Citing continuing uncertainty around the pandemic, the Glass Art Society postpones 2021 conference, will offer expanded virtual programming

The Glass Art Society has announced it will push its next in-person annual conference from 2021 to 2022, citing the ongoing uncertainty and health risks of Covid-19. After the planned 2020 conference in Småland, Sweden, was recast as a virtual event, attention shifted to the May 2021 conference, which was to mark the 50th anniversary of the artist organization, and had been planned to take place in Tacoma, Washington. Today it was announced that the celebration and the venue will remain the same, but take place on new dates -- May 18 through 21st, 2022 -- pushing the event a year ahead.

Tuesday September 1, 2020 | by Andrew Page

HOT OFF THE PRESSES: The Fall 2020 edition of Glass (#160)

The Fall 2020 edition of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#160) is hitting newsstands and subscriber mailboxes. On the cover is a self-portrait of Corey Pemberton, the cofounder of Crafting the Future, a nonprofit with a mission to expand the pool of artists who work with art from craft media, including glass, so that the field might become more diverse. Since the summer’s protests of police killings sparked a national dialogue about race that has reverberated across society, the art world has been challenged to reflect on how inclusive it has been. In the glass art field, where representation of people of color remains limited at best, it has sparked a necessary and overdue conversation about why racial disparity has persisted in this medium for expression, and what actions can be taken to change that. One focus of this issue of Glass is to illustrate the extent of the problem and to highlight potential paths toward progress, including the notable efforts of Pemberton and Crafting the Future cofounder Annie Evelyn.

Nate Watson is the executive director of Public Glass in San Francisco, as well as an artist, educator, and activist.

Sunday June 28, 2020 | by Andrew Page

INTERVIEW: Nate Watson expands on his public statement on the glass-art field's lack of representation

UPDATED 6/28/20 7 PM In the first weeks of June, as Black Lives Matter protests swept the U.S. and the world, the Glass Art Society received a letter from artist, executive director, and educator Nate Watson, who provided a sharp critique of the glass-art community as a place with a lot of work to do to diversify. The letter was deemed so urgent, GAS published it online in advance of the release of its regularly scheduled newsletter.

Saturday June 13, 2020 | by Andrew Page

HOT OFF THE PRESSES: Special Survival Story Issue: Summer 2020 edition of Glass (#159)

The Summer 2020 edition of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#159) is on newsstands and has arrived in subscriber mailboxes. In recognition of economic challenges facing artists at this moment, UrbanGlass is making it available at a Pay What You Can rate. The typographic cover design consists of a jumble of weather-beaten red letters spelling out "survival" with the rips repaired with clear tape. It's an issue about rebuilding after adversity, and it's told through the words of glass artists.

Tuesday May 19, 2020 | by Andrew Page

PREVIEW: The Summer 2020 edition of Glass Quarterly will be devoted to stories of survival

As stay-at-home orders were issued across the U.S. in mid-March, we at Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly made the decision to scrap our plans for the next issue. It wasn't that the artists we'd been planning to feature had become any less important, but the overpowering sense we would be entering a new era facing down a serious threat not only to our health but our livelihoods. The moment demanded something different, and so we decided to produce a special issue.

Schaechter's monumental stained-glass window The Battle of Carnival and Lent (2010) was acquired by the Rochester Memorial Art Gallery.

Wednesday May 6, 2020 | by Andrew Page

EVENT: Judith Schaechter will speak with the curator of her major museum exhibition live on Facebook Thursday

Judith Schaechter's major career retrospective at the Rochester Memorial Art Gallery may have been forced to "go virtual" a month after its February 2020 opening because of statewide stay-at-home orders due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but the Philadelphia-based artist will engage in a public conversation with the exhibition's curator, Jessica Marten, the museum's curator in charge and curator of American art. The live event, scheduled to take place from 6 PM to 7 PM on Thursday, May 7, will be available for free via Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/events/1081907148844560/), where you can not only listen in on a discussion of the career and artwork of an artist singularly responsible for expanding the realm of expressive possibility in the medium of stained glass, but also submit your questions.

