Bay Area Glass Institute gears up for auction weekend, starting with preview tonight

The cover of the BAGI Great Glass Auction that will have its preview this evening.

From 6 to 9 PM tonight, the ninth annual Great Glass Auction to support the Bay Area Glass Institute will be holding its preview event at the Fourth Street Summit Ballroom in San Jose, California. In addition to looking over the donated artworks that will go up for auction during tomorrow’s main event, there will be a goblet grab in which patrons will vie with one another to get their hands on finely blown vessels and support a good cause.

Auction organizers told the Hot Sheet they expect 120 patrons to attend and $120,000 to be raised over the course of the weekend, on par with the 2009 auction results.

Among the highlights of tomorrow’s auction, from 6:30 to 10 PM at the Summit Ballroom in San Jose, will be the bidding for the biggest-ticket items that include a cut and blown vessel from Richard Royal’s “Diamond Cuts” series (estimate: $8,000), a flameworked sculpture titled Cyclone Expecting by Kathleen Elliot (estimate: $6,900), and Laura Donefer‘s blown-glass Purple Amethyst Basket (estimate: $4,200).

BAGI’s new executive director Mark Murai will be joined by auction co-chairs and dedicated BAGI patrons Allison and Steven Aldrich as hosts for the auction event that boasts some innovations to the well-established format of the glass fund-raiser. The auctioneer will be Joe Demarte of Kip Toner Benefit Auction Innovations.

The auction catalog, available for viewing here, is a high-tech online publishing marvel that is fitting for this Bay Area organization located in the epicenter of computer innovation. In addition, this year saw an innovative way the organization encouraged donations from artists. For the fifth year in a row, all works submitted to the auction were reviewed by a jury to ensure their quality and to offer the artists a chance at something in return besides the knowledge they are supporting a good cause.

“The Saxe Fellowship,” named for Dorothy and George Saxe who sponsor it, awards $2,000 and an invitation to be a 2010 visiting artist at BAGI to the artist who donated the best work in the opinion of a jury panel comprised of Dorothy Saxe, Maureen Littleton of her eponymous gallery in Washington, D.C., and Micaela Van Zwoll, of her eponymous gallery in San Francisco. Jenny Pohlman and Sabrina Knowles won this award for 2009.

In addition, there is a “People’s Choice Awards” which is awarded the night of the auction, which is the result of voting by all auction attendees. This includes a $1,000 award and an invitation to be a visiting artist.

Writing in the auction catalog, BAGI executive director Murai described a difficult year that the organization is happy to have behind them. “BAGI was not immune to the downturn felt in 2009,” he wrote. “However, BAGI will continue to push forward with new classes, a new strategy and new possibilities.” Murai made no secret of his ambitions for the organization when he wrote: “I intend to ‘push’ BAGI into the spotlight and solidify our presence as one of the premier Glass Art facilities in the Bay Area.”

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