Dale Chihuly and Leslie Jackson Chihuly pledge $2 million to Pilchuck, which the artist co-founded in 1971

In 1971, Dale Chihuly, two teachers, and 16 students traveled to Pilchuck Tree Farm, a 54-acre parcel of forested land in Washington State, where they held an experimental summer workshop in glass funded by a $2,000 grant. Sixteen days in, the team had set up a crude but functional hot glass furnace and a glory hole, and cobbled together primitive housing. The event would not only lay the foundation of the Pilchuck Glass School's first half-century, it was also the site of an important early artistic exploration of glass installation in a natural setting in the form of Chihuly's Pilchuck Pond Installation, in which he floated clear blown glass forms in a pond like oversized organic bubbles, among the first of his career of interventions in botanical settings. It was a fitting, if surprisingly generous gesture, when on May 15th, 2022, Dale and Dale and Leslie Jackson Chihuly announced a $2 million gift to Pilchuck to support the continued role of Pilchuck as a place of experimentation and discovery in the material of glass.

Monday May 30, 2022 | by Andrew Page

HOT OFF THE PRESSES: The Summer 2022 edition of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#167)

The Summer 2022 edition of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#167) is arriving in subscriber mailboxes and on newsstands. On the cover is a majestic white Raven by Preston Singletary, whose work is currently featured in a multimedia exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Based on extensive research Singletary did into his native culture, and specifically Tlingit creation myths, the artist sought to advance the legends of his Native American forebears by depicting them in contemporary materials. The resulting high-profile exhibition "Raven and the Box of Daylight" stands as one of the successful artist's most widely viewed exhibitions and advances his stature as a Tlingit representative to the wider world.

Sunday May 22, 2022 | by Andrew Page

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Toyama Institute of Glass Art 2022 Artist Residency

The Toyama Institute of Glass Art (TIGA) has opened up applications for its “Artist in Residence” program for 2022, open this year only to artists who already live in Japan due to the country's strict COVID-19 restrictions. The TIGA artist residency has been on the forefront of glass art and cultural development since it launched in 2010. Founded with the mission of enriching the city’s cultural scene, the selected artist will have the opportunity to learn from and interact with Toyama’s community and education resources alongside producing their own original work. If chosen, the artist will be invited to stay at the Toyama Studio guesthouse for the duration of the residency and be given access to the Toyama Glass Studio facilities, including the hot shop, kiln shop, and cold shop as well as studio assistants upon request.

Thursday March 31, 2022 | by Andrew Page

CONVERSATION: Jason Chakravarty and Jennifer Caldwell's exhibition at the Mesa Contemporary Art Center in Arizona makes personal observation public

Titled "Head in the Clouds," Jennifer Caldwell and Jason Chakravarty's museum exhibition at the Mesa Contemporary Arts Center offers a range of narrative glass collaborations, including many that mix neon with cast, sculpted, and blown-glass to explore personal observations including ruminations on pandemic life. Their signature porthole forms are there, as are 1,000 cast-glass cranes, which reference a story the artists recall from their childhood of the Japanese idea that folding 1,000 origami cranes would bring good luck. Another work presents neon rain clouds with cast-glass raindrops, each featuring a diver's image inside. There's a gumball machine, and even a beekeeper with built-in wifi. The Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet caught up with Caldwell and Chakravarty to ask them about new directions and how their collaboration has been evolving.

Monday March 14, 2022 | by Andrew Page

An archival exhibition of work by William Morris, on view at Hawk Galleries in Columbus, Ohio, unearths new insights

In some ways, we were all buried by the pandemic -- cloistered away in our homes facing an uncertain but deadly virus, laying low. There was a shift inward, one that allowed introspection but also digging in to the essentials of identity, mortality, our place in the world. Now, as the pandemic recedes, as vaccines and new treatments take away its lethality, we are emerging into a new world, and one facing new uncertainties and brutalities in the East with the harrowing weeks-old Russian invasion of Ukraine. In times like these, one seeks the universal as both a higher truth and proof that we can endure as a species. These are some of the reasons why the William Morris retrospective exhibition on view atHawk Galleries in Columbus, Ohio, is so timely. The Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet had an opportunity to learn more about the exhibition of an artist who retired from making new work in 2007, about how the exhibition came to be and why it is important now, through an exchange with Tom Hawk.

Monday February 28, 2022 | by Andrew Page

HOT OFF THE PRESSES: The Spring 2022 edition of Glass (#166)

The Spring 2022 edition of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#166) is hitting newsstands and subscriber mailboxes. On the cover is a work by Ché Rhodes, artist and head of the glass program at the University of Louisville, who was instrumental in the exhibition "Crafting the Vernacular" now on view at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft. Rhodes had been discussing a solo exhibition with KMAC curator Joey Yates, and he was inspired to propose expanding it into a group show featuring work by artists of color working with glass. Yates agreed, and the result is among the first museum exhibitions focusing exclusively on Black glass artists. The cover article's author, director emeritus of the Speed Art Museum Peter Morris, states that with this exhibition, we "are witnessing a new moment in contemporary glass."

Saturday January 29, 2022 | by Andrew Page

The second "Better Together" gathering showcases the BIPOC glass community at YAYA in New Orleans

Through internships and partnerships with educational institutions,Crafting the Future has been working since 2019 to advance equity and opportunity in the arts by facilitating scholarships to craft schools and pre-college art programs, compiling directories of job opportunities and residencies, and offering an online shopping directory of "black and brown makers." Crafting the Future's website also features a link to its "Better Together" events, gatherings to celebrate and showcase the growing community of glass artists of color, the latest of which took place on January 15, 2022, at YAYA, a New Orleans educational facility whose name stands for Young Aspirations, Young Artists. Seven black glassblowers from around the U.S. traveled to YAYA, where a pop-up market for local makers had been set up, and where a week of youth programming followed the public event. Visiting artists included Jason McDonald, Tijahnni Newton, SaraBeth Post, Cedric Mitchell, Ché Rhodes, Corey Pemberton, and Nate Watson.

Monday January 3, 2022 | by Andrew Page

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.)