James Baker's leadership of Pilchuck began in the summer of 2010.

Effective February 2018, James Baker, who has served as the executive director of the Pilchuck Glass School for seven years, will step down from the top staff position at this influential Washington State arts center with locations in Stanwood and Seattle. Baker's appointment in the summer of 2010 ushered in a period of stability and growth at Pilchuck, after the brief tenure of his immediate successor, Arthur Jacobus, who resigned in December 2009 after taking over just a year earlier from the long-serving Patricia Watkinson. Under Baker's watch, Pilchuck added a Pioneer Square exhibition gallery in Seattle's arts district, while also upgrading and making its studios and shops in the main location in Stanwood more energy efficient. Pilchuck, and by extension Baker, was recognized with a 2016 Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass Organization Award, which specifically credited the leadership of its executive director.

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Kit Paulson in the CCS glass studio. courtesy: @ccsglass on instagram

The College for Creative Studies in Detroit is seeking a full-time crafts technician for nine months to maintain their craft studios, namely in glass and ceramics studios but also in fibers and textile, art furniture, metalsmithing and jewelry design studios. The ideal candidate would have an undergraduate degree in a craft field, preferably glass, ceramics, industrials arts, or crafts, and must be able to build, operate and maintain kiln and kiln controllers. Additionally, the candidate would be required to have strong interpersonal, organizational, and problem solving skills, as well as flexibility to work evenings and weekends as needed. Experience with CNC technology and welding skills are a plus, but are not required.

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Mia Hall. courtesy: penland school of crafts

Artist and professor Maria “Mia” Hall will bring her respect for the importance of craftmaking in contemporary culture when she takes over for the retiring Jean McLaughlin as director of the Penland School of Crafts in January 2018. “This is a lifelong dream. I couldn’t ask for anything better,” she told the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet by telephone. “I’ve always been struck by everything there. It’s such a concentration of talent and innovation, and that has always been really fascinating for me,” she added. The craft school, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, has selected Hall to become the director at the start of 2018. She will succeed longtime director McLaughlin who made many important changes to the institution, including a large studio renovation project and an endowment increase from $2 million when she started in 1998 to $17 million today.

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Todd Beaty, casting supervisor, demonstrates how to handle a ladle while casting. photo: mary kay nitchie, bullseye glass

Bullseye Glass Company,the innovative company that developed a wide palette of sheet glass suitable for fusing in a kiln, is now giving the public a chance to participate (to an extent) in its creation. On Thursday, July 27 at noon, Bullseye’s Portland, Oregon location will be holding a class for 20 students to assist in the casting of two separate sheets of colored glass, some of which will be doled out to students. This is the first time that Bullseye had opened the floor for students to take a class in creating the product that Bullseye innovated almost 40 years ago in the form of a public class.

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Verena Schatz, Bundle, 2015. borosilicate tubes, slumped. H 53 1/2, W 14, D 14 in. courtesy: Hans-Martin Lorch

Jens Gussek, an accomplished artist in his own right and a winner of the 2015 International Glass Prize in Lommel, Belgium, has also worked steadily as a university professor throughout his career. He currently holds the title of Head of the Institute of Ceramic and Glass Art (IKKG) at the University of Applied Science in Koblenz, Germany. A unique exhibition of work by 11 of his former students is opening at a commercial gallery in Berlin this summer, a testament to the caliber of work Gussek has helped his students achieve. Entitled “subtext glas(s),” the exhibition opens July 22 and will run through September 2, 2017, at the lorch+seidel contemporary gallery in Berlin, Germany.

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Martin Janecky working on The Infant Jesus of Prague.

The Corning Museum of Glass will be hosting a lecture from Martin Janecky and Martin Rosol on the evening of Tuesday, January 18th, as a part of an ongoing lecture series by Corning Studio faculty in an effort to bring some of the most well-known names in glass to the public, free of charge. While the talk is open to the public, the Studio aims these weekly lectures at the students taking their intensive classes during the summer.

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courtesy: Tyler School of Art

The Tyler School of Art at Temple University is searching for a full-time non-tenure-track assistant professor for its glass program. Candidates with mastery of traditional and contemporary glass techniques should apply by July 12, 2017, to receive priority. The ideal applicant would be able to teach a range of courses from introductory to advanced and conduct research-based classes that are both conceptual and experimental. Applicants should also have produced work shown in national exhibitions and demonstrate a passion for teaching their skill. 

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Richard Royal, Optical Lens Series (untitled), 2017. Blown glass. H 18, W 18, D 18 in. courtesy: the artist.

The Pittsburgh Glass Center (PGC) will feature Richard Royal at its annual Art on Fire celebration and auction this September, coinciding with his residency at PGC. Royal, a former gaffer for Dale Chihuly at the Pilchuck Glass School, creates art fueled by his interest in the math inherent in nature, and he is drawn to the geometric possibilities of the material, as well as its optical properties. He's been blowing glass for more than 30 years and combines both blown and solid glass elements in his internationally recognized and highly photogenic work. Royal’s art has been on exhibit at the Mint Museum of Art and Design, the High Museum, and the New Orleans Museum of Art, among others. Royal is a prolific teacher, including a regular at the Pilchuck School. He has also taught before at PGC. As honorary artist, one piece of Royal’s work from his optical lens series will be for sale at the auction.

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Penland executive director Jean McLaughlin has overseen the crafts school for nearly two decades. courtesy: penland school of crafts

After a dynamic career spanning nearly 20 years (19 and three-quarters to be exact), Jean McLaughlin will retire as executive director of the Penland School of Crafts in December 2017. She will leave behind an institution far stronger financially, more accessible to the physically challenged, and with greater outreach to the North Carolina rural communities which surround this important craft school. And yet the school McLaughlin came to lead remains recognizable to those who remember it before her tenure, a sense of continuity which she was careful to cultivate and preserve in this organization that dates back to 1929.

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The exterior of Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle as pictured on its website.

In honor of its fifth anniversary, Chihuly Garden and Glass, the for-profit long-term Chihuly exhibition in Seattle Center, is offering a $10,000 scholarship for an emerging glass artist in the Seattle region to take classes at either Pilchuck Glass School or Pratt Fine Arts Center. The program is offered in conjunction with the Chihuly Studio. Though announced through Facebook and a press release, information on how to apply for this opportunity hasn't been easy to locate. The application is on the Garden and Glass website, but only under "Events," where it comes up at the bottom of an article about the organization's fifth-anniversary activities. Still, this is a generous opportunity, one of a series of initiatives to give back to the glass art community, and worthy of attention for every Seattle-area glass artist who fits the criteria.

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