John Luebtow and Stephen Edwards return to Los Angeles for an exhibition and discussion at the Craft in America Center

The Craft in America Center in Los Angeles, which is exhibiting a dual-artist exhibit entitled "Between the LInes" through May 25, will host a conversation with the artists John Luebtow and Stephen Edwards on Saturday, April 27 from 3 PM to 4 PM PST. Both in-person and streamed on Zoom and Facebook Live, the talk will bring together two prolific creators who shaped a legacy of glassmaking in Southern California, and who are regarded nationwide as influential educators and artists. Moderated by Craft in America curator Emily Zaiden, the discussion will provide perspective on the major retrospective of their work now on view at the museum.

Monday April 22, 2024 | by Andrew Page

IN MEMORIAM: Gerry King (1945 - 2024)

The sudden passing of prolific artist and educator Gerry King, who died of a stroke on April 18, has sent shockwaves through the Australian and international glass communities who knew and cherished a true pioneer in contemporary glass. In addition to building an impressive art practice over the past four decades, as well as his work as a teacher and mentor, King was a past chair and president of the board of Ausglass, and an honorary lifetime member. With work in the collections of many prominent museums, he recently was celebrated in a retrospective 2022 exhibition entitled "Towards the Finishing Line" at the National Art Glass Gallery of the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery in New South Wales, which was followed by a solo exhibition at Sabbia Gallery in Sydney that same year.

Installation shot of the SARAHCROWN Gallery exhibition "THE BUILDERS" photo: amy lemaire

Friday April 19, 2024 | by Andrew Page

CONVERSATION: John Drury discusses curating his New York City gallery exhibition exploring contemporary approaches to glass

Through May 11, unusual glass constructions have taken over the white cube of SARAHCROWN Gallery, bringing new forms and rare coloration. Collaborations by Amy Lemaire & Nicolas Touron occupy the center of the gallery, while works by Michael Aschenbrenner, and Jennifer Crescuillo round out the experimental nature of the various objects arranged on plinths or along the wall. Some of the works are made with the mediation of technology, as in the Lemaire-Touron collaborations that merge flameworking with 3D-printed porcelain, a dialogue between two makers, but also between the machine-made and hand-worked processes. Aschenbrenner's meditations on mortality, shaped by his experiences during the Vietnam War, contrast man's capacity for brutality with literal and figurative healing. Crescuillo's intuitive hand-built vessels and sculptures remind us of why we are drawn to the handmade, objects that reflect intuition and encapsulate time in their subject matter and making. The Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet recently caught up with curator John Drury (who is also a contributing editor to the print publication Glass: The UrbanGlass Quarterly) to find out more about his choices and intentions in grouping these artists together in a single exhibition. The interview was conducted via email exchange.

Monday April 15, 2024 | by Andrew Page

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Fall 2024 Toyama Institute of Glass Art Residency

The Toyama Institute of Glass Art, better known as "TIGA," is seeking applications for its 2024 artist residency. This program has been bringing international artists to Toyama City since 2020 as a way to promote glass art and the development of this center for glass in Japan known as "Glass Art City." The six-week residency offers a studio space for the duration of the residency, as well as opportunities to interact with art students and local citizens through artist lectures and demonstrations. It culminates in a solo exhibition at the Toyama Glass Museum.

Artists and friends Jason Christian and Dan Friday collaborated on Heritage Totem, blending their varied approaches to hot-working and transparent glass sculpture in a single work.

Thursday April 11, 2024 | by Andrew Page

A Seattle friendship takes physical form in Dan Friday and Jason Christian's Montague Gallery exhibition in San Francisco

Two different approaches to hot-sculpting glass find common ground in "Transparent Collaborations," an exhibit opening tonight at San Francisco's Montague Gallery that features work by longtime glassblowing friends Jason Christian and Dan Friday.

Hilltop Artists staff and students during a residency at Pilchuck Glass School, September 2023. Image courtesy of Hilltop Artists

Tuesday April 9, 2024 | by Jana Elsayed

At 30, Hilltop Artists takes stock of its decades of impact not only by empowering Tacoma youth, but inspiring others to follow its innovative approach

Hilltop Artists was founded in the heart of Tacoma, Washington thirty years ago with a mission to provide young people an artistic haven from the drugs and gang violence that were impacting the city in the 1990s. The initiative began modestly in 1994, repurposing materials like Snapple bottles to offer an avenue for self-expression through glass art. The initiative was led by gallery owner Kathy Kaperick and glass artist Dale Chihuly, and from this humble beginning, they proved the concept that glassmaking held special power to reach young people. Hilltop Artists would not only endure for three decades, but it showed the way for many similar initiatives around the United States, impacting generations of young people over the years.

