Paul Marioni, Richard Marquis, and Paul Stankard prepare for central role in WheatonArts’ 50th anniv

Creative Glass Center of America’s Studio Creative Director Hank Adams (L) and Jack Larimore casting.

UPDATED 6-28-12 Many of the celebrations taking place in 2012 to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1962 Toledo Museum of Art workshops are in the form of museum exhibitions, where a half-century of work is collected, curated, and presented in various configurations. This coming weekend at WheatonArts in Millville, New Jersey, the innovative spirit of those early pioneers is being celebrated not through a static exhibition but through a real-time performance that brings together artists from around the United States to take part in an interactive art-making event under the benevolent control of artist and Creative Glass Center of America studio creative director Hank Adams. About 90 attendees to the event, which is open to the public with the standard $10 WheatonArts admission, are confirmed, and many others are expected.

The virtuosic whimsy of Richard Marquis, as we see in this piece entitled Siesta with Black and Grey Cylinder, will be in full force this weekend during a special interactive event at WheatonArts that will celebrate the innovative energy of the Studio Glass movement through the creative collaborative process.

In honor of the 50^th anniversary of Studio Glass, visitors to WheatonArts will be feasting on improvisational artwork and fine cuisine in an event being billed as “Summer Celebration: 50/Forward.” There will also be a screening of the film The Toledo Workshop Revisited (1962 – 2012) that documents a commemorative artist residency at the Toledo Museum of Art honoring the 50th anniversary of Studio Glass. Jeff Mack, studio manager at the Glass Pavilion where the residency took place, and Andrew Page, director of the Robert Minkoff Foundation that co-sponsored it, will be on hand to introduce the film and take questions. (Disclosure: Andrew Page is also the editor of the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet)The action-packed three-day event set to take place this coming weekend in Millville, New Jersey, promises glass demonstrations, presentations, and exhibitions exploring the spirit of innovation and strong teamwork that have defined a half-century of creative expression in glass. A special dinner celebration reserved for the invited artists and Wheaton-Arts high-level supporters will take place under the stars if weather permits on Saturday evening.

Hank Adams and Paul Stankard, a longtime supporter of the Creative Glass Center of America and one of its founders in an undated photo.

The goal is to honor the history of Studio Glass with an event that looks as much forward and backward, hence the title “50/Forward.” It promises to be a weekend of collaborative studio demonstrations by a multi-generational range of artists identified as “first-” and “second-generation” artists working with a group of up-and-coming younger practitioners in the WheatonArts glass studio throughout the weekend. They include the current group of Creative Glass Center of America Fellows as well as assistants and interns.

The glass artists working in the studio during the “Celebration” include Paul Marioni, Dick Marquis, Paul Stankard, Hank Adams, Tina Aufiero, Deborah Czeresko, Stephen Paul Day, Jim Harmon, Pike Powers, and Mark Zirpel. The precise times these artists will give their respective demonstrations have yet to be determined.

Three exhibitions will be on display and open for viewing over the long weekend: Pioneers of American Studio Glass: Edris Eckhardt, “Maurice Heaton, Frances and Michael Higgins,” containing works from Museum of American Glass, and “Celebrating 50 Years: American Studio Glass,” with selected works from the Museum of American Glass; and The Fire Continues, an American Studio Glass Artists invitational exhibition.

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