The Barry Art Museum promotes Charlotte Potter Kasic from "interim" to full executive director

After 14 months as interim director of the Barry Art Museum in Norfolk, Virginia, Charlotte Potter Kasic has shed the "interim" from her official title, and has been named as the three-year-old museum's full executive director. Previously the founding program director of the glass studio at the Chrysler Museum of Art, Potter Kasic helped to put this coastal Virginia city on the glass art map, also working to create an arts district there and co-chairing the 2017 Glass Art Society Conference.

Friday December 31, 2021 | by Andrew Page

As 2021 comes to a close, a look back at a year's worth of feature articles in Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly

From Lino Tagliapietra's retirement to Fred Tschida's epic European exhibition; from Carmen Lozar's flameworked figuration to Rui Sasaki's ethereal environments, Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly covered the world in 2021. As a new year approaches, we wanted to take a moment to look back at where we've been. All our best wishes to the wonderful and resilient glass community as we look ahead to a new year of hope and new possibilities. We invite you to join us for another year of in-depth features, reviews, essays and news. Subscribe and don't miss a single issue.

Tuesday December 21, 2021 | by Andrew Page

CONVERSATION: Jasmine Anokye on #BlackGirlMagic, bridging cultures, and challenging stereotypes through multimedia glass artwork

Jasmine Anokye, a Ghanaian-American artist, celebrates the resilience and triumph of Black women through her multimedia glassworks. A sculptor, painter, and glass artist, Anokye combines her range of skills to create pieces that encourage reflection and introspection on the black female experience. With her childhood spent between Ghana and America, she brings together ethnic and street cultures in an aggressive harmony that explores the diversity of femininity and pushes back against stereotypes that limit black women. Earlier this year, Anokye's day/dreams exhibition graced the Agnes Varis Art Gallery's window gallery with wall-to-wall beaded curtains and mixed media art focused on African proverbs that allowed the viewer to truly dream as they passed by. (Disclosure: UrbanGlass is also the publisher of the Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet.)

Tuesday December 7, 2021 | by Andrew Page

The annual Rakow Commission returns with a large-scale assemblage by New York City's Leo Tecosky

After a hiatus during the pandemic in 2020, The Corning Museum of Glass has resumed its annual Rakow Commission, in which an artist is granted $25,000 to fund explorations into glass that would not have been possible due to financial limitations. For 2021, the resumed Rakow Commission has been awarded to multimedia artist, Leo Tecosky, who recently installed his work, The 36th Chamber, in the museum's Contemporary Art and Design Wing.

Saturday November 27, 2021 | by Andrew Page

HOLIDAY SPECIAL: Give A Year's Worth of Glass, and Get a Gift-Wrapped Bonus of an Additional Year

SPECIAL LIMITED-TIME HOLIDAY OFFER: When you give the gift of a year's subscription to Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly, there's no waiting for the first issue to arrive in the mailbox. A gift-wrapped set of the full year's worth of issues from 2021 (including our two blockbuster articles on Lino's retirement and legacy), will be rushed to your gift-recipient's mailbox with a hand-written holiday card featuring your name as the source of this bountiful package.

Monday September 6, 2021 | by Andrew Page

HELP WANTED: UrbanGlass seeks a Development Director

Do you have five or more years leading the fundraising for a non-profit organization? Familiar with a wide range of funding sources, including corporate partnerships and special events? Are you a fantastic communicator? Do you look for the big picture and approach your projects from a strategic perspective? Are you a Google suite expert who has also tamed the wild world of Salesforce or other CRM?

Monday August 30, 2021 | by Andrew Page

Hot Off the Presses: The Fall 2021 edition of Glass (#164)

The Fall 2021 edition of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#164) is hitting newsstands and subscriber mailboxes. On the cover is a time-based work by David Schnuckel, an epic story told in 16 panels. Like a graphic novel, it records a decay sequence as an expertly created wineglass made by the artist is subjected to the intense heat of the kiln, which causes it to deform, collapse, and end as a shriveled silica mass. Rich with metaphor for the lifecycle, it was chosen as fitting for the season of harvest, and for its challenge to the tendency to fetishize technique in glassmaking. Schuckel's work is highly original, takes advantage of new technical opportunities thanks to a high-temperature camera setup at Corning, and revels in the artist's interest in provocation and deconstruction.

Tuesday July 27, 2021 | by Andrew Page

EXCLUSIVE: About to turn 87, Lino Tagliapietra announces his retirement from glassblowing, though not from teaching

Taking what he considers "the hardest and most important decision" of his life, glass maestro Lino Tagliapietra has announced his official retirement from glassblowing today. Citing the challenges of manual work at the furnace as he approaches his 87th birthday on August 10, the man widely acknowledged as the greatest glassblower in the world will put away his tools for the last time.

Saturday July 10, 2021 | by Andrew Page

THE GLASS QUARTERLY CONVERSATION #3: Alex Bernstein on the accidental discovery that changed his career

For our third installment of "The Glass Quarterly Conversation," we present Alex Gabriel Bernstein, who is the subject of an in-depth feature by regular magazine contributor Alexander Castro in the current edition of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (Summer 2021, Glass 163). In conversation with Glass editor Andrew Page, Bernstein shared the story behind his accidental discovery working in his father's studio while home for Christmas from grad school, when showers of steel sparks embedded themselves into a glass surface. Thus was born a technique that would come to be known as "Bernsteining," though its inventor shares all he knows about his technique openly in classes and demos, encouraging others to explore this fusion of glass and steel.

Thursday July 8, 2021 | by Andrew Page

CONVERSATION: Alison Kinnaird on the expansive possibilities of the ancient art of glass engraving

Copper-wheel glass engraving, an ancient technique that has defied forecasts of its imminent obsolescence, is a highly-expressive type of shallow rendering in glass that dates back to Roman times. The technique reached its peak of popularity in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, after which it was eclipsed by less labor-intensive processes such as cutting or etching glass. Though not as widely practiced as it used to be, the contemporary art of glass engraving is not only proving to be continually relevant, its artistic potential continues to be expanded by artists such as Alison Kinnaird. Aspects of the copper-wheel technique, such as its limits in scale as the glass must be small enough to handle precisely under the engraving wheel, have continued to push Kinnaird to find innovative solutions to challenges she regularly encounters, even after her own 50 years of experience in the process.