A poignant documentary film examines the life and work of Paul Stankard, who set the standard for botanical compositions encased in glass. film still courtesy: paul stankard: flower and flame

Thursday March 28, 2024 | by Andrew Page

REVIEW: An exquisitely crafted film examines Paul Stankard's elevation of the paperweight form, as well as the life and times of the man behind the torch

The film Paul J. Stankard: Flower & Flame quickly sets itself apart from many documentaries about glass artists with its opening scene. With sonorous Baroque chamber music as the soundtrack, a close-up lens tracks across the artist's softly lit studio, passing over a pair of gloves on a workbench, plates arranged with botanical components waiting for encasement in glass, a library of color rods, and an unlit torch. Then the moving camera comes to rest on a set of hands poised to light the burner. With a bright flick of the sparker, the flame comes alive as the film begins, cutting away from the jet of flame to Paul Stankard himself, facing the camera in the first of many intimate interviews about his life and work that are inter-cut with archival images, shots of process, and experts who extol what Stankard almost singlehandedly accomplished -- to bring the botanical paperweight to another level.Art dealer Doug Heller, who has shown Stankard's work for decades, recounted his first encounter with Stankard's early paperweights and being impressed even though he disliked the genre in general."He transcended the paperweight world," Heller said. "Paul takes it somewhere else completely."

Giuseppe Barovier for Salviati. Granzioli Dragon Compote, ca. 1877–1914, Blown and applied glass. gift: marjorie reed gordon. courtesy: chrysler museum of art

Tuesday March 26, 2024 | by Jana Elsayed

With glorious glass goblets as the focus, Chrysler exhibition traces the triumphant rebirth of Venetian glass in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

In the secretive culture of Venetian glassmaking, craftsmanship became a whispered tale, a dance of techniques kept from prying eyes and kept alive against others determined to steal the techniques, or, later, against onerous taxation that practically destroyed the centuries-old industry. As you step into an exhibition showcasing 50 masterpieces from The Chrysler Museum of Art's collection, fine glassware festooned with imaginary creatures that might have surfaced from the depths of the Venetian lagoon, the fanciful figures could be seen as representations of the powerful techniques emerging from hiding places in and around Murano, the Venetian island where glass remains the focus. These imaginative embellishments of the glassmakers reached their heights among glassmakers laboring to reclaim the glory of Venetian glass in the 19th century as Venice was freed from the yoke of the oppression of the Hapsburg Empire. Knowing the history, these creatures unfurl like the secrets of a captivating story, weaving through the intricate threads of Venetian glass history.

Ros Lemoh residency in the studio [1.11.23] from Canberra Glassworks

Tuesday March 26, 2024 | by Jana Elsayed

Rosalind Lemoh showcases the untold stories of Australia's capital city in works that expand the historical narrative

Australia's capital city, Canberra, was established in 1913 as the former British colonies on the continent created a federation and began to establish a national identity of their own. The site itself was chosen to settle fierce competition between the cities of Sydney and Melbourne, both of which were vying for the honor. Located between the two large cities, Canberra would be built on a site that had been continuously inhabited by indigenous people for more than 20,000 years. The first public building constructed in the nascent capital was the Kingston Powerhouse, so named because it generated electricity as this city grew up around it, boasting a current population of nearly half a million.

A 2011 photo of Jeffrey Beers at an UrbanGlass gala celebration.

Wednesday March 20, 2024 | by Andrew Page

In Memoriam: Architect, artist, and longtime UrbanGlass board member Jeffrey Beers dies of cancer (1956 - 2024)

New York City-based architect Jeffrey Beers, founder and CEO of the successful hotel and hospitality design firm Jeffrey Beers International, died on Monday, March 18, 2024, from complications of cancer. Even as he built JBI into the global architecture firm it has become, and, with his wife, Connie, raised two sons, Beers found time to remain an active board member of UrbanGlass, which publishes the Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet. As an architecture student at Rhode Island School of Design, Beers had taken courses in glass with department chair Dale Chihuly, and, when he later moved to New York City, he continued to blow glass at The New York Experimental Glass Workshop before it moved to Brooklyn and became UrbanGlass.

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.