A luscious nebula of colors—pale tangerine, soft celadon, diffuse chartreuse, and intense purple—radiates off the cover of the just-published Spring edition of Glass. This chromatic universe is actually a close-up photo of a glass sheet handmade by glassblowing virtuoso Elliot Walker, who took top honors in the second season of the Netflix reality show Blown Away in 2021. Walker has been busy building his business in the years since, but a recent fascination with artisanal hand-made sheet glass was sparked by his discovery the skill had been deemed "extinct" in his native England. As the author of the cover article, Sahana Ramakrishnan, discovered in researching the article, Walker is just one of many top glass artists who have been exploring the fabrication of their own sheet glass, and she includes interviews with David King, Jocelyne Prince, Liesl Schubel, and Romina Gonzales.
Regular Glass contributor Ellye Sevier explores the career of Jason McDonald, a Black goblet maker who embraced the extreme challenge of Venetian goblet-making, where delicate symmetry can be achieved only by overcoming the unforgiving heat and brief time window the form remains pliable before cooling. Sevier discusses the additional challenges McDonald faced being a rare goblet make of color, and she frames his success as testament to shattering limitations, be they technical, societal, or personal.
Born in a Czech region with a legacy of extraordinary glassmaking, Martin Janecký didn't just master the rigorous technical skills that were taught in his father's glass factory, he pushed them further, developing new techniques of glass sculpting. Czech curator and academic Barbora Kundračíková acknowledges Janecký's prodigious skills, but also engages the challenges that come with virtuosity, and finds a new interpretation that resolves the tension in his work, allowing it to be seen as sculpture as well as craft.
For the issue's fourth feature, we look at Latchezar Boyadijev's journey from Bulgaria to the United States, with a stop in the former Czechoslovakia, where he learned from the cast-glass master Stanislav Libenský while studying at the Art Academy in Prague. More than a tale of defecting from Communist rule, this profile of Boyadijev is a story of finding one’s own way, both as an individual and an artist, against unexpected difficulties and extraordinary opportunities.
All this plus four reviews, major news, and a special back-page essay by John Moran on the artist's responsibility to hold a mirror up to society, not only in times of political unrest.
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