Brooklyn artist Layo Bright receives the 2023 Pittsburgh Glass Center's Ron Desmett Award

Brooklyn-based artist Layo Bright has been named as the 2023 recipient of the Ron Desmett Memorial Award celebrating artists "who think outside of the box, practice curiosity, and take risks to create unique, imaginative works in glass," according to the official announcement. Named in honor of PGC's late co-founder, the award cited Bright's explorations of African design techniques and symbolism through her glass sculptures as the reason for the award.

Monochromatic Cuboid, 2023. Glass. H 8 3/4, W 8 1/4, D 8 1/4 in.

Thursday July 6, 2023 | by Andrew Page

OPENING: Jiyong Lee debuts at Traver Gallery with "Invisible Microcosm" through July 29, 2023

South Korean-born artist Jiyong Lee, who has headed the Southern Illinois University glass program since 2005, will open his first solo exhibition at Seattle's Traver Gallery tonight with an exhibition entitled "Invisible Microcosm." An opening reception this evening at Traver Gallery will offer the first look at some of Lee's new explorations of the beauty of cellular biology, a focus of the artist's exacting work for decades. Rigorous cutting, lamination, carving and surface treatments are just some of the techniques he has perfected to achieve his understated but refined aesthetic of the "Segmentation" series. Lee will be the subject of an in-depth feature article in the upcoming Fall 2023 edition of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#172) by contributing editor William Ganis.

Wednesday July 5, 2023 | by Andrew Page

CONVERSATION: Leo Tecosky on his recent $100,000 craft award, aging glass collectors, and a new era for equity in glass

Brooklyn-based artist Leo Tecosky, who was featured in the Spring 2022 edition of Glass (#166) after the unveiling of his Rakow Commission work, was recently named as one of five recipients of the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation 2023 Awards in Craft, which is an unrestricted $100,000 award and one of the largest awards for craftspeople and artists in the country. Tecosky was recognized for his mixed-media works that explore the hip-hop canon through blown, cut, enameled, and painted glass forms. Administered by United States Artists, the Maxwell/Hanrahan Awards in Craft seek to support craftspeople’s work in ways that recognize the importance of their varied, hands-on explorations of cultural heritage, emerging technologies, materials and trades, with a special focus on the intersections between them. The 2023 Awardees also include multimedia artist Adebunmi Gbadebo; furniture maker, artist and educator Aspen Golann; multidisciplinary artist Shane R. Hendren; and timber framer Blain Snipstal.

Tuesday June 27, 2023 | by Andrew Page

HELP WANTED: UrbanGlass has two opportunities at the director level

UrbanGlass, the Brooklyn, New York, nonprofit art center founded in 1977, is seeking a creative and collaborative Education Director to champion its educational initiatives and community-outreach programs. In addition, this innovative cultural organization at the forefront of artistic expression with glass is also seeking an experienced professional to assume the integral position of Director of Development. (Disclosure: UrbanGlass is the publisher of the Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet.)

Thursday June 1, 2023 | by Andrew Page

HOT OFF THE PRESSES: The Summer 2023 edition of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#171)

The Summer 2023 edition of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#171) is arriving in subscriber mailboxes and on newsstands. On the cover is a striking image of a kente cloth travel bag, which upon closer inspection is discovered to be made of digitally printed fused glass, crafted to look convincingly like fabric. As Glass contributing editor Emma Park discovered, many Ghanaians who had migrated to Nigeria for work were forced to leave after an economic downturn in the 1980s, and many of the deported workers left with their belongings in kente cloth bags, which became known as “Ghana Must Go Bags.” For the artist Anthony Amoaka-Attah, the object remains a potent symbol of dislocation and cultural history. Park discusses Amoako-Attah’s journey and the things he brings with him from the past as he embraces the future in the form of new technologies and opportunities.

