courtesy of yaya website

Tuesday May 16, 2017 | by Lindsay Hargrave

Artist James Vella named glass studio manager of New Orleans nonprofit program

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Education, News

New Orleans-based artist James Vella, known for his strikingly realistic glass trout and delicate goblets, has assumed the position of glass studio manager as of May 1, 2017, at YAYA (Young Aspirations Young Artists), a New Orleans-nonprofit that offers classes and after school programs to local children and teenagers. Vella's full-time position will be responsible for duties formerly filled by two part-time employees, and this expanded role was developed in response to the organization’s growing audience and educational ventures in the New Orleans community.

Leana Quade, Release (video still), 2017. Glass panel and strap. courtesy: artist website.

Thursday May 11, 2017 | by Gabi Gimson

OPENING: Leana Quade’s anxiety-producing experimental glass projects on view in Pittsburgh exhibit

FILED UNDER: Curiosities, Exhibition, New Work, News

The Pittsburgh Glass Center has unveiled an exhibition by glass artist and self-proclaimed mad scientist, Leana Quade, best-known for her coiled glass springs and shattering a flat piece of tempered glass by ratcheting it into a tighter and tighter curve until it explodes. You can experience the nerve-rattling effect of her performance piece Release (2017) in the video below.

Dan Clayman, Mapping 16,000 Parts, 2017. Burned paper. collection: the artist

Tuesday May 9, 2017 | by Andrew Page

OPENING: Dan Clayman takes his glass panel assemblages to new heights in sculpture park exhibit

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Architecture, Artist Interviews, New Work, News, Opening, Public Art

With a rainy VIP opening on Friday, May 5th, and the sun breaking through for a Saturday "Meet the Artist" afternoon event on May 6th, Dan Clayman unveiled Radiant Landscape, a monumental new project installed at the Grounds for Sculpture's Museum Building in Hamilton, New Jersey. This large-scale work that rises two stories is made up of thousands of 22-by-32-inch glass sheets rigged together in an intricate but elegant engineering solution which presents three fields of glass suspended vertically, at a steep pitch, and horizontally. The individual components are in shades of sunset gold, clear, and oceanic blue glass. The gold and clear are adjacent to one another and interact as they diffuse light that filters into the building's large windows, altering its hue and connecting to the landscape outside, and revealing several of Clayman's mapped-boulder sculptures (named for the geolocation where the natural boulder was found). The blue color field is suspended horizontally, and, bathed in its aquatic hues, one cannot escape the feeling of being under the surface of a large body of water.

Erwin Eisch and his wife, Gretel, at the opening of "Erwin Eisch zum 90. Geburtstag”.

Thursday May 4, 2017 | by Gabi Gimson

OPENING: Erwin Eisch celebrated his 90th birthday with museum opening in Frauenau, Germany

FILED UNDER: Museums, News

The gallery at Glasmuseum Frauenau in Frauenau, Germany, is celebrating the life and work of seminal glass artist, Erwin Eisch with an exhibition that runs through June 30th. It opened on April 17th, on the eve of the artist’s 90th birthday. Glasmuseum Frauenau is a public museum founded by Eisch and former Frauenau mayor, Alfons Hannes in 1975, but the small Alpine town boasts a 500-year-old glassblowing tradition. Inspired by the international Studio Glass movement, of which he had been a pioneer, Eisch established the museum in his hometown to showcase the possibilities of glass technology and design.

Artist, Pinaree Sanpitak with her installation, "the Roof". photo: gabi gimson

Thursday April 27, 2017 | by Gabi Gimson

CONVERSATION: Pinaree Sanpitak on her newest public artwork that blends fiberglass and raw silk

FILED UNDER: Artist Interviews, New Work, News, Public Art

The Winter Garden at Brookfield Place (formerly the World Financial Center) is the site for a recently unveiled installation by renowned Thai artist Pinaree Sanpitak. A leading artist from Thailand, and enjoying an international reputation, Sanpitak was already an established multidisciplinary artist when she became intrigued by glass on a 2008 trip to Murano, Italy, where she collaborated with Italian masters to create several glass sculptures, She continued to work with the material, including during a 2014 visiting artist residency at the Toledo Museum of Art. Her most recent achievement in glass is on display at one of the busiest public spaces in New York City.

