An image of Judith Schaechter with a taxidermy armadillo that was presented along with the presidents award in San Antonio, Texas, on June 4th. courtesy: judson studios / kyle j mickelson

Wednesday June 12, 2019 | by Gabriela Iacovano

Judith Schaechter, who bridges contemporary and traditional approaches to stained glass, is honored by stained-glass associations

Artist Judith Schaechter has single-handedly pioneered traditional stained glass as a medium for contemporary exploration, staunchly advocating for the celebration of decorative and craft arts in academia and beyond. At a stained-glass artist conference in Texas on June 4, 2019, Schaechter was presented with the first-ever joint president’s award (and a taxidermy armadillo) from the American Glass Guild (AGG) and Stained Glass Association of America (SGAA). In addition to recognizing Schaechter’s contributions to the worlds of stained glass and glass art at large, the award commemorated the consolidation of the two groups for their first joint summer conference, which took place in San Antonio, Texas.

Jane Rosen, Ladder Morandi, 2019. Handblown pigmented glass, limestone, and fossil limestone. H 72, W 69,D 18 in. courtesy: traver gallery.

Wednesday June 12, 2019 | by Meghan Hayfield

OPENING: Traver Gallery highlights art inspired by nature in two adjacent exhibitions

Adjacent exhibitions now on view at the Traver Gallery in Seattle feature work by artists Jane Rosen and Hiroshi Yamano, both of whom look to the natural environment in appreciation for the world around us. Though united in general interest, Rosen and Yamano use distinctly different approaches to glass and varied materials to illustrate a sensuous connection to the natural world.

Allan Wexler, Vessicles, 2019. Glass, fiberglass, plumbing fixtures. courtesy: wheatonarts

Tuesday June 4, 2019 | by Meghan Hayfield

OPENING: The third "Emanation" exhibition at WheatonArts brings fresh perspectives

The third iteration of “Emanation,” the biennial exhibition launched by former WheatonArts’ glass studio creative director Hank Adams in 2015, features a different approach as well as a new curator. While under the leadership of Adams, the 2015 and 2017 exhibitions brought well-known high-profile contemporary artists, such as Judy Pfaff, Donald Lipski, and Mark Dion, to the remote Millville, New Jersey, glass center to work with skilled assistants and realize new work in glass. The 2019 edition was overseen by independent curator Julie Courtney, Adams’ hand-picked successor to organize the exhibit, and she has focused on prominent but somewhat less well-known artists, many from the Philadelphia area where she is based. The resulting artwork is varied and sometimes unexpected, and overall offers a more youthful and spontaneous feeling.

Thursday May 30, 2019 | by Andrew Page

In Memoriam: Critic and Glass contributing editor Victoria Josslin (1946 - 2019)

Victoria Josslin, a critic and contributing editor to the print edition of Glass: The UrbanGlass Quarterly, died suddenly at her home in the desert Southwest on May 12, 2019. She would have turned 73 in December. Josslin divided her time between homes on Bainbridge Island outside of Seattle, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she began to live part of the year after she married her former high-school boyfriend David Margolin in 2011. She is survived by her husband, her two children from her first marriage, two of her younger siblings, her mother, and her granddaughter. Josslin was the author most recently of the Spring 2019 cover article "Intense Quiet" on the new series of glass-on-glass paintings by Dale Chihuly (Glass #154), and her insightful, clearly articulated articles and reviews had been a regular feature in Glass magazine since she began writing for us in 2007. Born in 1946 in Dunnigan, California, Josslin grew up in Washington State and later Arizona, where she played in a folk band in high school with her future second husband. Majoring in painting, she graduated from Occidental College in Pasadena, California in 1969, where she met her first husband, Richard Josslin. They had two children and moved to Bainbridge Island, Washington, in 1986. There, she would go on to earn her MA in art history from the University of Washington in 1995, and became a regular art reviewer for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. She also founded the successful arts blog Artdish.com, which she ran for five years. Josslin also spent a decade at Bainbridge Arts and Crafts, an arts center where she served as director of education and information until 2013. Just last year she published her first novel, The Bookstore of Other Languages.

Photo: Courtesy Johana Němečková

Tuesday May 28, 2019 | by Eve Aaron

A new source for cullet offers glass studios another post-Spectrum choice

In the Spring 2019 edition of Glass (#154), I wrote about the impact of Spectrum's decision to stop producing their nuggets (Reflection: "Back to Batch," p. 64). After the last of the backstock of Spectrum nuggets shipped in Summer 2018, the effects were felt across the industry, with one small Midwest studio shutting down and university hotshops retooling to melt batch instead. I briefly discussed Cristalica, an alternative source of cullet from Germany, but the international shipping costs and different chemical composition that affected its compatibility and performance seemed to be keeping it from being a replacement for Spectrum. Now a new product is hitting the market, one that promises Spectrum-like qualities, though the pricing is more on par with its fellow European producer Cristalica. This new cullet is being offered from Bomma, a Czech company that designs a variety of glass products, like Cristalica, so it has the existing infrastructure to produce bulk quantities of cullet. Working with American artist and entreprenur Charlie Parriott, Bomma has developed a recipe for a cullet with a low melting temperature that is compatible with Reichenbach Colors as well as other color manufacturers. We spoke with Bomma marketing director Eva Kozarová to get some more information.

