Wednesday July 20, 2016 | by Malcolm Morano

Gallery exhibition in the Berkshires offers Chihuly at a human scale

FILED UNDER: Exhibition, New Work, News

Dale Chihuly is best known for his monumental glass sculptures that transform museums, botanical gardens, or even cities where they are installed, remaking and forcing new ways of seeing well-known spaces. This summer offers a unique opportunity to see new site-specific Chihuly works in a more intimate setting. Through August 28th, Schantz Galleries is presenting its first-ever exhibition of Chihuly’s work, and it's a rare chance to see Chihuly work at a relatively more modest scale. That said, three site-specific installations are on display, a Persian Wall and two Chandeliers in addition to many smaller works, such as work from his "Venetians" and "Black Cylinders" series.

Continue Reading

Wednesday July 20, 2016 | by Sarah Canny

AWARD: Glass art association identifies top emerging artists in the U.K.

FILED UNDER: Award, New Work, News

The British organization known as the Contemporary Glass Society has announced its annual glass prize winners for 2016. A special 16-page publication entitled "New Graduate Review" featuring all the winners of 2016, as well as runners-up, will be published as part of the award, that includes a top cash prize of £ 250 (about US $329). Connor Garton of the University of Sunderland took first prize, Jade Tapson also of the University of Sunderland took second, and Becky Dennis of Nottingham Trent University took third. The full list of winning artists can be seen here. Judge and CGS board member Karen Murphy stated that the work made by these young men and women "represent a snapshot of the best of British art glass coming out of our educational establishments this year."

Continue Reading

Friday July 15, 2016 | by Sarah Canny

OPENING: “Strike While the Iron’s Hot” with newly minted Dr. Richard Meitner

FILED UNDER: Exhibition, New Work, News, Opening

Richard Meitner's "thesis exhibition" just opened in the Gallery at the University of Lisboa, where he has been a visiting professor since 2008. His employer is also now his alma mater, thanks to Meitner's pursuit of a doctorate in glass. In his PhD exhibition, Meitner "sets out to define what he believes art really is and is about, and how we should be teaching it and thinking about it", as he explained in an email exchange with the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet. It's Meitner's personal belief that there are "quite a few glaring and highly consequential mistakes in how we currently think about and discuss art, and how we teach young people what art is and how to make it". The exhibition is tied in with his thesis for his newly achieved doctorate in art, specifically focused, unsurprisingly, on sculpture.  

Continue Reading

Wednesday July 6, 2016 | by Malcolm Morano

Glass figures prominently into monumental new public artwork unveiled in Taiwan

FILED UNDER: Announcements, New Work, Opening, Public Art

A 72-foot-tall, 20-foot-wide public sculpture designed by architectural installation artist Ed Carpenter was unveiled in June 2016 in Taichung, Taiwan. Made from stainless steel and laminated glass, the sculpture stands at the intersection of two public parks outside of the Taichung City Council building.

Continue Reading

Thursday June 23, 2016 | by Sarah Canny

Annual outdoor contemporary sculpture exhibition turns focus to glass for the first time

FILED UNDER: Exhibition, New Work, News, Opening

When art dealer Jim Schantz was given the opportunity to curate the first all-glass exhibition at the annual contemporary and experimental sculpture show at the grounds of the historic Chesterwood, a Stockbridge, Massachussets, landmark, he saw an opportunity to push some of the leading glass artists he represents into new territory — environmental artwork. “It was an opportunity for them to realize their visions and perhaps work outside their comfort zone,” Schantz says in an email exchange with the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet. He reached out to artists Martin Blank, Peter Bremers, Nancy Callan, William Carlson, Daniel Clayman, Sidney Hutter, Richard Jolley, John Kiley, Thomas Patti, Kait Rhoads, Richard Royal, and Thomas Scoon, some of whom were well-acquainted with the challenges of exhibiting work outdoors, while others had never done so before. The result is the exhibiton "The Nature of Glass," which will remain on view through September 18, 2016.