Thursday April 27, 2017 | by Awura Barnie-Duah

HELP WANTED: The expanding Pittsburgh Glass Center seeks a full-time development manager

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Help Wanted

The Pittsburgh Glass Center is accepting applications for the full-time position of Development Manager. The nonprofit art center includes a public-access glass studio, visiting artist residencies, an education program, and ambitious exhibitions. This brand new position has been created to support the glass center's expansion. The center has come to grow and develop its individual giving, corporate sponsorship, and new foundation support. As part of the job, the development manager will be responsible for a number of tasks that uphold fundraising. These tasks include, "researching new foundation prospects, grant writing, funder reports, individual donor research, cultivation, and tracking, corporate sponsorship and other administrative duties".

Ruben Toledo, Summer Heat Wave, 2009. Screenprint with hand painting. courtesy: pilchuck glass school

Wednesday April 26, 2017 | by Hailey Clark

Chrysler exhibition celebrates Harvey Littleton’s lesser-known innovation: vitreography

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, Museums, News

In her tenure as director of marketing and communications at the Pilchuck Glass School, Diane Wright became enamored of the little-known print collection in the school's archive of work made through the glass plate printing process known as vitreography. These are works in paper that are printed using a cold-worked sheet of glass as the plate, offering a number of advantages over a metal plate, including that it can be laid over the paper it will eventually be printed on during its creation, and it doesn't break down during repeat uses. Since she was appointed curator of glass at the Chrysler Museum of Art in December 2013, Wright had been looking forward to giving a platform to highlight this less well-known artform. "I wanted to be able to show them here in an environment where we have a strong focus on glass, but we also show a lot of other work," Wright said in a telephone interview with the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet. "There's this wonderful marriage between 2-D work that uses glass as a printing matrix and it also illustrates an interesting range of artists who who have worked at Pilchuck."

Sibylle Peretti, Pearl River, 2017.

Tuesday April 25, 2017 | by Hailey Clark

OPENING: Sibylle Peretti plumbs intricate relationships in nature with new body of work

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Artist Interviews, Exhibition, New Work, Opening

Sibylle Peretti a German-born artist who renders nature-inspired dreamscape will unveil a new body of work at her upcoming exhibition entitled "It Was Such a Beautiful Promise," where she explores a world of complex relationships and issues of survival. Exhibiting at Callan Contemporary in New Orleans from May 4 to June 25, 2017, Peretti’s glass panels are a continuation of her previous work, The Land Behind, where she explored the effects imagination has on creating space. Compared to her earlier work, which exhibits similar themes, the glass artist evolves her use of external symbols, (i.e., bees, vegetation, and crystals) to a different found object: pearls.

Thursday April 20, 2017 | by Gabi Gimson

Nikolas Weinstein’s Jakarta project pushes scale, and his design and installation team, to the limit

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Architecture, New Work, Public Art

UPDATED 04/27/2017

Artist and educator Katherine Gray, pictured with her installation "A Tree Grows," will be the keynote speaker at the 2017 conference.

Thursday April 20, 2017 | by Hailey Clark

Canadian glass artist association puts emphasis on community for upcoming “Re:Do” conference in May

FILED UNDER: Announcements, News

From May 25th through 28th, 2017, the Glass Art Association of Canada will hold its member conference, this time with the theme of "Re:DO." The concept is to urge artists to "re:think, re:inspire and re:connect" with both their peers and glass art, according to the event website. The keynote speaker will be Canadian-born artist and educator Katherine Gray, who teaches at California State University, San Bernardino. The theme of "re:connect" will be especially apt because this will be the first time the organization has convened its full membership since 2010. The planned 2013 event, which would have taken place in Calgary, Alberta, had to be canceled because of low projected attendance by the organizers, who cited financial struggles of glass artist members.

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.