Viewing:

Rui Sasaki, Liquid Sunshine, 2016. phosphorescent crystal mixture, glass, solarium light, motion detector. H 91, W 228, L122 in. courtesy: artist website.

Monday April 3, 2017 | by Gabi Gimson

CONVERSATION: Checking in with Rui Sasaki on residencies, exhibits, and her new teaching post

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, News

Rui Sasaki is a Japanese conceptual glass artist and educator who, in recent years, has gained international notoriety for her ethereal and sometimes surrealistic work. She completed her MFA at Rhode Island School of Design in 2010 and has since been invited to participate in many artist-in-residence programs and exhibitions all over the world. Last month, Sasaki wrapped up a month-long residency in Stockholm funded by the Swedish Arts Grants Committee, and she has three major exhibitions opening in the coming months: “Inervals between Nature and Artifact” curated by Koichi Yoshimura in Osaka, Japan, “The Poetics Of Weather” on view at a historical temple in Hoen-ji in Kanazawa, Japan, and “Young Glass 2017” at Glasmuseet Ebeltoft in Ebeltoft, Denmark. Beginning in April, Sasaki will work as a faculty-member at Kanazawa Utatsuyama Kogei Kobo in Kanazawa, Japan, the traditional craft epicenter of the eastern world. Recently, the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet had the opportunity to discuss Sasaki’s work and source of inspiration with the artist herself via an email conversation.

Preston Singletary, Travels on Water, 2017. Blown and Sand Blasted Glass with Metal Oars. H 11 W 20 D 6 in. courtesy: the artist

Thursday March 30, 2017 | by Hailey Clark

OPENING: Preston Singletary engages politics, the environment, in new body of work

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, New Work

Preston Singletary, whose blown and sandblasted works in glass channel his Native American heritage, brings a political edge to a new body of work to be unveiled in his upcoming exhibition, Premonitions of Water, opening April 6, 2017, at the Traver Gallery in Seattle. Singletary has explored traditional Tlingit iconography for much of his artistic career. Working with images and narratives from Native American people from Alaska and British Columbia, Singletary weaves traditional figures usually carved into wood into blown-glass works. Interviewed for an upcoming episode of Nature, airing on PBS on April 21, 2017, Singletary discussed in depth his portrayal of the Tlingit myth The Raven.

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Artists from the 2016 Residency at Salem State. courtesy: The Glassworks Studio at Salem State University Facebook page.

Wednesday March 29, 2017 | by Awura Barnie-Duah

CALL FOR ENTRIES: Salem State University seeks artists for its Rosenberg Residency

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Call for Submissions, Education

In June 2017, The Rosenberg Residency at Salem State University, now in its fifth year, will offer month-long access to its glassblowing facilities for four artists to pursue individual and group projects.

Dale Chihuly, Rose Blush Macchia Studio Edition, 2017. Blown Glass. H 6, W 9, H 9 in. courtesy: schantz galleries

Tuesday March 28, 2017 | by Hailey Clark

Released in limited variety each year, Chihuly’s Studio Editions offer more accessible prices

FILED UNDER: Announcements, News

Hand blown, smaller-scale, and created in multiples, each year's crop of Studio Editions reference some of the best-known unique works by Dale Chihuly, perhaps the best-known artist working with glass, whose signature adorns each one. Each season since 2012, the Chihuly Workshop has released four new studio editions, part of a series designed to offer Chihuly works at a more affordable price-point. These are available at galleries specializing in glass such as Schantz Galleries in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Philip Baldwin and Monica Guggisberg, Boat People, 2016. Blown and carved glass, brass hammered hull. H 20 W 105 D 19 cm. photo: alex ramsay

Sunday March 26, 2017 | by Hailey Clark

New work by Baldwin and Guggisberg at Sandra Ainsley Gallery extends ongoing boat series

FILED UNDER: Exhibition, New Work, News

Husband and wife artistic collaborators Philip Baldwin and Monica Guggisberg continue to explore the metaphor of journey in their exhibition Thinking in Glass that runs through May 6, 2017, at the Sandra Ainsley gallery in Toronto. Assemblages of blown forms gathered into water craft is not new to this artistic duo, who have been experimenting with boat vessels since their initial series, "Sentinel" in the mid-1990s.

