OPENING: Work by Kathleen Mulcahy and the late Ron Desmett featured at Florida glass art event

The late Ron Desmett (1948-2016) and his wife, Kathleen Mulcahy will both have their work featured at Alfstad& Contemporary, which will kick off the Third Annual Sarasota Art Glass Weekend on January 27th. A collaboration between Longboat Key Center for the Arts, a division of Ringling College, and Habatat Galleries of Michigan, the weekend event will include exhibitions, auctions, studio tours, talks by internationally-known artists, glass-blowing demonstrations, and private tours of the museum featuring glass. The event's opening reception will take place on Thursday, January 26th.

In 2001, Desmett and Mulcahy co-founded the Pittsburgh Glass Center and disproved naysayers by the art center's viability and growth over the years. The nonprofit celebrated its 15th anniversary last July. Mulcahy and Desmett remained focused on their individual art careers. Mulcahy has won many awards, including the 1982 Artist of the Year award from the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. With an MFA in glass sculpture and three-dimensional design from Alfred University, Mulcahy has used glass as one of several materials in her work.

Mulcahy's installation, entitled, "Steady Flow of Cool," was inspired by the Susquehanna River. She interprets the river's water by shaping hot glass into droplets of crystallized water, which she presents over transparent surfaces that meet to create luminous intensity.

While gaining accolades and having had a successful career of his own, the late Ron Desmett was also skilled in various forms of art, including painting and ceramics. He obtained a BS in art education from the University of Akron and an MFA in sculpture from Carnegie Mellon, which is where he met his wife. Some of his works have their permanent home in galleries and museums such as the Renwick, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Westmoreland Museum, and the Tacoma Museum of Glass.

Desmett’s "Hollowed Truths," which was created in his last days, consists of mid- and small-sized sculptures, inspired and crafted through nature. To create this work, he blew hot glass into the trunks of hollowed walnut trees to form the complex organic structures. 

Mulcahy’s "Steady Flow of Cool" and Desmett’s "Hollowed Truths" are both set to open at the Third Annual Sarasota Art Glass Weekend on Thursday, January 26th.

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