Tuesday July 25, 2017 | by Lindsay Hargrave

OPENING: Alex Bernstein unveils fresh approaches to coldworking in Santa Fe exhibition

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Artist Interviews, Opening

Alex Bernstein sees his work as an exploration — of himself, of nature, and of his own unique process of sculpting and carving his large-scale castings. In a solo exhibition at Winterowd Gallery in Santa Fe opening this Friday, July 28, the Asheville, North Carolina-based artist revisits  forms and techniques from his past seeking to reinvent them. “I’m always looking to pursue things and push things and find something new in the realm of my own work,” he said in a telephone interview with GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet. Though this show is made up of entirely new work, Bernstein is seeking to do what many of us probably wish we could: go back into his past and reinterpret old forms with the benefit of new experience. “It’s me looking back at some of my older series and then kind of reinventing them,” he said.

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Thursday July 20, 2017 | by Sarah Thaw

OPENING: Berlin gallery devotes summer to exhibition of high-level student work in glass

FILED UNDER: Education, Events, Exhibition, Museums, New Work, News, Opening

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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Wednesday July 19, 2017 | by Sarah Thaw

Broken glass knits a community as artist Amanda Patenaude facilitates a public mosaic project

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Architecture, Artist Interviews, News, Opening, Public Art

Brooklyn-based artist Amanda Patenaude has proved that one person’s trash can literally become another person's treasure, as she facilitated a community project to recast dangerous shards of broken glass into works of art. It all began in 2014, when a public park association known as the Fort Greene Park Conservancy (FGPC) turned to nearby arts nonprofit UrbanGlass in search of an artist to make use out of all the broken glass swept up in their efforts to beautify this urban green space. Patenaude, who describes her practice as “a nice blend of working with garbage and the things we throw away, as they relate back to our habits and the environments we inhabit,” was a perfect fit.The Brooklyn-based artist presented the FGPC with a list of what could be accomplished with the waste glass and from there, the work began. After six months of clean-up, the discarded glass that was accumulated was re-melted and blown into an ornament that was presented at a 2015 tree-lighting ceremony organized by FGPC and the community organization known as the Myrtle Avenue Revitalization Project.

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Saturday July 15, 2017 | by Lindsay Hargrave

CONVERSATION: Featured in museum retrospective, Sidney Hutter reflects on a world of change in glass

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, Exhibition, Museums, Opening

Sidney Hutter, who has witnessed both the beginnings of Studio Glass, its growth, and current transitional moment, is highly tuned to the advancing technology, economic highs and lows, and the ever-shifting interests of collectors and galleries. The arc of his 40-year career can be observed in a retrospective exhibition now on view at the Sandwich Glass Museum through October 29, 2017. The GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet recently took the opportunity of this career-spanning exhibition to talk with Hutter about his signature explorations of glass vessels that subvert function, as well as his observations of how the glass art world has changed since he began building vessel forms out of plate glass while still a graduate student at MassArt.

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Thursday July 6, 2017 | by Lindsay Hargrave

OPENING: Lino Tagliapietra to visit Schantz Gallery exhibition on Friday, July 7

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, Opening

This Friday, July 7, Schantz Gallery in Stockbridge, Massachusetts will hold an opening reception to a comprehensive exhibition of Lino Tagliapietra’s work form the last 20 years or so, and the maestro himself will be in attendance. The exhibition includes approximately 30 pieces, mostly comprised of work from the past year, but also some more classic pieces, such as glass panels. “The phenomenal thing is that at 82, that Lino is still creating some of the best work of his career," art dealer Jim Schantz told GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet in a telephone interview, adding that many of these pieces that have gone in some ways beyond what he’s done with his previous, earlier work. "He’s still raising the bar in terms of what can be done with the material.”

