The Glass Art Society has announced a call for submissions for the recently created Technology Advancing Glass grant program. Generously funded by glass collectors Ted and Melissa Lagreid, the research grant of up to $5,000 will be awarded to an artist or group of artists to fund research into innovations that may benefit the glass art field. Ideas suggested on the GAS website include “new materials, production techniques, safe shipping techniques, new tools, adhesives, ways to create glass sculpture animated with electronics...”, but submissions are ultimately “limited by the imagination of [the] artists”. The winner of the grant will be required to share his/her research and developments at a subsequent GAS conference within the next three years.
This will be the first year of the annual grant, devised by a committee consisting of Ted Lagreid, Peter Houk, Director of the MIT Glass Lab, Wayne Strattman, a trained engineer and physicist as well as an artist working with glass, light, and energy, and Rik Allen, an artist inspired by his interest in science who aims to give his work “a sense of experimentation, invention, and exploration”, according to his artist statement.
“Ted and Melissa Lagreid wanted to give back to a community that has given so much joy to them,” says Glass Art Society Executive Director Pamela Koss in a phone interview with the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet. “Glass is undoubtedly a left-brain and right-brain medium,” Koss says, and the intent of the TAG grant is to create an “open source building block” with the potential to evolve through use within the glass community. The winning proposal “could be a new software that allows artists to see their designs before they go into the hot shop, or a new packing material,” says Koss, adding that GAS is excited to see what applicants come up with in the grant’s first year.
Members of the Glass Art Society are eligible to apply for the Technology Advancing Glass grant, and must provide the following:
Written description of the proposed project
Proposed budget and timeline for the project
Supporting materials: digital images of artworks, published papers, etc.
Two letters of recommendation
CV or resume
The deadline to apply is July 31. More information on the grant and submission guidelines can be found on the GAS website.