Mark Peiser, one of the founders of GAS in 1970, will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 conference.
The Glass Art Society‘s annual conference will take place this year in Louisville, Kentucky. From June 9th – 12th, the city will be awash in exhibitions, talks, and demos, allowing artists to exchange techniques and ideas, and offer collectors and artists alike a wide array of events that celebrate the best in contemporary glass. The title of the conference, “Ingenious Possibilities,” alludes both to the open-ended expansion and development of the Studio Glass movement, as well as the continuing rise in prominence of Louisville as a burgeoning center for glass.
Beginning on Wednesday with an all-day, open to the public “Day of Glass”, consisting of events in and around Louisville, the conference proper begins with an opening ceremony at 1:30 Thursday afternoon featuring keynote speaker Bill Samuels, president of Maker’s Mark Bourbon. Honored at the ceremony will be Mark Peiser, recipient of the 2010 GAS Lifetime Achievement Award (check out the Hot Sheet‘s exclusive interview with Mark here). Also honored will be Tom Philabaum, recipient of the 2010 Honorary Lifetime Membership Award.
Judith Schaechter, Clown Stinkubus, 1997. Stained glass. Promised gift: Adele and Leonard Leight Collection,
Not-to-be-missed events at this year’s conference include lectures by Andy Paiko (Friday at 2:15 pm), Judith Schaechter (Saturday at 1 pm), and John Drury (Saturday at 2:15 pm); demonstrations by Oben Abright & McKinley Moore (Saturday at 10:30 am) and Scott Darlington (Friday at 10:30 am) at the Glassworks hotshop, Dave Walters (Friday at 5 pm), Michael Schunke (Saturday at 8 am), and Matthew Cummings (Saturday at 10 am) at the Flame Run hotshop, and, most notably, Stephen Rolfe Powell (Saturday at 1 pm) at the University of Louisville Cressman Center hotshop. Powell, from his outpost as head of the glass department at nearby Centre College, was prominent in bringing studio glass to Kentucky where it had been virtually unknown.
Among the panels on Friday and Saturday, Fred diFrenzi will moderate a discussion with Ursula Vourvoulis and Jon Wolfe entitled “Artistic Vision in Industry, Design and Manufacturing”, Richard Yelle will moderate a discussion with Geoff Isles, Pike Powers, and Durk Valkema entitled “How Many Skills Do You Need to Survive”, and Eddie Bernard will moderate Charles Correll, Jim Gosnell, and Douglas Ohm in a discussion entitled “Glass Studio as Energy Source”.
Other highlights of the conference include the raffling off of a work by Italian glass blower Lino Tagliapietra at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft. The raffle is open to the public and tickets can be purchased at the museum. Also of interest are John Miller’s supersized glass renditions of ballpark food, showing at the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory.
*An important note: due to limited pre-registrations, all GAS pre-conference tours have been canceled. Contact GAS for information on how to have your ticket prices refunded.
—Lee Gaizak Brooks
IF YOU GO: Glass Art Society 40th Annual Conference June 9th-12, 2010 Louisville, KY Website: www.gaslouisville2010.org