Monday July 7, 2014 | by Elena Tafone

U.K. Glass Artist organization announces winners of design awards

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Award, Design, News

UPDATED 7/15/2014

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Thursday July 3, 2014 | by Lindsay von Hagn

OPENING: Vibrant new work by Davide Salvadore debuts at Traver tonight

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

New, vividly colored work by Muranese glassblower Davide Salvadore is the focus of a new exhibition at Seattle's Traver Gallery. Titled simply "Davide Salvadore: New Work," the show that blazes new chromatic ground for this artist best known for his sculptural stringed-instrument objects, opens tonight, July 3 and will be on view through Sunday, August 3, 2014. Salvadore, born into a family of glass workers, has devoted his career to reinterpreting and modernizing the traditional techniques and aesthetics he uses in his work. He often instructs students on non-traditional murrini-making techniques and how to employ the tiny detailed pieces in compelling ways. In his own work, he draws inspiration from ancient musical instruments, African symbols and textiles, and the colors of the African landscape. While many of the shapes in this exhibition are not new, Salvadore has added a number of intense new colors to his palette, using less of his characteristic earth tones in favor of bright turquoise, yellows, and oranges. Sometimes these colors fill the entire piece, and sometimes the colors jump out from a background of neutral colored, yet equally intricate patterns.

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Thursday July 3, 2014 | by Andrew Page

Chrysler Museum of Art announces new director to replace retiring William Hennessey

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Museums, News

The Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, has announced that Eric Neil, currently the director of the Academy of Art in Easton, Maryland, has been selected to replace the outgoing William Hennessey, who has led the museum since 1997. (Hennessey announced his retirement last fall). On October 6, 2014, Neil will take the reins of this recently renovated museum that has a unique focus on glass art, not only in its substantial holdings, but also in an adjacent working glass studio where performance art and demonstrations have been a focus of the institution's diverse efforts to involve the community.

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Wednesday July 2, 2014 | by Lindsay von Hagn

OPENING: Emily Nachison links measurements to meaning in Bullseye Gallery exhibition

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, New Work, Opening

An essential philosophy of Portland-based artist Emily Nachison is that “our world is one of transformation and not destruction.” Much of her previous work examines the transformation that takes place during lifecycles of growth and decay. She has also dissected mythologies of scientific (and even pseudoscientific) history, as well as contemporary spirituality. In addition to her work in fiber, in which she holds an advanced degree, Nachison also makes cast-glass sculptures, which will be the focus of her solo exhibition at the Bullseye Gallery in Portland, Oregon. Entitled “The Realm of Quantifiable Truths”, the exhibition opening is this evening, Wednesday, July 2nd, and it will run through August 30th, 2014.

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Tuesday July 1, 2014 | by Andrew Page

Seattle Art Museum unveils memorial bench designed by Ginny Ruffner to honor the late Mary Shirley

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Public Art

On June 27th, the Seattle Art Museum unveiled a new sculptural bench at Olympic Sculpture Park that honors the life and legacy of the late Mary Shirley (1941 - 2014), a Pilchuck board member as well as a Seattle art patron and longime supporter of the museum. The aluminum bench was designed by Ginny Ruffner, and was completed in time for the museum's annual Party in the Park fundraising event last Friday night. Entitled "Mary's Invitation—A Place to Regard Beauty," the work is a functional piece of outdoor furniture offering impressive views of the sculpture garden as well as the nearby Puget Sound. But with its voluptuous swooping lines, it is also Ruffner's expression of the passionate approach to life and art of the art collector it memorilizes who died earlier this year at the age of 73. The bench is made of aluminum and measures 4-feet-high by 9-feet-long.

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Thursday June 26, 2014 | by Elena Tafone

GlassRoots interim executive director Barbara Heisler promoted to permanent position

FILED UNDER: Announcements, News

GlassRoots, the Newark, New Jersey, not-for-profit organization that uses glass to teach life lessons to at-risk youth, has a new executive director. The Board of Trustees announced on Monday that Barbara Heisler, who has been acting as Interim Executive Director since July 1, 2013, will be promoted to full executive director effective July 1, 2014.

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Wednesday June 25, 2014 | by Lindsay von Hagn

Expanded North Lands Creative Glass campus will host international conference in September

FILED UNDER: Announcements, News

North Lands Creative Glass, located on the coast of Northeastern Scotland in the former fishing town of Lybster, has offered Master Class glass workshops to a growing number of international students since 2002. It also hosts an annual International Conference revolving around relevant themes in the contemporary art world. This year’s conference, titled “The Place and the Work”, will take place on the weekend of September 6th and 7th, 2014, and aims to explore the role of the artists’ surroundings in the work they create.

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Tuesday June 24, 2014 | by Elena Tafone

Curator for Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery steps down, leaving behind impressive exhibition record

FILED UNDER: Announcements, News

Having spent the past five years invigorating the exhibition program at the Canadian Glass and Clay Gallery in Waterloo, Ontario (just under 2 hours drive from Toronto), Christian Bernard Singer will step down as curator, moving to Montreal with his spouse. The Gallery seeks a candidate to replace Singer by the end of November 2014.

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Monday June 23, 2014 | by Elena Tafone

OPENING: Survey of contemporary glass debuts at Connecticut art museum

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, Museums, News

A survey exhibition taking stock of the myriad approaches to glass as a medium for contemporary art opened over the weekend at a contemporary art museum in Connecticut. Entitled "Glass Today: 21st Century Innovations" and running through September 21st, 2014, the exhibition at the New Britain Museum of American Art explores where the material is going in terms of approaches to technique, concept, and aesthetics. The current exhibition is allso a follow-up to a 2008 exhibition at the same institution that examined the first 50 years of studio glass, getting a jump on the raft of 2012 exhibitions that covered the same territory. 

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Thursday June 19, 2014 | by Lindsay von Hagn

Schantz Galleries’ Collectors Weekend to Feature Richard Jolley and Tommie Rush

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Events

The 2014 edition of the Schantz Galleries Annual Collectors Weekend will be held on Friday, June 27th and Saturday, June 28th, 2014, and will feature artists Richard Jolley and Tommie Rush. The artists, husband and wife, recently opened the large-scale glass and steel installation entitled the Cycle of Life: Within the Power of Dreams and the Wonder of Infinity at the Knoxville Museum of Art in their home state of Tennessee, and both have many of their individual works on view at Schantz Galleries. Attendees of the Collectors Weekend will have the opportunity to watch a glassblowing demonstration by Richard Jolley on Saturday.

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