The closing night fashion show curated by the inimitable Laura Donefer (pictured in green wig) photo: miguel unson
Wednesday night is “Karaoke Night” at the Glory Hole Pub on Market Street in downtown Corning, New York (population 10,000), where the 39th annual GAS conference and its more than 1,000 attendees temporarily increased the size of the town by more than 10 percent. The evening of June 10th, as glass artists from around the country and the world began arriving for the start of the conference the next day, the framed old photographs of Steuben glassblowers on the barroom walls were joined by actual live glassblowers as the already crowded bar filled to capacity. The glass tribe were identifiable by their tatoos and ear plugs, as well as their exuberant embraces and enthusiasm for the $1 PBR can special.
The conference got underway on the morning of Thursday, June 11th, with demonstrations at various studios set up around the Corning campus and on a stage on the town center square. The opening ceremony at 1 p.m. that afternoon began with a welcome and an impassioned blessing ceremony by Native American artist and Faithkeeper G. Peter Jemison of the Seneca Nation, Heron Clan (a tribe native to New York State). After thanking Corning for hosting this year’s conference, GAS president Shane Fero presented the GAS lifetime membership award to John Leighton and the GAS lifetime achievement award to Marvin Lipofsky, both of whom would go on to give hour-long presentations about their work and ideas about art. Tim MacFarlane, partner at London-based architectural glass design and engineering firm Dewhurst MacFarlane and Partners, delivered the keynote speech during which he discussed new architectural applications of glass as a structural element for stairs, beams, and load-bearing walls.
Several empty tables in the technical display, which had been set up under tents in the Corning Museum of Glass parking lot, spoke to the economic difficulties being felt across the glass art field. But vendors seemed to be taking things in stride, even the flood that greeted them Friday morning after heavy rains Thursday night collapsed a portion of the tent. Things were back to normal by the 11:30 opening of the tech display.
As usual, there were a wide range of lectures going on simultaneously at various locations in the town center, at the museum, and at the corporate auditorium over at the headquarters of Corning, Inc.
Some of the highlights:
- A panel discussion moderated by Tina Oldknow about the most important survey exhibitions of glass at museums featuring Thomas Buechner, Paul Smith, William Warmus, and Jutta-Annette Page
- The Emerging Artists Lecture featuring presentations by Jung Sun Oh, Suzannah Vaughan, and Bohyun Yoon
- Irene Frolic on six fellow Canadian artists (Brad Copping, Susan Edgerley, Kevin Lockau, Lou Lynn, John Paul Robinson and Ione Thorkelson)
- Erwin Eisch on his career and personal history
The lecture that generated the most discussion was a presentation by Bruce Metcalf entitled “The Glass Art Conundrum” in which he argued that many glass artists who present their work as sculpture would be better off calling themselves decorative artists, adding that there was nothing wrong with that. Offering a quick sketch of a rigid hierarchy separating “fine art” and “decorative art” that he himself subscribes to (an accomplished metalsmith, Metcalf calls himself a jeweler and professes to be a decorative artist himself), Metcalf said that because most glass work is displayed primarily in people’s homes and lacks a conceptual framework, it is therefore not engaged with contemporary art and its makers should not aspire to being accepted as fine artists. Metcalf reserved special disdain for the work of Jon Kuhn whom he faulted for offering little else than the easy appeal of optical effects. Acknowledging that Kuhn’s work may be carefully made, he mocked the titles of the works and later returned to Kuhn as an example of an artist who appealed to a couple from Scarsdale, New York, he had met at a Museum of Arts & Design fundraiser and for whose taste Metcalf clearly had little regard. Metcalf wound up his presentation by citing examples of work in glass he did like, including pieces by Clifford Rainey and Judith Schaechter.
—Andrew Page