Rachel Owens, Queens Giant no. 5 (Oldest Being in NYC), 2017. Broken glass cast in resin with steel. H 93, W 19, D 55 in. courtesy: ziehersmith, new york

Thursday March 23, 2017 | by Andrew Page

Rachel Owens’ majestic works in cast resin and glass explore globalization and endurance

FILED UNDER: Exhibition, New Work, News

Rachel Owens, whose previous solo exhibit at Zieher Smith Gallery in New York's Chelsea neighborhood was a pointed critique of consumer culture, turns her sharp eye (and shards of broken glass) to the pre-European American landscape, global glass production, and New York City history in a new body of shattered glass and cast resin sculptures. The exhibition, titled "Mother," is the product of taking molds of a 400-year-old tree in the Queens borough of New York City. Owens uses these molds to render sides of the trunk of the oldest-living being in the city in a wide palette chosen from shattered glass from surplus supplies of cheaply made bottles from China. Her work is an homage to the longevity of the tree, which likely predates the arrival of the first Europeans, and brings an environmental component in its reference to American colonization being driven partly by the overuse of natural resources such as wood in Europe. Owens' glass and resin creations soar skyward in a defiant majesty, limited only by the reach of the artist's arms in making the molds of her arboreal subject.

Artist Sarah Mizer at work in the studio.

Wednesday March 22, 2017 | by Hailey Clark

3 Questions for ... Sarah Mizer

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

Glass artist, Sarah Mizer, explores polarization, overindulgence, and nostalgia in her exhibition "Of Most Excellent Fancy," on view through April 1, 2017 at a project space in Laurel Park, North Carolina, that is the contemporary art component of a novel retail wine market called the Crate Project. Drawing inspiration from Vanitas Dutch still life imagery, and dialog from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Mizer created three groups of art forms that reside on individual walls. Each set of works evoke a sense of conflicting ideas, such as life and death, like Vanitas imagery, while incorporating her own experiences from her time as an artist residence at the Penland School of Crafts. In these three questions, Mizer expands on how her botanical studies mesh with 17th-century sources of inspiration.

Monir Farmanfarmaian, Third Family - Heptagon (Detail), 2011. Mirror, reverse-glass painting, and acrylic. photo: robert divers herrick. courtesy: the artist and haines gallery

Thursday March 16, 2017 | by Awura Barnie-Duah

OPENING: Iranian contemporary artist’s richly mirrored work featured at Chrysler Museum of Art

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, Museums, Opening

Kandinsky and Mondrian are two Western painters credited with pioneering the form of geometric abstraction. But artwork that focuses on patterns of color and shape rather than figuration goes back to ancient art forms, especially in Islamic Art, where depiction of religious figures has been carefully avoided in respect for the faith's ban on idolatry. The mirror sculptures of Monir Farmanfarmaian, an Iranian artist, bring together influences of Western avant-garde painting and centuries-old Islamic art in works of refraction and geometric abstraction. An opening reception this evening at The Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, will kick off an exhibition of Farmanfarmaian's work that will continue through July 30, 2017.

Pilchuck announces its 2017 John H. Hauberg Fellows, Tempestuous Commons. courtesy: pilchuck glass school.

Wednesday March 15, 2017 | by Malcolm Morano

Pilchuck announces a female-focused multi-media collaborative as 2017 Hauberg Fellows

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Fellowship, News

Pilchuck Glass School has announced its 2017 John H. Hauberg Fellowship recipients, a group called Tempestuous Commons, who plan to “explore the female form as a narrative tool for expression,” according to the announcement. Tempestuous Commons, a newly formed group of emerging artists working largely in mixed-media sculpture, is comprised of Ashley Berkman, Jade Usackas, Kelsie McNair, and Nadira Narine. Their Pilchuck residency, which provides living accommodations and access to all Pilchuck studios except its hot glass shop, will take place from April 26th to May 12th, 2017.

Tyler MFA graduate and faculty member Amber Cowan is the event's featured artist.

Tuesday March 14, 2017 | by Andrew Page

Co-chair Amy Lemaire talks about the more academic line-up at the 2017 Flameworking Conference

FILED UNDER: Education, Events, News

The upcoming international flameworking conference, which will run from March 24th through 26th at Salem Community College in Carney's Point, New Jersey, will be the 17th gathering of artists specializing in borosilicate glass. It will also mark a notable shift as many of the featured speakers and demonstrators are graduates of fine-art-degree programs, including the featured artist Amber Cowan. Throughout the programming of the three-day event which has recently featured highly skilled flameworkers such as Eusheen Goines (2016), Vittorio Costantini (2013), Loren Stump (2007), Cesare Toffolo (2004), a decidedly more academic tone is notable, starting with the opening-night lecture on the history of flameworking courtesy of The Corning Museum of Glass's reference librarian Beth Hylen joined by the museum's properties of glass programs supervisor Eric Goldschmidt. Featured artist Amber Cowan not only holds an MFA in glass and ceramics from Tyler School of Art of Temple University, but is also on faculty. Other presenters include Beccy Feather, Jacob Moskowitz, Zach Puchowitz, Ryan Tanner, and Kim Thomas, all of whom studied art at the university level. The GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet checked in with conference co-chair Amy LeMaire to learn more about the lineup for the 2017 event.

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.