.

Tuesday October 7, 2025 | by Andrew Page

CONVERSATION: Alexander Rosenberg on his move from WheatonArts to the newly-built Glass Center at the University of California San Diego

In 2022, when Alexander Rosenberg was named as the new director of the WheatonArts Glass Studio, he came on just as the Millville, New Jersey, art center was reopening after COVID-19, and he helped lead a reset for this important outpost for creative glass within a couple hours drive from New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. This past Saturday, October 4, Rosenberg ended his New Jersey chapter as he bid adieu to WheatonArts, heading west to the newly built Glass Center at the University of California, San Diego, where again he will be tasked with leading a glass program as it ramps up. WheatonArts executive director Susan Gogan told the Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet the organization "has been extremely fortunate to have worked with Alex over the past four years," and credits his "tremendous spirit of collaboration and positive leadership" as keys to his effectiveness. Glass also reached out to Alex, himself, for more details about both his previous and upcoming positions.

Jessica Jane Julius (far left) and Erica Rosenfeld (far right) with their "Cocktail Table" installation at an early Burnt Asphalt performance.

Tuesday September 23, 2025 | by Andrew Page

CONVERSATION: Erica Rosenfeld and Jessica Jane Julius discuss how their sold-out "madeline moment" takes the Burnt Asphalt Family into new terrain

Is it a dinner party, performance art event, or interactive art exhibition? The 5-course food event titled A Madeleine Moment is all of the above. Referencing the way a culinary experience can trigger vivid childhood memories, as Marcel Proust described in the novel Remembrance of Things Past, the event is just the latest in a long line of Burnt Asphalt Family performance-art happenings. It blurs the lines between performer and audience, art and food, and ultimately seeks to erase the boundary between art and life, itself. Among the few things one can say for sure about the proceedings set to take place at the Agnes Varis Art Center this coming Saturday, September 27, is that it is curated by longtime collaborators Erica Rosenfeld and Jessica Jane Julius, supports the Brooklyn arts non-profit UrbanGlass, and will involve a large community of creative friends. It will also exhibit artwork by artists such as Jen Monroe aka Bad Taste, Deborah Czeresko, Einar and Jamex De la Torre, Andrea Dezsö, Cedric Mitchell, Leo Tecosky, Jessica Tsai, among many others. After the opening, the exhibition will remain on view through November 8, 2025. (One more detail: tickets are completely sold out though Rosenfeld and Julius will return at the end of the exhibition in early November for a closing event that will be part of the UrbanGlass Academic Symposium, and open to all attendees of that three-day event.)

Thursday September 18, 2025 | by Andrew Page

In a down market for art, Rago readies for "world-class offering" in auction that brings together three notable private collections

While its main activities take place at its headquarters in Lambertville, New Jersey, Rago Auctions also maintains a showroom in Chelsea, one of Manhattan's most important art gallery neighborhoods. Considering its prime location, the first-floor gallery at 501 W 20th Street is usually dedicated to high-profile paintings or contemporary photography, but recently it has also been showcasing its Contemporary Glass Sale coming up on September 19th, which partner Suzanne Perrault says is an indication of the work's importance.

Friday August 29, 2025 | by Andrew Page

Glass Quarterly LIVE (September 5, 2 PM EST) will take a deep dive into the just-released Fall 2025 (#180) edition

Join the Fall 2025 edition of Glass Quarterly LIVE (via Zoom on September 5th, at 2 pm EST) where we will take a deep dive into the chalk drawings of Walter Lieberman. These colorful artworks do more than diagram the complex techniques being used in the Museum of Glass Hot Shop, where he is a beloved emcee.

Walter Lieberman Russell Johnson Martin Janecky

Walter Lieberman draws an elaborate chalk image on the floor of the Museum of Glass hotshop during a Martin Janecky residency making work inspired by the Day of the Dead. photo: russell johnson

Wednesday August 27, 2025 | by Andrew Page

CONVERSATION: Walter Lieberman on his Museum of Glass chalk drawings featured in the Fall edition of Glass (#180)

Walter Lieberman has always loved to draw. Though he initially decided to study tech at university, art would prove to be his calling. After a friend showed him the glassblowing process, Walter left Carnegie Mellon and his plans for a computer-studies degree to study under Dan Dailey at Mass Art. His mother's graduation gift of a Pilchuck summer course in 1978 sparked a connection to the glass school and the dynamic community of the Pacific Northwest. Though he grew up in New York City, Walter settled in Seattle, where he became a fixture in the glass scene, supporting himself by selling his artwork, and enjoying regular exhibitions at Traver and other galleries for his own work and his frequent collaborations with Dick Weiss.

Tuesday June 10, 2025 | by Andrew Page

UrbanGlass welcomes new director of development Haley Andres

UrbanGlass has announced that Haley Andres (she/her/hers) has rejoined the organization as director of development (she previously had been on staff from 2017–18). Among her goals will be deepening the arts nonprofit's relationships with donors while also pursuing new funding opportunities through foundations as well as corporate and local/state government partnerships. Andres told the Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet she plans to focus on diversifying and growing UrbanGlass's contributed revenue streams to support the Brooklyn non-profit's various programs, which include publishing, small business development, science and technology, youth education, women's economic empowerment, material studies, and other activities at the intersection of art, design, and craft. (UrbanGlass publishes Glass Quarterly magazine and the Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet).

Sunday June 8, 2025 | by Andrew Page

Recording of the Summer 2025 edition of "Glass Quarterly LIVE" now available for streaming

Thursday June 5, 2025 | by Andrew Page

Glass Quarterly LIVE debuts June 6th with an in-depth Zoom interview with Bri Chesler, whose work is on the cover of the Summer issue

Glass Quarterly LIVE is a new way to experience the in-depth feature articles, incisive reviews, and back-page essays only available to subscribers to Glass Quarterly. Join editor Andrew Page and Glass contributor Ellye Sevier for a video podcast about the just-published Summer 2025 issue of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#179). The first edition of our new video podcast will feature a live discussion with this issue's featured artist, Bri Chesler, whose mixed-media installations have transfixed the Seattle glass community with works that celebrate sensuality and the body, while never losing sight of the complexities that accompany intimate relationships.

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.