Thursday May 23, 2019 | by Andrew Page

HOT OFF THE PRESSES: The Summer 2019 edition of Glass (#155)

The Summer 2019 edition of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#155) is hitting newsstands and subscriber mailboxes this week. On the cover is a collage of images from Mary Van Cline's "Documenta Project," an ongoing photographic quest to capture the images (and personalities) of the unique community of artists, dealers, and collectors who coalesced around glass as an art medium. In her cover article, critic and curator Patricia Grieve Watkinson writes: "Perhaps it says something about those involved in the Studio Glass movement that they are willing and used to collaborating with a fellow artist in a way that might expose their vulnerability, and that there are so many -- artists and collectors -- who are willing to ham it up in front of the camera for a slice of posterity."

Jeroen Verhoeven, "Bubble" Cabinet, 2017. Iridized borosilicate glass. H 102, W 92, D 72 in. photo: prudence cuming associates, 2017. courtesy: blain southern

Thursday May 9, 2019 | by Eve Aaron

CONVERSATION: Susie Silbert talks about the revamped New Glass Review 40, the catalog for Corning's "New Glass Now" landmark exhibit set to open this weekend

On Saturday, May 11, 2019, the landmark museum survey exhibition "New Glass Now" will kick off at The Corning Museum of Glass with a museum-members' premier, artist talks, and an evening party to celebrate the long awaited launch. Featuring work made over the last three years, the exhibition includes work by 100 artists of 32 nationalities, hailing from more than 25 countries. The show is being framed as the third in a series of era-defining glass-art exhibitions at Corning that began with "Glass 1959," followed 20 years later by "New Glass: A Worldwide Survey" in 1979. The effort to reconnect with these important predecessor exhibitions after a 40-year break is explicit in the introduction by curator of modern glass Susie J. Silbert, who cites both in detail in her introductory essay titled "New Glass is not New," which seeks to place this forward-facing exhibition in historic context.

Tuesday May 7, 2019 | by Andrew Page

Tale of Two Chandelier Dresses: Susan Taylor Glasgow responds to Katy Perry's Met Gala showstopper

The theme of last night's 2019 Met Costume Institute Gala was tied to its current exhibition on "camp," so the celebrity red carpet this year featured even more outrageous outfits than the usual star-studded fashion show. Pop singer Katy Perry, a self-professed fan of camp who has dressed up as a hamburger in the past, knew this was a special opportunity to pull out all the stops. In a New York Post interview leading up to the big event on Monday evening, Perry's longtime fashion guru Moschino creative director Jeremy Scott said "there probably isn’t a performer in pop history that’s used camp and humor more than she has. I have guesses at what people expect from us, but I’m trying to outdo those expectations. It’s going to be an eleganza extravaganza.“

Friday May 3, 2019 | by Lindsay von Hagn

CALL FOR ENTRIES: Six-week artist residency in Japan seeks applications

The Toyama City Institute of Glass Art (TIGA) in Toyama, Japan invites international glass artists to apply for its Artist-in-Residence program, now in its ninth year. The residency, which will last six weeks from October 17 through November 27, 2019, grants the artist access to the facilities of the Toyama Glass Studio, including the hot shop, kiln shop, and cold shop, to create new work. Works made during the residency will be featured in a solo exhibition at the Toyama Glass Museum at the end of the six weeks.

Amber Cowan, Dance of the Pacific Coast Highway at Sunset, 2019. Flameworked American pressed glass/mixed media. H 34, W 46, D 12 1/2 in. courtesy: heller gallery

Thursday May 2, 2019 | by Eve Aaron

CONVERSATION: Amber Cowan discusses her newest work debuting at Heller Gallery this evening

For her third solo show at Heller Gallery, opening this evening, Amber Cowan will present the latest iterations of her reimagining and reconstruction of vintage pressed glassware, which she remakes through painstaking cutting and fusing at her flameworking torch. Cowan's unique artistic process invovles travel, scavenging, and an ability to map out new landscapes of detail and decoration, elevating industrially produced decorative products into singular works.

Glass: The UrbanGlass Quarterly, a glossy art magazine published four times a year by UrbanGlass has provided a critical context to the most important artwork being done in the medium of glass for more than 40 years.