BFF and School Night, 'EZ on Them Tootz.' courtesy: pilchuck seattle.

Thursday September 15, 2016 | by Malcolm Morano

Leading glass school de-stigmatizes pipemaking, exhibits top makers’ work in Pioneer Square gallery

FILED UNDER: Exhibition, News

The cleverly-titled exhibition "High Design," on view at the Pilchuck Glass School's Seattle exhibition space through September 29, 2016, showcases the work of five glass pipemakers who are some of the best-known figures in a subculture of functional flameworking that is seeing increasing engagement with the larger glass art world. The exhibition was spurred by two factors. First was a 2012 ballot initiative to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, which removed some of the legal shadows that kept pipemaking officially or unofficially off-limits for many glass programs. The other was the personal initiative of Pilchuck artistic director Tina Aufiero, who has challenged the rejection of glass pipes, and even offered a class — “C’est une Pipe” — at the most recent summer sessions at the Stanwood, Washington, program that openly taught techniques for making marijuana paraphernalia from glass.

Laura Donefer's Blood Basket, is one of the works referencing the legacy of Canadian painter Tom Thomson, in this case, his environmental awareness.

Tuesday September 13, 2016 | by Andrew Page

Conversation with curator of glass exhibition in response to top Canadian painter

FILED UNDER: Exhibition, Museums, New Work

Curator Christian Bernard Singer, formerly of the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, has held the position of senior curator at the Tom Thomson Art Gallery in West Owen Sound, Ontario, since October 2015. He recently spoke with the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet about his current exhibition entitled "With a Destiny," which features work by Canadian glass artists Laura Donefer, Susan Edgerley, and Karina Guevin. Painter Tom Thomson (1877 – 1917) is arguably Canada's most renown artist, and he ushered in a new, raw style of landscape painting at the turn of the 20th century that continues to resonate through Canadian contemporary art today. The art gallery that bears his name houses one of the largest collections of Thomson's paintings, but its mission also includes connecting the artist's trail-blazing work to the latest contemporary art in a variety of media. The glass exhibition on view through September 18, 2016, finds a connection to Thomson's work in a frank exploration of the natural landscape, as well as meditations on the idea of destiny, according to the show's curator Singer.

Ione Thorkelsson, Fledgelings, 2010 photo: clay and glass gallery

Friday September 9, 2016 | by Ana Donefer-Hickie

OPENING: Canadian gallery features new sculpture exploring familiarity made strange

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, New Work, Opening

From September 18 to December 31, 2016, the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery will feature dual solo exhibitions by artists Lou Lynn and Ione Thorkelsson, both of him explore similar themes. Well-established glass casters that exhibit widely in Canadian galleries, Lynn and Thorkelsson's exhibitions will each display a combination of new and previously exhibited glass works that explore the strangeness in familiar things and question aspects of our present social reality. Lou Lynne's exhibit entitled "COMMON/unCOMMON" is comprised of works from her "utensil" and "fastener" series, works that re-interpret the familiar beauty of historical tools and household objects. Ione Thorkelsson, known for her unorthodox casting techniques, presents "A Natural History of Utopias," a grouping of sculptural castings that explore the imperfections of the ideals we project onto the natural world.

New MAD director Jorge Daniel Veneciano, an Argentinian-born scholar and curator, served most recently as director of El Museuo del Barrio.

Tuesday September 6, 2016 | by Andrew Page

Museum of Arts and Design announces Glenn Adamson’s successor as director

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Museums, News

The Museum of Arts and Design has announced that its next director will be Jorge Daniel Veneciano, an Argentinian-born scholar and curator who comes to the premier museum for art and design from craft materials from his position as executive director of another New York City institution, El Museuo del Barrio, which is dedicated to Latin American and Carribean art. Veneciano will succeed Glenn Adamson as the museum's Nanette L. Laitman Director, with a start date of October 3, 2016. In her comments, the museum's board chair cites Veneciano's experience and vision as keys to broadening MAD's ability to connect with a diverse population.

Heike Brachlow, Anima, 2016. Cast opaline glass. H 15 3/4, W 17, D 12 1/4 in. photo: ester segarra

Thursday September 1, 2016 | by Malcolm Morano

OPENING: Traver Gallery showcases two glass approaches in dual Thompson and Brachlow exhibits

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

For the month of September 2016, Traver Gallery is displaying new works by artists Heike Brachlow and Cappy Thompson. Aside from their shared use of color as a primary aspect of their work, they are otherwise strongly divergent in their approach to the material. This month's exhibition will see both artists exploring new techniques. Brachlow will showcase the latest works in her "D-Form Series" solid-glass sculptures whose forms were discovered through joining together two flat shapes with identical perimeter lengths. And Thompson will move beyond her prior body of vitreous enamel paintings to unveil a new series of transparent engraved vessels.

