HOT OFF THE PRESSES: The Fall 2023 edition of Glass (#172)

You could be forgiven if you didn't immediately think "Paul Stankard" when viewing the close-up of sinewy human bodies intertwined with flower blossoms, mossy grasses, and seed pods on the cover of the Fall 2023 edition of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly. Stankard is well-known for his lush floral arrangements encased in glass, detailed depictions that accurately capture the organic complexity of their delicate beauty.

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Wednesday August 30, 2023 | by Andrew Page

CONVERSATION: Jane Bruce on the battle to save North Lands from liquidation

Jane Bruce, who from 2002 to 2007 served as the artistic director of North Lands Creative Glass (before the word "Glass" was removed from its title) is investigating ways to save the studio, buildings, and equipment of this European center for glass along the windswept coast of Northeast Scotland. As debts mounted over the past year, the staff was let go, and recently, the facilities have been secured and a liquidator has been assigned to sell off the assets of this beloved institution that dates back to 1996. For decades, it drew artists from around the world to the Scottish coastal fishing village of Lybster in the county of Caithness. Bruce is actively looking to partner with other artists who might want to invest in saving the infrastructure from being sold off, and to restart the furnaces and kilns in a newly structured organization that may or may not become again an officially registered charity. The Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet had an opportunity to discuss the fast-moving situation with Bruce in an in-person interview in the offices of UrbanGlass, the nonprofit art center in Brooklyn, New York, that publishes Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly as well as this online publication.

Saturday July 22, 2023 | by Andrew Page

Artist and educator Alli Hoag named as Toledo Museum of Art GAPP artist for Fall

The head of the glass art program at Bowling Green Sate University, Alli Hoag, has been named the latest Guest Artist Pavilion Project artist-in-residence by the Toledo Museum of Art. From August 23 through September 1, 2023, Hoag will be on site at the museum's glass studio creating new work, and also will present to the public about her process and her ideas on August 25th at 7 PM.

Tuesday July 11, 2023 | by Andrew Page

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.

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.