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Urban Glass

Viewing: Award

Wednesday May 5, 2010 | by Andrew Page

Call for Entries: June 2nd deadline for Red Hot Party and Juried Auction
FILED UNDER: Award, Call for Submissions, Events, News
In the glass world, the typical auction fundraiser works something like this: Artists are asked to donate a work and, in return, he or she helps support an institution while getting exposure to the collectors in attendance—as well as some modest percentage of the sales price. That’s the way it’s been working for years at institutions such as the Pittsburgh Glass Center, Pilchuck, UrbanGlass and the National Liberty Museum, to name just a few of the better-known glass auctions that reach out to artists every year for donated work. The Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington, however, has been taking a different approach. Its annual “Red Hot Party and Juried Auction“ is a novel blend of fund-raising and head-to-head competition that pits artists against one another. Selected works are auctioned off to support the institution with no percentage returned to the artists. However, three of the donated works will be chosen — two by an expert jury, one by those attending the actual auction — for generous cash prizes. The top two prizes of $10,000 and $5,000 both include a week of studio time at the Museum of Glass’s fabled hotshop.

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Wednesday March 10, 2010 | by Andrew Page

Canadian glass sculptor Ione Thorkelsson wins $25,000 Saidye Bronfman Award
FILED UNDER: Award, News
Living in a small town in the prairie lands of Manitoba, nearly two hours from Winnipeg, sculptor Ione Thorkelsson has developed her own unique techniques of casting and her own subject matter — provocative glass skeletal forms that manage to be both organic and other-worldly. In her 2009 work Rex (pictured), a viewer is confronted with the familiar (is it a dinosaur?) and the unexpected (is it a little girl’s skeleton in a skirt?) as the artist plays with scale, form, and iconography to powerful effect. Yesterday it was announced that the Canada Council for the Arts had awarded Thorkelsson its Saidye Bronfman award for excellence in the crafts, which includes a $25,000-prize.

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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.