On July 7, 2017, Traver Gallery, an icon in the Seattle glass art community as well as in the Studio Glass Movement, will turn 40, and it plans to celebrate with a party that evening. Founded in 1977, the gallery exhibits paintings, ceramics, and installation art of all kinds, but it has been the medium of glass where the gallery has had a particularly consequential role in developing the careers of artists as prominent as Bertil Vallien and Lino Tagliapietra. The gallery lays claim to helping discover such notable glass artists as Martin Blank, Sonja Blomdahl, Gregory Grenon, Doug Jeck, Dante Marioni, Preston Singletary, Therman Statom, and Jamie Walker. The story of the founding of the gallery by a young interior designer who discovered a need for better sourcing of local artists, is one of seizing an opportunity, and then executing it so well it changes the field. Seattle's role as an epicenter of glass art would not have been as firmly established without Traver's important role as a leading art dealer in the field.
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