Formose (Formosa) Vase, designed by René Lalique (French, 1860–1945), made by Lalique et Cie, in France, designed in 1924. Gift of Elaine and Stanford Steppa. 2011.3.430.

Friday March 28, 2025 | by Sophie Faber

EXHIBITION: Tracing the evolution of glass color chemistry across the centuries

When Corning Museum of Glass curator Amy McHugh first walked through the Museum’s ongoing exhibition "35 Centuries of Glass," she expected to see changes in what colors could be achieved in glass as technology and knowledge expanded. As the years progressed, aesthetics and designs varied, as did coloring, but a pronounced shift in color around the late 19th century was enough to give her pause. Why were the colors suddenly so vivid? Why did they look so different from what had preceded them? A deep dive into Corning’s collections resulted in the upcoming exhibition, "Brilliant Color," an attempt to showcase the creative techniques of the golden age of glassmaking. Four curatorial groupings, ranging from “Spectrum of Color” to “Color Today,” invite visitors to view wall displays and interact with a variety of color techniques as they gain a new appreciation for the historical experimentation that brought us the vibrant hues we come to expect today.

Thursday March 27, 2025 | by Andrew Page

CONVERSATION: Sarah Traver on leaving Downtown Seattle for Traver Gallery's new waterfront location

If these walls could talk, they'd speak of the buzz of some of Lino Tagliapietra's biggest exhibition openings here, as well as the anxious anticipation at some of the Northwest Coast debuts of artists such as Martin Blank, Sonja Blomdahl, Dante Marioni, and Preston Singletary. After 32 years and hosting over 100 exhibition openings, the second-floor space overlooking Union and First Avenue stands eerily empty. At an intimate farewell party, the Traver Gallery's founder William Traver poured champagne while the staff gathered to toast this Downtown Seattle location where glass art had been elevated (literally and figuratively) for more than three decades.

Rock, 2023. Designed for Glasstastic by Sylvan Koicuba, age 11. Created in glass by Zak Grace. Photo by Joshua Farr.

Thursday March 20, 2025 | by Sophie Faber

Taking a page from The Museum of Glass, Vermont art center celebrates children's imaginations in colorful glass designs

Some 15 years ago, Danny Lichtenfeld, the director at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center in Brattleboro, Vermont, was browsing the bookstore at the Seattle Art Museum when a small green creature with blue wings and googly eyes caught his eye. The charming creature adorned the cover of Kids Design Glass (University of Washington Press, 2009), which told the story of a unique program at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, with photographs of fantastical glass creatures and essays by Ben Cobb, the hot shop director, as well as Dale Chihuly and a Harvard child psychologist who consulted on the program. Lichtenfeld was so intrigued he not only brought the book back with him to Brattleboro, but borrowed heavily from it to set up a similar program at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, where it debuted in 2010 under the name "Kids Design Glass Vermont" (though it was later changed to "Glasstastic," as it is known today).

2024 Tom Malone Glass Art Prize winner Gabriella Bisetto.

Friday March 14, 2025 | by Sophie Faber

Australian artist Gabriella Bisetto wins 2024 Tom Malone Glass Art Prize for meditations on skin

Gabriella Bisetto has been awarded the 2024 Tom Malone Glass Art Prize, which for 22 years has recognized the most important work in glass by Australian or New Zealand artists. As part of the prize, Bisetto's work is on exhibit through March 30, 2025, at Linton & Kay Galleries location in Cottesloe, Australia, along with the 17 short-listed artists. The Australian art prize provides $20,000 (roughly $12,560 in USD) as well as displaying the winning artwork first at Linton & Kay before moving into its final home at a state art institution. The artwork in question, This Skin I'm In #2, is a kiln-formed and carefully textured glass sheet doing its own striking impression of skin, undulating and catching the display room's light and shadow.

Nakakagamot by crystal z campbell, 2024. blown glass made with Museum of Glass. H 35, W 12, D 12 in. photo: ian lewis.

