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Thursday April 27, 2017 | by Awura Barnie-Duah

HELP WANTED: The expanding Pittsburgh Glass Center seeks a full-time development manager

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Help Wanted

The Pittsburgh Glass Center is accepting applications for the full-time position of Development Manager. The nonprofit art center includes a public-access glass studio, visiting artist residencies, an education program, and ambitious exhibitions. This brand new position has been created to support the glass center's expansion. The center has come to grow and develop its individual giving, corporate sponsorship, and new foundation support. As part of the job, the development manager will be responsible for a number of tasks that uphold fundraising. These tasks include, "researching new foundation prospects, grant writing, funder reports, individual donor research, cultivation, and tracking, corporate sponsorship and other administrative duties".

Bandahu Dunham, A Spot of Tea. Flame worked glass. H 12, W 10, D 9 in. courtesy: morgan contemporary

Wednesday April 19, 2017 | by Awura Barnie-Duah

EXHIBITION: Annual “teapots!” exhibition continues Pittsburgh gallery’s celebration of the form

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, New Work, News

Tea and the ceremonies it inspires have brought people people together across centuries and across continents. People have gathered, celebrated, and connected as they share the product of hot water and tea leaves that is steeped in teapots, a simple device that has brought people together and inspired complex traditions. For over a decade, Morgan Contemporary Glass Gallery, has organized their annual teapot invitational, which is a multi-media celebration of the time-honored vessel, as well as an opportunity to showcase the creativity of artists working in glass and other materials. The gallery, which was Pittsburgh's first art gallery devoted to contemporary glass, is currently exhibiting its 11th annual teapot exhibition, and features striking new ways of thinking about this vessel that can be traced back to 13th-century China.

Bob Snodgrass, Skull Pipe, 2016. 6 in. courtesy: apexart.

Tuesday April 4, 2017 | by Awura Barnie-Duah

OPENING: Gaining acceptance, glass pipes being shown at larger art venues

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, Museums, Opening

Apexart, a downtown Manhattan non-profit arts venue for independent curators and emerging and established artists, is currently showing an exhibition of glass pipes unabashedly celebrated by the show's organizer David Bienenstock, who is the former head of content at High Times magazine and a self-described "cannabis consultant." Despite the growing support for the decriminalization of marijuana (the most recent Gallup poll on the subject found 60-percent of Americans support legalization), Bienenstock has titled the exhibition "Outlaw Glass," and it gathers a wide range of work by a new generation of artists following in the footsteps of pioneering flameworker Bob Snodgrass, whose legacy the exhibition is designed to honor. Not just a showcase of the best work by contemporary glass, the exhibition also delves into the "authentic underground cannabis culture," examining the sometimes shadowy aspects of pipemaking, which has endured targeted law enforcement crackdowns as recently as in 2003's Operation Pipedreams. Bienenstock notes that the fine art world's embrace of pipemaking may be "following the trajectory of graffiti culture, which started literally in the streets amid serious and sustained official repression, only to break through into galleries and then put its stamp on both high art and popular culture."

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Artists from the 2016 Residency at Salem State. courtesy: The Glassworks Studio at Salem State University Facebook page.

Wednesday March 29, 2017 | by Awura Barnie-Duah

CALL FOR ENTRIES: Salem State University seeks artists for its Rosenberg Residency

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Call for Submissions, Education

In June 2017, The Rosenberg Residency at Salem State University, now in its fifth year, will offer month-long access to its glassblowing facilities for four artists to pursue individual and group projects.

Monir Farmanfarmaian, Third Family - Heptagon (Detail), 2011. Mirror, reverse-glass painting, and acrylic. photo: robert divers herrick. courtesy: the artist and haines gallery

Thursday March 16, 2017 | by Awura Barnie-Duah

OPENING: Iranian contemporary artist’s richly mirrored work featured at Chrysler Museum of Art

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, Museums, Opening

Kandinsky and Mondrian are two Western painters credited with pioneering the form of geometric abstraction. But artwork that focuses on patterns of color and shape rather than figuration goes back to ancient art forms, especially in Islamic Art, where depiction of religious figures has been carefully avoided in respect for the faith's ban on idolatry. The mirror sculptures of Monir Farmanfarmaian, an Iranian artist, bring together influences of Western avant-garde painting and centuries-old Islamic art in works of refraction and geometric abstraction. An opening reception this evening at The Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, will kick off an exhibition of Farmanfarmaian's work that will continue through July 30, 2017.

James Mongrain with his 2016 Arcobaleno Series.

Thursday March 2, 2017 | by Awura Barnie-Duah

EXHIBITION: James Mongrain celebrates the glory of Venetian glassblowing at the Museum of Glass

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, Exhibition, Museums, News

Towering, taut, and ornate, 130 exquisitely blown glass works are currently on view at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington, where they will remain through October 15, 2017. These are the fruits of a four-year collaboration between master glassblower James Mongrain and patron and prominent collector George R. Stroemple. Organized into four groupings entitled the Adriatico, Atlantis, Poseidon, and Arcobaleno series, the works result from Mongrain's extremely disciplined approach to traditional Venetian glassblowing techniques, and represent his response to the more than one hundred 19th-century Venetian glass objects in Stroemple's collection, which are also displayed in the exhibition. This show is an homage to the traditions that inspired Mongrain to devote his career to mastery of the techniques and aesthetic rules of this historic high-water mark for glassblowing skill.

Butterfly Panels by Mark Ditzler

Thursday February 16, 2017 | by Awura Barnie-Duah

The Studio at Corning announces roster of 2017 artist residents

FILED UNDER: Announcements, News

The Corning Museum of Glass has released the line-up for its 2017 Artists-in-Residence program, and the list includes Martin Janecky, Judy Tuwaletstiwa & Michael Rogers, Claire Kelly, Karlyn Sutherland, Marina Hanser, Anna Riley, Mark Ditzler & Wayne Strattman, Elinor Portnoy, and Wendy Yothers & François Arnaud.

Carol Prusa, Spooky Action. Glass. courtesy: boca raton museum

Wednesday February 1, 2017 | by Awura Barnie-Duah

OPENING: Berengo’s Glasstress project comes to Boca Raton, Florida

FILED UNDER: Exhibition, Museums, New Work, News, Opening

Adriano Berengo is back with another Glasstress exhibition, this time in partnership with an art museum in Boca Raton, Florida. Known for bringing artists who don't usually utilize glass as a medium together with his team of glass maestros in Murano, Berengo has built Glasstress into an art-world brand since it debuted as a collateral exhibition at the 2009 Venice Bienalle. In addition to his Glasstress exhibits at the international exhibition, Berengo has also been developing "Glasstress World" in which Berengo Project artists display their work in partnership with major museums around the globe.

Works by Ron Desmett and Kathleen Mulcahy to be displayed on January 26th at Alfstad& Contemporary. courtesy: alfstad& contemporary

Wednesday January 25, 2017 | by Awura Barnie-Duah

OPENING: Work by Kathleen Mulcahy and the late Ron Desmett featured at Florida glass art event

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Events, Exhibition, News

The late Ron Desmett (1948-2016) and his wife, Kathleen Mulcahy will both have their work featured at Alfstad& Contemporary, which will kick off the Third Annual Sarasota Art Glass Weekend on January 27th. A collaboration between Longboat Key Center for the Arts, a division of Ringling College, and Habatat Galleries of Michigan, the weekend event will include exhibitions, auctions, studio tours, talks by internationally-known artists, glass-blowing demonstrations, and private tours of the museum featuring glass. The event's opening reception will take place on Thursday, January 26th.