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Thursday June 8, 2017 | by Stella Porter

OPENING: Anna Boothe and Nancy Cohen continue their collaborative embrace of Buddhist concepts

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, Exhibition, New Work, Opening

When glass artists Anna Boothe and Nancy Cohen come together, artistic accidents are embraced. Instead of tossing aside a mistake, the two consider it important to give value to an accidental creation as part of their effort to create art with a Buddhist sensibility in mind. The artists continue their 5-year-long collaboration in a new exhibit entitled “Permutations: A Collaboration Featuring Anna Boothe and Nancy Cohen,” which will have an opening reception at the Philadelphia Art Alliance (PAA) this evening. The two began collaborating in 2012, fusing together two unique styles and a combined experience of more than 50 years working with glass. Although neither artist considers herself a practicing Buddhist, they self-consciously sought to take on on the Buddhist style of thought as a strategy in the creation of their collaborative art, and they consider the work to share the aesthetic approach of Thangka, an elaborately composed Tibetan Buddhist tradition of painting.

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Tuesday June 6, 2017 | by Sarah Thaw

OPENING: Amy Lemaire’s “History of the Present Moment” documents life in the age of Twitter

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, Exhibition, Glass Quarterly, Opening

Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist Amy Lemaire explores themes of history as a form of currency in her upcoming exhibit, "History of the Present Moment." The exhibition, which will include glass sculptures seeking to ignite thought and conversation around modern historical documentation, will be on display from June 7 to June 28 in the Window Gallery at UrbanGlass’ Agnes Varis Art Center. (Disclosure: The GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet is published by UrbanGlass.)

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Wednesday May 31, 2017 | by Gabi Gimson

CONVERSATION: Seeking a certain clarity, Ethan Stern explores the aesthetics of cut crystal

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, Exhibition, New Work, Opening

Seattle-based glass artist Ethan Stern, whose work will be on view at Traver Gallery tomorrow as a part of a new exhibition titled "Cut Clear," is perhaps most well-known for his used of saturated gem-tones in high-contrast, semi-opaque engraved sculptures. This exhibition, however, marks the end of a slow-drifting departure from the chromatic intensity of his previous work. The work in the "Cut Clear" series employs similar forms and textures of Stern’s past work, but without the color that was so aesthetically integral. The GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet spoke with Stern by phone to discuss the artist’s evolution and his unlikely recent source of inspiration — stylistically dated and aesthetically overwrought cut-crystal.

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Monday May 29, 2017 | by Lindsay Hargrave

OPENING: Second “Emanation” at WheatonArts harnesses synergy between fabrication and concept

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

WheatonArts in Millville, New Jersey, is preparing to unveil its second “Emanation” exhibition during its long-running GlassWeekend event, a biennial gathering of collectors and artists to celebrate, discuss, buy and sell glass artwork coming up on June 9, 10 and 11, 2017. WheatonArts is a multi-dimensional nonprofit in Southern New Jersey, with programs ranging from a museum of American glass history to programming celebrating regional folk culture. But “Emanation,” initiated in 2015, is focused on the contemporary moment in art through an ambitious program to break down the barriers between fabricators and contemporary artists, something that other programs such as the high-profile Glasstress program by Berengo Studio in Venice don't directly address. Unlike that program, which brings well-known artists to Venice to have their ideas realized by glass masters, the "Emanation" project is based in the studios of WheatonArts' Creative Glass Center of America, best-known for its long-running fellowship program that allows artists free rein to realize experimental ideas at this unique facility. The New Jersey project is careful to avoid the one-way street of becoming a fabrication station. There are multiple efforts to create synergy between the artists and the facility, including during the installation of the exhibition component. The artists chosen for the second iteration of "Emanation" -- Emily Brown, Vanessa German, Michael Joo, Lorna Simpson, Therman Statom, Matthew Szösz, and the group Flock the Optic -- reveal varying levels of technical expertise working with glass, which creates interactions that cross-pollinate between artists approaching the project with different perspectives. 

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Thursday May 18, 2017 | by Gabi Gimson

OPENING: Laura Kramer blends glass with objects from nature in new work debuting at Heller Gallery

FILED UNDER: Exhibition, New Work, Opening

One of New York’s leading glass art institutions, Heller Gallery presents an exhibition featuring works by artist and designer, Laura Kramer, who synthesizes natural forms and uncommon objects in glass to "explore the liminal." Since 2000, Kramer has created intriguing glass sculptures from found curios and organic objects, like wasp nests and barnacles. Her objects explore the hybridization of fine art and natural findings, mimicking shapes and textures found in the natural world while defying any accepted system of classification. 

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