The Irvin Borowsky Prize in Glass Arts, a $5,000 award and artist residency organized by the University of the Arts since 2013, has been awarded to glass artist Matthew Szösz for 2015. Designed to recognized "an artist whose work advances the field of contemporary glass art," the recipient is also given a residency at the Philadelphia university's studios, and is invited to give a talk, which Szösz will deliver on November 12, 2015. This year, two additional Jurors' Awards were announced, going to the Chrysler Museum of Art Glass Studio programming director and manager Charlotte Potter and artist-educator David King.
Szösz has earned three degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design -- a B.F.A., a B.I.D. (Bachellor's in Industrial Design), and an M.F.A. in Glass. The recipient of the 2009 Jutta Cuny-Franz Memorial Award and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant, he has had residencies and teaching stints at major centers for glass art around the U.S. and abroad. He also served as the executive director of Pulic Glass in San Francisco, and currently resides in Seattle.
Szösz wrote in a statement to the Borowsky jury: “I am interested in what we can learn about who we are from the way we make and relate to objects, and through them ideas. I believe clues to individual and cultural identity can be found within the context of what and why we produce artworks. I am a constant experimenter with material. My greatest friend and teacher in these experiments is failure. Each new disaster brings new questions and new knowledge, whereas a predicted outcome only confirms knowledge already gained.”