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Close-up of jellyfish tentacle by Kait Rhoads. courtesy: kait rhoads.

Monday March 26, 2018 | by Valerie Hughes

Artist Kait Rhoads taps the social aspects of glass work to spread the word about ocean ecology (and celebrate her 50th)

From her murrini-dappled blown vessels to her woven copper-wire-and-glass assemblages, Kait Rhoads' works are often inspired by the colors, forms, and patterning of oceanic forms. Her connection to the water was forged when her family lived on a sailboat in the Bahamas and U.S. Virgin Islands during her childhood. To celebrate her upcoming 50th birthday on March 31, Rhoads is having a party that will bring together her love of the aquatic, her glass artwork, and her social network for a good cause. She is inviting friends and volunteers to come participate in the construction of jellyfish tentacles for a large-scale art project, which will be displayed at the totally renovated Pacific Seas Aquarium set to replace the 52-year-old North Pacific Aquarium at the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma. The new aquarium is set to open in Summer 2018. When completed, Rhoads’ project will consist of three large-scale glass jellyfish, each roughly six feet long, that will function as chandeliers in the aquarium’s atrium.

Thursday March 22, 2018 | by Andrew Page

In Memoriam: Ulrica Hydman Vallien (March 24, 1938 - March 21, 2018)

Prominent Swedish artist and designer Ulrica Hydman Vallien, whose dramatic painted glass designs of intertwined snakes and floral imagery, as well as expressive animal and human faces, became synonymous with the identity of the Kosta-Boda glass company for the past four decades, died suddenly just days before her 80th birthday, which would have been this coming Saturday. The news broke via her husband Bertil Vallien's brief but poignant Facebook posting yesterday: "My beloved ulricas warm heart stopped beating Tonight. An incomprehensible loss. Bertil"

Carole Frève at work.

Tuesday March 20, 2018 | by Valerie Hughes

EXHIBITION: Carol Frève makes a literal "connection" using the compatibility of glass and copper in Montreal show

Carole Frève is known for combining glass and copper in projects that contain a narrative essence, drawing not only the eye but human emotion. Currently on view through March 30, 2018, the Espace VERRE Gallery presents Carole Frève’s exhibition, "Connectivity." The works featured in the exhibition ponder the effect an electric current has on copper plating. With the integration of electric currents, sensors, LEDs, and integrated circuits, Frève wishes to establish a dialogue between the art and viewer. She encourages them to draw their own conclusions, to pose questions and find answers within themselves and the art.

Former Corning curator of modern and contemporary glass Tina Oldknow pictured in 2012. courtesy: the corning museum of glass

Tuesday March 20, 2018 | by Allison Adler

LECTURE: Tina Oldknow will dissect the American Studio Glass Movement in New York City presentation

FILED UNDER: Events

This Thursday, curator and critic Tina Oldknow will present a public lecture “A Short History of the American Studio Glass Movement, from Beginning to End” at the Bard Graduate Center in New York City. Oldknow, who describes her upcoming talk as an “informal recap of the history of the American Studio Glass movement,” brings a unique perspective to this topic as she presided over the restructuring and expansion of the contemporary glass collections at The Corning Museum of Glass and its Contemporary Art and Design Gallery. This new wing debuted in 2015, adding thousands of feet of exhibition space for new, larger-scale artworks in glass, while also creating new opportunities to define the Studio Glass movement and its influence on contemporary artists working in the material. She explained, “I feel it is important to distinguish what happened in the United States from what happened in Europe, Australia, and Japan, for example, because all those histories are parallel but separate.”

Sibylle Peretti, Where The Rubies Grow I and Where the Rubies Grow II, 2018. Glass. H 23, W 12, D 12 in.

Thursday March 15, 2018 | by Allison Adler

OPENING: Sibylle Peretti's exhibit, debuting tonight at the Chrysler Museum, explores the human yearning for connection to nature

FILED UNDER: Exhibition

Today, the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia, unveils the simultaneously somber and captivating works of Sibylle Peretti in "Promise and Perception: The Enchanted Landscapes of Sibylle Peretti," organized by the museum's former curator of glass Diane Wright, who left recently to become curator of glass at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio. Wright describes Peretti as composing "poetic narratives about the relationship between humans and the natural world." Peretti herself, in a YouTube video, expands on this idea, describing her work as dealing with human failings and our inability to find harmony and unity with nature. "Promise and Perception" combines new and old works to introduce audience members to Peretti's immersive and poetic narratives while encouraging contemplation on the potential of achieving harmony with the natural world.