Continue Reading

Wednesday June 15, 2016 | by Andrew Page

GALLERY: Four-years-in-the-making, Laura Donefer’s glass fashion show at Corning GAS raises the bar

FILED UNDER: Image Gallery, New Work, News

Since her very first glass fashion show in Toronto in 1989, artist Laura Donefer has been cajoling artists to don costumes celebrating their imaginations and their material, which they then parade before an adoring crowd of fellow artists. For the closing-night party of the 2016 Glass Art Society conference last Saturday night, Donefer pulled out all the stops, memorializing the late rock stars Prince and David Bowie in a tightly choreographed sequence of moveable art and music as artists walked the catwalk set up at The Corning Museum of Glass auditorium. Because of the massive crowd of attendees, and a limit of 800 seats in the auditorium, there were two shows for the first time in the 27-year history of Donefer's productions. While the fashion extravaganza generates massive amounts of excitement, attention, and affection for Donefer, the Canadian artist says the epic event does not directly link up with her personal art practice.

Continue Reading

Friday June 3, 2016 | by Andrew Page

OPENING: Glass Wheel Studio showcases work by members of its 2016 Studio Artist Program in Virginia

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, New Work, Opening

Since opening in November 2015 in a 8,500-square-foot space in downtown Norfolk, Virginia, Glass Wheel Studio has offered exhibition galleries and affordable studio spaces to artists working in all materials but especially glass, a material that has received special focus in this town thanks to the bold programming and outreach of the Chrysler Museum of Art glass studio. In fact, the first 13 artists admitted to the nonprofit Glass Wheel Studio's "immersive studio practice program," includes several artists with connections to the museum's glass department, including its director Charlotte Potter.

Continue Reading

Wednesday June 1, 2016 | by Andrew Page

OPENING: Carmen Vetter’s kiln-formed glass panels, skin self-portraits, at Traver

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, New Work, Opening

Opening today with an evening reception at Seattle's Traver Gallery, the exhibition "Surface" features Carmen Vetter's latest body of work — studies of texture and pattern rendered in layers of powdered glass kiln-fired to look like weathered landscapes. Monochrome or muted in color palette, the surfaces of the work take center stage as the artist selectively built up or removed layers of glass powders to evoke close-up maps of territory altered by unseen forces of erosion and time.

Continue Reading

Tuesday May 31, 2016 | by Andrew Page

Navigating flameworking’s rich trade routes: A conversation with artist and educator Amy Lemaire

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, New Work

With a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn — both in painting — Amy Lemaire would seem an unlikely expert to offer insights into the flameworking world. And yet she has immersed herself in the field, where she occupies key roles as an educator, instructor, researcher, and communicator, in addition to being a practicing designer and artist. An adjunct professor at the leading flameworking program at Salem County Community College, she also leads the Bead Project at UrbanGlass, (which publishes the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet), where she also teaches flameworking to university students. Noting major shifts in the flameworking landscape driven by the liberalization of marijuana laws as well as technical advances in the field, the Hot Sheet recently spoke with Lemaire about her own practice, and how the scene is changing.

Continue Reading

Thursday May 12, 2016 | by Andrew Page

OPENING: On Saturday, Lino Tagliapietra to attend Boston exhibition of new aventurine work

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, New Work, Opening

On May 14th, Lino Tagliapietra will make a personal appearance at a pop-up exhibition in Boston for an afternoon reception hosted by Schantz Galleries. Titled "A Golden Age of Glass," the Schantz exhibit will feature a new series of work by the maestro in "avventurine" glass. Also known as "Goldstone glass," this is a unique type of glittering glass studded with bits of copper or gold mineral that shares its name with a variety of quartz with mineral inclusions. Aventurine glass dates back to at least 17th-century (Corning says 15th-century) Venice, and requires low-oxygen conditions during melting, as well as a strategic lowering of temperature at a key phase of the process for the metal inclusions to properly form. It is one of the hardest types of glass to work with from the furnace, with failure a constant risk given the complexity of the precise temperature changes required. Annealing is another hazardous aspect of this unforgiving material.

Continue Reading