Wednesday April 22, 2020 | by Andrew Page

The Glass Art Society rolls out regional relief grants, plans virtual conference in place of cancelled 2020 May event

The Glass Art Society is set to announce three new regionally-focused emergency relief funds for glass artists in New York State, the Northwest, and the Washington, D.C. areas respectively. They are targeted to artists in specific geographic areas, a contrast to its worldwide emergency grant relief fund that rapidly disbursed $10,000 in grants of $250 each to the first 40 qualified applicants from around the world. While the artist organization is looking to replenish its international grant program's funding, these new regional relief funds are looking to disburse $10,000 (NY), $5,000 (NW), and $2,000 (D.C./Virginia/Maryland) to a narrower pool of artists. To apply, you must be a current member of GAS and have your primary residential or business address in one of the three areas. Funded by The Corning Foundation, Chihuly Gardens and Glass, and the Kendeda Fund, the initiative is part of an outreach effort GAS is making to help institutions get funding to individual artists efficiently. It is not available to students or nonprofit organizations, but only to individual artists. Executive director Brandi Clark says that she hopes that GAS can offer grant programs in other geographic areas internationally, and will do so if they can negotiate funding.

A still from a news report from Atlanta about local glassblower Carson Pennella work to make a glass T-splitter.

Thursday March 26, 2020 | by Andrew Page

Scientific glassblowers ready to coordinate rapid manufacture of borosilicate ventilator splitter to address hospital equipment shortages due to coronavirus pandemic

Flameworkers from around the U.S. and the world have coalesced through a Facebook group to discuss a collaborative initiative to hand-make borosilicate splitters that would, in theory, allow multiple Covid-19 patients to share a single ventilator to address the potentially catastrophic shortage of such medical equipment as the pandemic overwhelms hospitals around the world. The idea was the brainchild of Joshua McMenamin, a Boulder, Colorado, flameworker, who came across a 2006 article in the Academic Emergency Medicine journal about the possibility of sharing a single ventilator with up to four patients in a dire emergency. The technique was used successfully during the Las Vegas mass shootings when one hospital was overwhelmed with patients. McMenamin, who the Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet was unable to reach for comment, was featured in a local television news program, and quickly gained support of the community of glassblowers through Facebook. On the COVMD Glass Medical Devices Facebook group, flameworkers from around the globe have been crowdsourcing diagrams and schematics, as well as sharing the results of their outreach to hospitals. The effort has been fueled by the enthusiasm of volunteers to turn their home studios into emergency manufacturing sites.

Sunday March 22, 2020 | by Andrew Page

RESOURCES: Glass Art Society launches artist relief fund for membership, starting with $10,000 in funding but accepting donations

The Glass Art Society, which has already been helping the glass community to locate emergency relief resources through its website, has launched a targeted fund to help members of this international artist organization to weather the economic challenges of the COVID-19 crisis. GAS executive director Brandi Clark told the Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet that the fund is not actually brand-new, but the organization is repurposing an existing fund to respond to the needs of its membership. "The original fund was created several years ago as a way to help those in our glass community that have an experience -- whether medical, accidental, or natural disaster -- that impacts their ability to make a living and continue their practice," explained Clark in an email exchange. "The distribution of the funds had never been fully fleshed out, but the COVID-19 pandemic and its reach motivated us to quickly put together a way of getting those funds to those that are feeling its impact the most."

CERF+ is conducting an anonymous survey of studio artists experiencing the effects of COVID-19 to help in their advocacy work on a federal level.

Sunday March 22, 2020 | by Andrew Page

RESOURCES: CERF+, collecting for new emergency relief fund, is also surveying artists for advocacy to federal relief agencies

In 1985, glassblower Josh Simpson began collecting money during craft shows, together with Carol Sedestrom Ross (president of a craft fair), in an effort to support fellow artists who found themselves in desperate financial circumstances because of an emergency. This early informal effort grew into the nonprofit organization known as CERF+, which now has a full-time staff based in Montpelier, Vermont, and distributes grants and loans to artists, produces informative brochures about planning for disasters, and also advocates for the craft field in Washington, D.C. The COVID-19 pandemic, which is rapidly shaping up as a global health and economic emergency, is likely to impact artists and arts nonprofits around the world. CERF+ has quickly set up the "CERF+ COVID-19 Response Fund," a grant program for which they are collecting donations.

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.