HELP WANTED: UrbanGlass seeks applicants for full-time Deputy Director position

UrbanGlass, founded in 1977 as the first artist-access glass center in the U.S., is seeking applicants for the newly created full-time position of Deputy Director. Serving more than 15,000 professional artists, designers, and students, the Brooklyn-based nonprofit is expanding its leadership team. Reporting to the Executive Director, the Deputy Director will provide operational oversight and management of the 17,000-square foot-facility, the largest of its kind in the U.S. Responsibilities range from management of safety preparedness to overseeing the nonprofit's event-rental business.

Wednesday March 17, 2021 | by Andrew Page

"Lino Tagliapietra: The Making of a Maestro" presents this icon of glass art in his own words, and on his own terms

There's been no shortage of attempts to document on video the unique phenomenon that is Lino Tagliapietra, the supremely talented Muranese maestro who made the radical decision to leave the island and the traditional hierarchies of the centuries-old glasshouses to travel the world as a teacher and as an artist. Many filmmakers have labored to capture on camera his lifelong quest to expand on the time-honored skills he learned through apprenticeship and punishingly long hours at the factory bench, bringing to them his refined international sensibility that draws inspiration from art, architecture, and cultural explorations around the globe. What's sets Lino Tagliapietra: The Making of a Maestro (available for streaming on Amazon Prime) apart from many other notable cinematic efforts is that from conception to execution, the project is strikingly intimate and insider -- no surprise given the central role played by Jacopo Vecchiato, Lino's grandson and executive manager, a prime mover behind the project. Directed by John Forsen (of the 2015 documentary Pilchuck: Dance with Fire), and with celebrity narration by Alfred Molina, the film is replete with lush scenes from the hotshop, in which the fire, sparks, and smoke are savored in slow motion, as well as the requisite glittering panoramas of the Venetian Lagoon. But this film is also a rare opportunity for Lino to tell his own story in Italian. The maestro is very proud of his abilities to speak English and often resists presenting with an Italian translator, but in this film, Lino's interviews in Italian (with English subtitles) reveal new details of Lino's biography in his own words, and with a fuller range of expression in his native tongue.

Saturday March 6, 2021 | by Andrew Page

CONVERSATION: Alex Krueger on his search for truth in his Street Art paintings

Alex Krueger, a Chicago-based educator and mixed-media artist, is opening his first solo show at Vertical Gallery, where the exhibition entitled "Cadaver one" will remain on view through March 27, 2021. Though he uses a handle -- "AKA Crop" -- he is not a pipemaker, instead blowing and hotworking his glass sculptures at the furnace before adding to them with acrylic paints. His alias is a relatively new development that came about when Krueger submitted to a sticker competition at Vertical and wanted to remain anonymous during the judging (he got into the show and is now represented as a gallery artist). Vertical Gallery shows an international roster of Street Artists, a term that is used to try and capture various modes of expressive resistance to the prevailing culture that encompasses graffiti and mural-making among other approaches. This type of artwork has an uneasy relationship to the contemporary art gallery scene (see Banksy, Basquiat, et al), though it is a growing sub-niche of the Outsider Art field. The Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet recently caught up with Krueger to talk about his unique approach to adding paint to the glass objects he creates.

Monday March 1, 2021 | by Andrew Page

HOT OFF THE PRESSES: The Spring 2021 edition of Glass (#162)

The Spring edition of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#162) is hitting newsstands and subscriber mailboxes. On the cover is a radiant neon work by Amy Palms, one of the artists discussed in our cover article by Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez tracking how, despite decades of predicted obsolescence, neon endures, fueled by the shared interest of a diverse group of artists and archivists and their love of this unique form of glassmaking.

Thursday February 18, 2021 | by Andrew Page

Christina Bothwell, who rebuilt after fire destroyed her studio, discusses "Luminous Dreams in Cataclysmic Times"

Christina Bothwell, whose ruminations about making it through challenging times were featured in the Spring 2020 edition of Glass (#159, our special "Survival" issue), has unveiled the artworks she's been inspired to create through the Covid-19 pandemic and its attendant anxieties and uncertainty that have shaped our tumultuous political and economic times. Bothwell will discuss the new work and what it responds to in real time during a special online conversation Thursday, February 18, 2021, at 5:30 PM (Free with registration via this link). The presentation serves as an opening event for her Heller Gallery exhibition entitled "Luminous Dreams in Cataclysmic Times," which runs through April 3, 2021, and includes works in glass and ceramic, some with their textured surfaces heightened with oil paint.