Antique Clichy close packed millefiori in pink and white stave basket paperweight. From the Rubloff Collection. Good condition, bruise to side. Diameter 3 1/4”

Thursday September 1, 2016 | by Esteban Salazar

Art Institute of Chicago to sell 400 paperweights from its permanent collection

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Auction, Museums, News

On Saturday, September 17th, 2016, Chicago’s L.H. Selman Gallery is auctioning close to 400 glass paperweights that had been part of the Art Institute of Chicago’s permanent collection. The artwork on the block had been donated to the Institute by Arthur Rubloff, Potter and Pauline Palmer, Ella Grace Burwick and Lucy K. Kretchmer. According to Benjamin Clark, CEO and owner of L.H. Selman, the non-profit organization helping to create awareness of glass paperweights as an art form known as The Glass Paperweight Foundation "will receive 100-percent of the net proceeds of the buyer’s premium.” (The buyer’s premium is an additional cost a buyer pays when they win a lot. In this case it will be between 20-25% of the hammer price.) According to Christopher Monkhouse, the Eloise W. Martin Chair and Curator, Department of European Decorative Arts at the Art Institute of Chicago: “The net proceeds of the sale of will be used towards to purchase of artwork for the Art Institute of Chicago.” Monkhouse also explains that “deaccessioning artwork is a very sensitive matter for museums, but in rare occasions they are forced to do it, particularly when the collection is too large or a substantial number of close duplicates are kept in storage.” Case in point, Arthur Rubloff regularly acquired entire series of paperweights for one specific item, this eccentric practice naturally added sizeable numbers of duplicates to his collection. In 2012 after the Museum expanded the Arthur Rubloff Paperweight Gallery many of these paperweights were sent to storage because great examples were already on display. The museum is putting the duplicates back the in the hands of the public.

Michael Schunke, Mixed Goblet Arrangement courtesy: the artist

Wednesday August 31, 2016 | by Ana Donefer-Hickie

OPENING: Michael Schunke’s Vetri show is gallery’s first dedicated goblet exhibition in a decade

FILED UNDER: Exhibition, New Work, Opening

Opening Thursday, September 1st, and running through the 2nd of October, 2016, a new exhibition at Seattle's Vetri Gallery showcases Michael Schunke's solo goblets (as distinct from his ongoing Vetro Vero collaborative project with partner Josie Gluck). Entitled "Time Well Spent: A Show of Goblets," the exhibit features over 100 of the artist's exquisitely crafted goblets and represents the first time in over a decade that the gallery will devote its showroom solely to the art of goblet making, "Time Well Spent" demonstrates how far Schunke's capable hands take the form not just as remaking historic forms, but as a form of individual expression. Internationally known for his mastery of the material, West Grove, Pennsylvania-based Schunke is known both for his dedication to the practice of making and his sophisticated eye for contemporary design.

Judith Schaechter, The Life Ecstatic, 2016. Stained glass lightbox. H 31, W 29, D 4 in. courtesy: the artist

Tuesday August 30, 2016 | by Andrew Page

OPENING: A conversation with Judith Schaechter on her upcoming New York City exhibition

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

Judith Schaechter, who employs the radiance of stained glass to present human figures arranged against lushly patterned color fields in poses of transcendence or anguish, will open a solo exhibition at Claire Oliver Gallery in the Chelsea area of New York City on September 8th, 2016. Entitled "The Life Ecstatic" the exhibition does not present radical shifts in Schaechter's approach as did her previous exhibition "Dark Matter," which saw a foray into three-dimensional sculpture, or her preceding site-specific architectural installation at the Eastern State Penitentary in Philadelphia, where she installed her works in narrow prison-cell windows. Instead, the upcoming exhibition, which runs through October 15, 2016, represents a return to her career-long project of updating the Gothic tradition of stained glass to plumb the intersection of spiritual longing and psychological torment from a contemporary perspective. Evident in the latest work is how her meticulous craft and expanding ability to render complex narrative works continues evolving in her most intricate and nuanced works to date. The GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet recently caught up with Schaechter for an email interview about her upcoming exhibition.

Chris Lebeau, executed by L. Moser & Söhne, "One-off pieces," 1926-1927. Glass. H 14 in. (tallest) courtesy: gemeentemuseum den haag.

Saturday August 27, 2016 | by Malcolm Morano

OPENING: Glass survey exhibition spanning 2,000 years set to debut in The Hague

FILED UNDER: Announcements, Exhibition, Museums, News, Opening

A sizable sampling of the holdings of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag’s two-millennia-spanning glass collection will be showcased in "Look! Glass," an exhibit of 400 glass objects from across history. A single, long table will tell the history of the drinking glass through some 200 objects, from Ancient Roman glass to contemporary vessels. The massive survey will be complemented by a selection of contemporary Dutch glass, a gallery of works by Italian glass maestro Lino Tagliapietra, and a display comparing and contrasting the forms across time.

Friday August 26, 2016 | by Andrew Page

Hot Off the Presses: GLASS #144, Fall 2016

FILED UNDER: Announcements, News, Print Edition

The Fall 2016 edition of GLASS: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly (#144) is hitting newsstands and subscriber mailboxes next week. On the cover is a work by Christina Bothwell who creates sculptural vignettes using cast glass and ceramic elements. In Bothwell's hands, the smooth, shiny aspects of glass are hidden by pocked surfaces or rubbing with oil paints to further dull the finishes. Undimmed is the ability of glass to capture and transmit light, creating a glowing effect that effective serves the work's central themes of transformation, dreams, and the passage of time.

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.