Saturday April 22, 2023 | by Andrew Page

CONVERSATION: Matt Szösz on blowing up and scaling up

Having won both the Jutta-Cuny Franz Prize (2009) and a Tiffany Foundation Grant (2011), Matthew Szösz has been widely recognized in the U.S. and Europe for his innovative approach to glass sculpture in the years since he graduated with an MFA from RISD in 2007. So it is surprising it is only in 2023 that he is having his first solo exhibition at Heller Gallery in New York, a show currently on view and entitled "Air Craft". The work in the exhibition is from Szösz's long-running "Inflatables" series in which he pushes the limits of glassblowing by using extreme heat and compressed air to turn found industrial float glass into vessels of singular sculptural forms. The work in this debut exhibition spans the pandemic years and those just prior, with a few works dated 2023. In their range and variety, embodying a tension between buoyant and leaden, between durable and delicate, the "Inflatables" stand as testament to the fervent curiosity that fuels Szösz's career filled with inquiries as to what is possible and ways around seemingly intractable limitations. The Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet recently caught up with Szösz to discuss the work on view and the artist's next steps.

A 2012 collaborative work entitled Deerman of the Cahokia by Marcus Amerman and Preston Singletary greets visitors to the Seattle Traver exhibition.

Friday April 14, 2023 | by Andrew Page

CONVERSATION: Exhibition curator explains how a chance meeting at Pilchuck became the catalyst for a wide embrace of glass by Indigenous artists

Through the end of April, Seattle's Traver Gallery is hosting "Native Influence: Tony Jojola’s Life of Impact" a group exhibition of work in glass by Indigenous artists Larry Ahvakana, Marcus Amerman, Ryan! (sic) Feddersen, Dan Friday, Raya Friday, Tony Jojola, Ramson Lomatewama, Ira Lujan, Robert “Spooner” Marcus, and Raven Skyriver. The Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet spoke with guest curator John Drury (who is also a contributing editor to Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly) about how he identified a 1984 chance encounter at the Pilchuck Glass School between Ahvakana, Singletary, and the late Tony Jojola (1958 - 2022) as a seminal event that would "usher in new creative possibilities to Indigenous artists" and exponentially expand the voices speaking through the material of glass.

Wednesday April 5, 2023 | by Andrew Page

Michael Endo will be Pilchuck's next artistic director

The Pilchuck Glass School has announced its next artistic director will be Portland, Oregon, native Michael Endo, a long-time curator for Bullseye Projects. In 1999, Endo co-founded the High Desert Observatory arts nonprofit in Yucca Valley, California, where he has been director while also running a fabrication business and continuing as a curatorial consultant to Bullseye. Endo will bring a wealth of international connections he helped develop while at Bullseye, as well as in his own artistic practice.

Thursday March 23, 2023 | by Andrew Page

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: VCU fellowship aimed at recent graduates of MFA programs is a 9-month paid opportunity to teach and work

If you've graduated from an MFA program and are looking for an opportunity to advance your career and get teaching experience along the way, you might be interested in The VCUarts Emerging Artist Fellowship in Craft/Material Studies, but the deadline is fast approaching. This 9-month residency begins Aug 16, 2023 and continues through May 15, 2024, and offers not only access to studio facilities at the VCU Craft and Materials Study program, but a teaching stipend, research grant, and housing. In exchange, Fellows will teach two courses each semester, present a lecture, and serve as a special guest critic and/or speaker.

Monday March 6, 2023 | by Andrew Page

CONVERSATION: Catching up with artist and former Pilchuck artistic director Ben Wright

The Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet recently checked in with artist Benjamin Wright, who served as the Pilchuck Glass School's artistic director from 2019 through 2022, to check in about his tenure at the Northwest Coast outpost of glass art, and to find out about his future plans. Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet: It sounds like the Covid-19 pandemic, which hit before the Summer 2020 Pilchuck sessions began, really defined your tenure at Pilchuck in some ways, would you agree? Ben Wright: Well, yes, but not entirely. I came on in the Spring of 2019, arriving right before the Summer program, which was entirely designed and organized by my predecessor as artistic director, Tina Aufiero. In addition to helping to run that session, I was working to put together the program for Summer 2020, which unfortunately ended up pretty much getting canceled entirely due to the lockdowns. At first it looked feasible that there would be a full summer program in 2021, but in the end, we had to pivot to an intensive residency program for that summer. I am very proud of the programs we put together for 2022, which we ran during the summer of the various Omicron variants rising and falling. It was an intense experience in terms of our staff and students all dealing with people in isolation. It was challenging but also hugely rewarding, having worked on three different programs over three years, and finally getting to see all the magic happen for everybody who works there. Having that put off year after year and finally seeing it run, it was phenomenal to see it actually happening at last in the Summer of 2022 and I can’t wait to see my last season of programs unfold this coming summer.