Wednesday February 3, 2021 | by Andrew Page

AWARD: Amber Cowan named a 2021 USA Fellow, will receive $50,000 unrestricted award

United States Artists, a unique funding organization formed in 2006 "to illuminate the value of artists to American society and address their economic challenges," announced its list of 2021 USA Fellows today. With an unrestricted $50,000 cash award, the fellowship recognizes artists from every media for their "bold artistic vision and their contributions to the field." Artist and educator Amber Cowan is among this year's 60 fellows, and she joins an illustrious list of glass artists that have previously been recognized that includes Beth Lipman, Einar de la Torre & Jamex de la Torre, Sibylle Peretti, Judith Schaechter, Joyce J. Scott, Mary Shaffer, Therman Statom and April Surgent.

Friday January 22, 2021 | by Andrew Page

CONVERSATION: Artist, educator, and now, curator, Caitlin Vitalo discusses her museum exhibition "Glass in the Expanded Field" opening at the Hunterdon

When the exhibitions committee at the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, New Jersey, met to discuss how they might showcase new trends and developments in contemporary glass art, they turned to their very own education coordinator Caitlin Vitalo, who not only holds a BFA (2010, Alfred) and MFA (2018, Tyler) in glass, but also serves as secretary of the Glass Art Society. Vitalo brought in copies of New Glass Review, Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly, and the British Glass Biennale catalog from 2019 to back up her argument that glass is undergoing a period of transformation of everything from how it's used in art to the new communities accessing it. Not long after her presentation to the committee, Vitalo received an offer from the Hunterdon's executive director Marjorie Frankel Nathanson to curate an exhibition exploring these significant changes, and "Glass In the Expanded Field," debuting Saturday, January 23, 2021, is the result.

Thursday January 14, 2021 | by Andrew Page

CALL FOR ENTRIES: To grace its entryway, the New York Hall of Science seeks proposals for a large-scale glass sculpture with $45,000 budget

"Inspire an openness for exploration, discovery, and making." This is one of the goals officials from the New York Hall of Science and UrbanGlass are looking for from a long-term commission to be installed and exhibited in the Corona, Queens, science museum's dramatic two-story entrance rotunda. Hoping to have a visually striking piece of glass art on view prior to the New York Hall of Science's scheduled summer 2021 re-opening, there is a short deadline for proposals. Entries must be received before midnight, February 8, 2021. The successful proposal will unlock a budget of $45,000, and, to qualify, the selected artist must live in the Northeastern U.S.

Thursday January 14, 2021 | by Andrew Page

VIRTUAL: The Speed Museum, reviving its online programming, will feature Norwood Viviano discussing his curatorial project

Reviving its "Virtual After Dark" programming series, the Louisville, Kentucky-based Speed Museum will feature a discussion this Friday, January 15, of its upcoming exhibition "Collecting – A Love Story: Glass from the Adele and Leonard Leight Collection" by its co-curators. The exhibition, which opens February 5 and will run through June 20, 2021, was organized by Speed curator of decorative arts and design Scott Erbes and artist and educator Norwood Viviano, who developed the exhibition's concept and made the selection of more than 60 works from the promised art collection from the noted Louisville arts patrons.

Monday January 11, 2021 | by Andrew Page

VIRTUAL: Curator Samantha De Tillio discusses Beth Lipman's exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design via Zoom

Museum of Arts and Design curator of collections Samantha De Tillio -- who organized the mid-career retrospective exhibition of the work of Beth Lipman entitled "Collective Elegy" on view at MAD through April 4, 2021 -- will discuss the artist's inspirations and technical challenges in a Zoom lecture on the evening of Tuesday, January 12, 2021, at 6:30 PM. The event is being presented as the first of the year by the New York City-based Art Glass Forum. De Tillio (who is a contributing editor at Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly, will discuss the rich symbolism in Lipman's works that explore excess consumption, environmental overexploitation, and human mortality.

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.