OPENING: Traver Gallery features faculty work from innovative U Washington program

Mark Zirpel,Rain Organ, 2011, courtesy: Traver Gallery

The 3D4M art program at the University of Washington is as interesting and innovative as its name, which stands for Three Dimensional Forum. The work of five faculty members at the University of Washington are featured in a recently opened exhibition at the Traver Gallery that runs through April 1. The show will include a selection of ceramic, glass and mixed media sculpture by artists Doug Jeck, Amie Laird McNeel, Akio Takamori, Jamie Walker and Mark Zirpel—all faculty members at the University of Washington’s innovative art program that marries highly technical material study with high-level conceptual thinking. The mission of the 3D4M program is to explore concept, and critical dialog all while learning in a studio-based environment.

The BFA glass track is one concentration available to 3D4M students at the University of Washington, which operates under the motto “Acknowledge tradition, venture beyond.” In this program, students are introduced to a multidisciplinary, mixed media exploration of glass and its role in contemporary art. Focus is on the development of technical expertise as well as support of personal vision and a critical thought process.

Mark Zirpel,Rain Organ, 2011,glass with mixed media,courtesy:Traver Gallery

“[The artists] are creating a space for, and highlighting in their own work, the rich and increasingly fruitful dialog between traditional craft media and contemporary art, Sarah Traver director of Traver Gallery told the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet in an email exchange. “3D4M creates a space for the study of technique, but it demands more than expertise – it insists on a dialog that challenges the maker to consider the meaning and function of material in the development of their own sculptural language.”

One artist of particular interest who is showing at Traver is Mark Zirpel—assistant professor at the University of Washington and the first holder of the Dale Chihuly Endowed Chair in Glass. He also served as a faculty member and studio coordinator at the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. Most of his work is concentrated on the behavior of physical matter such as planets in a solar system. He often displays a convergence between art and science with mixed media and kinetic sculpture.

Some of Zirpel’s recent exhibitions include “Queries in Glass” at the Bullseye Gallery in Portland, Oregon, and a group exhibition titled Shattering Glass: New Perspectives, Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, New York.

—Suzann Caputo