JamFactory announces new juried prize for Australian and New Zealand glass artists

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Award, Call for Submissions, News

When the Ranamok Prize was awarded for the final time in 2014, New Zealand and Australian artists lost the region's richest award recognizing the best work being done in glass. Today, JamFactory announced it would step in to fill the void with a new juried glass prize set to debut in 2016. Carrying an award of AU$20,000 (about $14,300 in U.S. dollars), the new biennial FUSE Glass Prize was born out of a lengthy discussion between the Adelaide-based art center and prominent glass collectors Jim and Helen Carreker. The couple are the founding donors for the prize in addition to six other individual collectors and a foundation.

Tuesday December 15, 2015 | by managingeditor@glassquarterly.com

HOLIDAY SALE: For a limited time only, gift subscriptions to GLASS are half off

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Print Edition

This winter, share the gift of GLASS: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly with friends and family. Give the latest news from the field, lavish photography of stunning new sculptures, and critical insights into the most important artwork in the medium of glass by purchasing a gift subscription at an exceptionally low price. Existing subscribers can purchase a gift subscription of GLASS for only $17 (for U.S. subscriptions only) — half the standard rate.

Tuesday December 8, 2015 | by Andrew Page

GLASS magazine awarded National Endowment for the Arts funding for 2016

FILED UNDER: Award, News, Print Edition

The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded GLASS: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly $15,000 for 2016, part of $27.7 million in arts funding the government agency is distributing to 1,126 projects across the nation next year under its "Art Works" major funding category. The Art Works program has a "focus on the creation of work and presentation of both new and existing work, lifelong learning in the arts, and public engagement with the arts through 13 arts disciplines or fields," according to the NEA announcement.

Artist Ben Young at the Kirra Galleries booth at SOFA Chicago.

Tuesday December 1, 2015 | by Joanne Kim

A conversation with New Zealand glass artist Ben Young

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, New Work

The GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet caught up with Ben Young, a self-taught artist from New Zealand who was a recent finalist for the Ranamok Glass Prize. Represented by Kirra Galleries at the recent Chicago SOFA 2015 art fair, Young started out as a boat builder, but discovered glass a dozen years ago. He says he's found glass the perfect medium for his creative expression.

Tuesday November 24, 2015 | by Andrew Page

Hot Off the Presses: GLASS #141, Winter 2015-16

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Print Edition

The Winter 2015-16 edition of GLASS: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#141) is hitting newsstands and subscriber mailboxes this week. On the cover is a detail of an exuberant work by Tony Cragg, which was exhibited as part of the fourth iteration of Glasstress, a collateral exhibition at the 2015 Venice Biennale. Cragg is one of more than 150 contemporary artists who have taken Adriano Berengo up on the offer to come to his Murano studios to realize work in glass with the assistance of a team of highly skilled glass masters. Cragg exhibited work at the very first Glastress in 2009, his participation giving the event added prestige as he also represented his native Britain in the main Venice Biennale in 1988. Cragg chooses materials for their ability to behave according to a set of rules and processes, building up cross sections into sculptures that vibrate with rotational energy, which is especially appropriate for working with glass, something he's done since his early works with found objects. Cragg's untitled work on the cover is a fitting image for the new issue which features artists who embrace the material's unique properties and process in service of very different visions.

Thursday November 19, 2015 | by Andrew Page

3 Questions for .... Anne Petters

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, Exhibition, New Work

GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet: What are you working on?Anne Petters: I'm currently a visiting artist in the glass department at Southern Illinois University for the Fall 2015 semester. Being in the academic environment with access to so many art studios offers an incredibly valuable opportunity to reflect on my sculptural work, and to find new facets to a specific pate de verre printing technique I've been developing and teaching in recent years. I discovered this process on the search for a translation of a specific image I had in my mind, trying to picture and freeze transient moments of thought for my “Disegno” series in 2011.

Wednesday November 18, 2015 | by Andrew Page

CURIOSITIES: MIT’s Peter Houk interviewed about unearthed 1957 glass time capsule

FILED UNDER: Curiosities, Design, Education, Events, News, Video

Even before construction of the new nanotechnology lab at MIT has been completed, the facility is already yielding unexpected discoveries. Workers digging into the campus near Building 26 unearthed a sealed glass time capsule that had been buried in 1957 by students and their famous MIT professor Harold Edgerton (1903 – 1990), best known for his strobe photography that froze splashing liquid or the impact of bullets and explosions. The flameworked capsule stuffed with paper and scientific samples bears clear instructions not to open until 2957, or 1,000 years from its time of burial. In an official MIT video, director of collections Deborah Douglas talked about what remains enclosed in the sealed capsule. Whether it will be opened or not is unclear from the video.

Tuesday November 17, 2015 | by Andrew Page

OPENING: The new Glass Wheel Studio expands art offerings in Norfolk, Virginia

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

The Norfolk, Virginia, glass scene, dominated by the Chrysler Museum of Art Glass Studio, just got bigger with last weekend's opening of a brand-new multi-media art center last Saturday evening, November 14. Unlike the museum's program of demos and performances, the Glass Wheel Studio aims to "serve as an incubator for extraordinary ideas and aim to encourage artists across all disciplines to pursue and elevate their craft." (Disclosure: Glass Wheel Studio is an advertiser in GLASS Quarterly magazine.) As its name implies, the organization puts a special emphasis on work in glass but is open to artists working in all materials. The 8,500-square-foot facility features two rotating galleries and affordable artist studios. Each year, it will provide 13 visual artists an immersive studio practice program, which provides opportunities "for research, experimentation, and professional development." The inaugural exhibition features the glass work of Philadelphia-based artist Jon Goldberg, founder of East Falls Glassworks. Also featured is work by Natalie Abrams and Liz Berk. The

Monday November 16, 2015 | by Andrew Page

Today is the 100th birthday of the iconic Coca-Cola bottle design

FILED UNDER: Design, Museums, News

Even though aluminum cans and plastic bottles predominate, there's something about an ice-cold Coca-Cola served in its signature voluptous glass bottle that never fails to impress. The thick glass, shaped to perfectly fit into the hand and with raised lettering, telegraphs ripeness in its organic hourglass form. The patent for this design was issued on November 16, 1915, making today the centennial of this celebrated product packaging that is known around the world. The original design is referenced today in a variety of packaging materials for the world's best-selling soft drink. But it is in the greenish glass blottle that the form is most powerful, providing a visual and tactile sensuality that retains its power despite the proliferation of sophisticated package design in the century since. The story of how this quintessential design came to be is little-known and quite amusing.

Monday November 16, 2015 | by Andrew Page

AWARD: Therman Statom named as 2015 United States Artists Fellow, receives $50,000 prize

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Award, News

Therman Statom has been named as one of 36 United States Artists Fellows for 2015. With the honor, which includes an unrestricted $50,000 award, Statom joins the ranks of artists working with glass such as Beth Lipman, Sibylle Peretti, Judith Schaechter, Mary Shaffer, Joyce Scott, and Einar & Jamex de la Torre, all of whom have been honored by the organization since it was founded in 2006. The purpose of the fellowship is to identify "the most accomplished and innovative artists working in the fields of Architecture & Design, Crafts, Dance, Literature, Media, Music, Theater & Performance, Traditional Arts and Visual Arts." Though the organization identifies Statom as a "sculptor, glass artist, and painter" who is "most notably known as a pioneer of the contemporary glass movement for his life-size glass ladders, chairs, tables, constructed box-like paintings, and small scale houses; all created through the technique of gluing glass plate together," he, like the other artists working in glass who have won the award, is listed in the "Crafts" category.

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.