Thursday March 15, 2018 | by Allison Adler

An up-and-coming Boca Raton art fair features new work in glass at the display of Berengo Studio

FILED UNDER: Events

The third edition of the relatively new art fair Art Boca Raton is underway this evening and through the weekend with a mix of international and Florida galleries representing over 250 contemporary artists whose work hbas taken over the International Pavilion of the Palm Beaches at Florida Atlantic University. Representing the world of contemporary glass art is Berengo Studio 1989, the brainchild of Venetian art entrepreneur Adriano Berengo, who is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of glass art as part of the mission, according to Berengo Studio 1989’s website, to make glass art “beautiful, aesthetic and truly contemporary.”

Thursday March 15, 2018 | by Allison Adler

CONVERSATION: Clay artist Sharif Bey discusses his oversized necklace sculptures that incorporate glass

FILED UNDER: Exhibition

Artist Sharif Bey began our telephone conversation by describing an image he had seen of a young Berber girl in North Africa wearing a series of amber-beaded necklaces. Though beautiful, the necklaces “didn’t look comfortable,” he said; there was something precarious and heavy about them. Why wear them, then? “She’s wearing this for some reason,” Bey said, conveying the sense that these necklaces and the beads of which they are composed have power and resonance, something that allows them to be more than objects of personal adornment. The large-scale glass and clay necklaces currently on view at the Pittsburgh Glass Center exhibition entitled "Sharif Bey: Dialogues in Clay and Glass" are the products of Bey’s inquiry into this resonance -- something he creates through both size and the combination of particular materials -- as well as his interest in the symbolism of beads and their relationship to collective identity.

Artist Judith Schaecter will kick off the 2018 IFC with a lecture entitled "Mission Statement."

Wednesday March 14, 2018 | by Valerie Hughes

The 2018 International Flameworking Conference kicks off this weekend with a lecture by Judith Schaechter

The 18th annual International Flameworking Conference is headlined by Joe Peters, who started working with glass at a young age. A skilled flameworker with experience as a student and teacher at Snow Farm, a craft school in Massachusetts, Peters is known for his often psychedelic depictions of nature, with a particular emphasis on aquatic life. In 2012, he created an aquarium installation that is now on display at Boston Children’s Hospital. Peters is but one of a range of artists who work with glass appearing at this weekend's International Flameworking Conference (IFC), which will run from March 16-18 at Salem Community College. It is meant to highlight achievement in flameworking through artist demonstrations and other presentations.

Wilken Skurk's Home (2011) and one of Dafna Kaffeman's wolves as presented on the web page for "If I Had A Home" at lorch + seidel.

Tuesday March 13, 2018 | by Allison Adler

EXHIBITION: In Berlin, mixed-media glass works by Dafna Kaffeman and Wilken Skurk offer differing takes on a dangerous world

FILED UNDER: Exhibition

A new exhibition If I Had a Home, on view at Berlin's lorch + seidel contemporary through April 14th, juxtaposes what initially seem like widely different works by Dafna Kaffeman and Wilken Skurk. Kaffeman’s wolves, formed of spiky, flame-worked glass fixed to aluminum with silicone, adhere to the walls beside Wilken Skurk’s glass and bronze sculptures Home (2009), Nest (2007), and Tressor (2006). In general, both artists create works that are more than what they seem. What appears to be a simple portrait of a wolf or a sculpture that resembles an architectural model of a building actually contains layers of political and personal meaning. In bringing these two artists’ works together, lorch + seidel suggest that there is a conversation going on here, one that is related to the concept of home, and, perhaps, its stability. Upon closer examination of individual works, an even more-poignant contrast emerges between the two artists and their respective views on safety in an insecure environment.

courtesy: pittsburgh glass center.

Sunday March 11, 2018 | by Valerie Hughes

CALL FOR ENTRIES: Pittsburgh Glass Center debuts new $5,000 award in honor of late co-founder, Ron Desmett

FILED UNDER: Call for Submissions

The Pittsburgh Glass Center has announced itsfirst Ron Desmett Memorial Award for Imagination in Glass. Artists who take glass to innovative heights and take risks, in the vein of the late Desmett, are called to apply and can do so online by May 31, 2018. PGC will grant at least one award a year, consisting of $2,500 in cash along with classes and studio access valuing $2,500, for a total award value of $5,000. Awardees’ work will embody the innovative and rule-defying spirit of Desmett’s glass work.

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.