Thursday March 6, 2025 | by Sophie Faber

EXHIBITION: Saint Louis Art Museum features oversized glass vessels, multi-media work by Crystal Z Campbell

Glass figures prominently into "Currents 124," a multimedia exhibition by artist Crystal Z (sic) Campbell currently on view at the Saint Louis Art Museum. Blown-glass sculptures, referencing apothecary bottles that once had distinct shapes so that illiterate people could identify them by sight, as well as wall-hung works combining paper and fiber examine both the Black and Filipino histories, including how each have experienced colonization in different ways. The exhibition, which opened on October 25, 2025, runs through Sunday, March 9th, 2025.

Friday February 28, 2025 | by Sophie Faber

Multiple glass artists recognized as 2025 U.S. Artists Fellows and Louis Comfort Tiffany Award winners

Four artists who work primarily in glass have won prestigious art awards. In January, the United States Artist Fellowship named the winners of their $50,000, no-strings-attached award. The two glass artists included this year, Anjali Srinivasan and Jocelyne Prince, provide beautifully different approaches to glass that set an exciting tone for 2025.

A 2020 photo of Albert Young beside one of his sculptures in his studio at Michigan Hot Glass. courtesy: nolan young

Tuesday February 25, 2025 | by Kim Harty

In Memoriam: Albert Joseph Young Jr. (1951-2025)

Albert Young, the founder of Michigan Hot Glass, passed away at home on February 2nd, 2025, after a long battle with cancer. He was 73 years old and lived in Ferndale, Michigan, an inner-ring suburb of Detroit.

Thursday February 20, 2025 | by Sophie Faber

A look ahead to the May 2025 GAS conference in Texas, and the artist association's increasingly international vision for the future

Last year's Glass Art Society conference, held in Berlin, Germany, was the first to be held outside the U.S. since the 2018 Murano conference. The shift to Europe for last year's event was part of the organization's 2019 commitment to hold its annual gathering of artists at international locations more frequently, which GAS Executive Director Brandi Clark has presented as part of her vision of the artist organization. In fact, Clark told the Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet her goal is to hold the event outside of the U.S. every three to four years. For the 2024 Berlin Conference, she reports an attendance of just under 1,000. While the upcoming conference in May 2025 will take place in Texas, GAS plans to continue to focus on planning to hold events internationally, including the 2026 International Festival of Glass in the United Kingdom, which it will take over and run (See "Handover: The British Glass Biennale and International Festival of Glass in Stourbridge prepare to be taken over by the Glass Art Society, which will run the 2026 editions of both events" by Emma Park, in the Winter 2024-25 edition of Glass, #177). The venue for the 2026 GAS conference is yet to be announced.

Rago/Wright partner Suzanne Perrault. photo: bernard cortet

Tuesday February 4, 2025 | by Andrew Page

CONVERSATION: Suzanne Perrault on the state of the secondary market for contemporary glass

Since Rago/Wright formed a network with other auction houses such as Toomey & Co.and LA Modern, Rago partner Suzanne Perrault has seen a major increase in the volume and quality of glass art that she can gather to put up for auction. This is one reason that glass is no longer sold as a subset within marathon two-day design auctions, but has been given its own dedicated auctions, such as the one coming up on February 6, which will feature work from the collections of Dale and Doug Anderson, Morton and Rhea Mandell, and Mimi Livingston. The Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet spoke with Perrault about the decision to reschedule the upcoming sale, which had originally been announced as taking place in January, and asked for her observations of the glass field.

An informal photo Ginny Ruffner shared with Glass Quarterly in 2020.

Friday January 24, 2025 | by Andrew Page

IN MEMORIAM: Ginny Ruffner (1952 - 2025)

Ginny Ruffner, whose exuberant embrace of art, technology, and the power of imagination defined a life of overcoming obstacles and expanding the possibilities of expression through glass art, died at the age of 72 at her Seattle home earlier this week. Ruffner studied drawing and painting at both the undergraduate and graduate level at the University of Georgia (BFA 1974, MFA 1975), where she became intrigued by glass as an art medium after encountering Marcel Duchamp's paint-on-glass work Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (1915) in an art history class.

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.