Letter From the Executive Director of UrbanGlass

In another year of unforeseen and overwhelming challenges, our community railed to ensure access to arts education, arts coverage in Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly, and open-access studios for creative expression throughout a time of critical need. We are deeply grateful to the many generous individual and institutional donors who made 2021 possible. Below is a list of the supporters without whom our programs would not be possible. Thank you for your unwavering commitment to UrbanGlass.

Installation view of Raven and the Box of Daylight at the Wichita Art Museum in 2021.

Tuesday March 22, 2022 | by Sadia Tasnim

Preston Singletary's installation at the Smithsonian marks a milestone for his career

Now on view at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., Preston Singletary's exhibition "Raven and the Box of Daylight" features almost 70 individual glass pieces all crafted by Singletary and his studio team. The exhibition is not brand new, as it debuted at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington in 2018, and moved to the Wichita Art Museum in Kansas in 2020, but its current venue in the nation's capitol gives it special prominence and marks an important moment for Singetary's career. Remaining on view through January 29, 2023, "Raven and the Box of Daylight" will then travel once again on its way to the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, where it will be opening mid-2023.

Monday March 14, 2022 | by Andrew Page

An archival exhibition of work by William Morris, on view at Hawk Galleries in Columbus, Ohio, unearths new insights

In some ways, we were all buried by the pandemic -- cloistered away in our homes facing an uncertain but deadly virus, laying low. There was a shift inward, one that allowed introspection but also digging in to the essentials of identity, mortality, our place in the world. Now, as the pandemic recedes, as vaccines and new treatments take away its lethality, we are emerging into a new world, and one facing new uncertainties and brutalities in the East with the harrowing weeks-old Russian invasion of Ukraine. In times like these, one seeks the universal as both a higher truth and proof that we can endure as a species. These are some of the reasons why the William Morris retrospective exhibition on view atHawk Galleries in Columbus, Ohio, is so timely. The Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet had an opportunity to learn more about the exhibition of an artist who retired from making new work in 2007, about how the exhibition came to be and why it is important now, through an exchange with Tom Hawk.

Monday February 28, 2022 | by Andrew Page

HOT OFF THE PRESSES: The Spring 2022 edition of Glass (#166)

The Spring 2022 edition of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#166) is hitting newsstands and subscriber mailboxes. On the cover is a work by Ché Rhodes, artist and head of the glass program at the University of Louisville, who was instrumental in the exhibition "Crafting the Vernacular" now on view at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft. Rhodes had been discussing a solo exhibition with KMAC curator Joey Yates, and he was inspired to propose expanding it into a group show featuring work by artists of color working with glass. Yates agreed, and the result is among the first museum exhibitions focusing exclusively on Black glass artists. The cover article's author, director emeritus of the Speed Art Museum Peter Morris, states that with this exhibition, we "are witnessing a new moment in contemporary glass."

Tuesday February 1, 2022 | by Sadia Tasnim

The PMA Craft Show, in-person for the first time since the pandemic, is now accepting artist applicants for November event

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is now taking applicants for its 46th Annual Craft Show, to go back to in-person for the first time since pandemic procedures were put in place in 2020. In accordance with CDC guidelines, the show will mandate state and local health and safety guidelines. The show organizers are anticipating a three-day in-person exhibition at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in November (from the 11th to the 13th), with a Preview Party the day before the show begins. The application is available online with applicants applying before April 1, 2022 paying non-refundable fee of $50.00. which increases after April 2, 2022 to $75.00. (Disclosure: Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet editor Andrew Page will be among the jurors for this year's show.)

Saturday January 29, 2022 | by Andrew Page

The second "Better Together" gathering showcases the BIPOC glass community at YAYA in New Orleans

Through internships and partnerships with educational institutions,Crafting the Future has been working since 2019 to advance equity and opportunity in the arts by facilitating scholarships to craft schools and pre-college art programs, compiling directories of job opportunities and residencies, and offering an online shopping directory of "black and brown makers." Crafting the Future's website also features a link to its "Better Together" events, gatherings to celebrate and showcase the growing community of glass artists of color, the latest of which took place on January 15, 2022, at YAYA, a New Orleans educational facility whose name stands for Young Aspirations, Young Artists. Seven black glassblowers from around the U.S. traveled to YAYA, where a pop-up market for local makers had been set up, and where a week of youth programming followed the public event. Visiting artists included Jason McDonald, Tijahnni Newton, SaraBeth Post, Cedric Mitchell, Ché Rhodes, Corey Pemberton, and Nate Watson.

Saturday January 29, 2022 | by Stephen Paul Day

Erwin Eisch (1927 - 2022) is buried today in Frauenau, Germany

It was the early 1980s, and the relatively new group of artists working in glass were searching for a fresh direction away from simple techniques and towards a form of expression more attuned to the larger art world. I was one of those artists. On a class trip to New York City, I found myself mesmerized outside the newly opened Heller Gallery in SOHO and discovered an artist that answered all the questions for me. On display was an enormous exhibition of the German artist, Erwin Eisch. Alongside the many paintings and drawings were fabulously interesting glass works unlike any I have seen before. Among others on view were oversized mold-blown human thumbs, painted and lustered complete with thumb prints. I knew then that this work echoed a significant answer that so many had been looking for, sculpture and painting that placed primary importance on the idea of individuality and the role one’s expression can play in forming personal and significant art.

Thursday January 27, 2022 | by Sadia Tasnim

Alexander Rosenberg is named as the new director of the WheatonArts Glass Studio

The WheatonArts and Cultural Center has appointed Alexander Rosenberg the new director of the Wheaton Glass Studio. Rosenberg steps into his role as director after having completed a Creative Glass Fellowship at the Millville, New Jersey, nonprofit in 2018, serving on the fellowship’s selection committee, and also working as a guest lecturer for virtual programs under Covid-19 restrictions. With planned pandemic closures keeping its doors shut for the winter season, WheatonArtsis intent on kicking off its 2022 program season off with a fresh start under Rosenberg’s leadership. The organization is planning to reopen on April 1st, 2022.

Thursday January 6, 2022 | by Sadia Tasnim

The whimsical and highly personal snowmen sculptures Richard Marquis crafted for his wife get high-profile critical reception in New York exhibition

Richard "Dick" Marquis is centrally located in survey exhibitions on the influence of Venice on Studio Glass, and in the permanent collections of any glass museum, but most often, you’ll find him on Whidbey Island off the coast of Washington, where he lives with a host of animals and his beloved wife, Johanna Nitzke Marquis. His eclectic home serves as the repository for his many colorful explorations and passion projects. And until recently, it housed his series of hand-blown snowmen, some of which now grace the windows of R & Company’s 64 White Street Gallery in downtown Manhattan.

Monday January 3, 2022 | by Andrew Page

The Barry Art Museum promotes Charlotte Potter Kasic from "interim" to full executive director

After 14 months as interim director of the Barry Art Museum in Norfolk, Virginia, Charlotte Potter Kasic has shed the "interim" from her official title, and has been named as the three-year-old museum's full executive director. Previously the founding program director of the glass studio at the Chrysler Museum of Art, Potter Kasic helped to put this coastal Virginia city on the glass art map, also working to create an arts district there and co-chairing the 2017 Glass Art Society Conference.