GASnews Summer 2019

GASnews

SUMMER 2019 VOLUME 30 ISSUE 2

INSIDE

3 Letter from the President 3 Letter from the Editor 4 Mending the Blue Marble 7 Material Matters: Sand and Ash, Silica and Flux 10 Put Your Hands Together - GASnews Interview: CUD 12 Building with Fire 16 The Denizli 5th International Glass Biennale 18 Venetian Influence - Rakow Interview:

Crawford Alexander Mann III

20 GAS Resource Links Cover: A detail of Anne Vibeke Mou’s a story of its own telling showing diamond point engraving on blown glass made with potash extracted from trees and Devonian tree fossils from the Gilboa Fossil Forest. Photo: John McKenzie.

GAS news

GASnews is published four times per year as a benefit to members.

Glass Art Society Board of Directors 2018-2019

Contributing Writers: Jennifer Detlefsen, Shane Fero, Mikki Smith, Phoebe Stubbs, Caitlin Vitalo Editor: Michael Hernandez Graphic Design: Ted Cotrotsos*

President: Natali Rodrigues Vice President: Nadania Idriss Vice President: Jessica Jane Julius Treasurer: Heather McElwee Secretary: Caitlin Vitalo

Staff Brandi Clark, Executive Director Kristen W. Ferguson, Operations & Program Manager Helen Cowart, Office and Membership Manager Cathy Noble-Jackson, Part-time Bookkeeper *part time/contract

Kelly Conway Matt Durran Glen Hardymon Mike Hernandez Nadania Idriss Jeff Lindsay Lynn Read Debra Ruzinsky Masahiro Nick Sasaki Jan Smith Demetra Theofanous David Willis Caitlin Vitalo (Student Representative)

2208 NW Market St., #200, Seattle, WA 98107 USA Phone: 206.382.1305 Fax: 206.382.2630 E-mail: info@glassart.org

Web: www.glassart.org

Š2018 The Glass Art Society, a non-profit organization. All rights reserved. Publication of articles in this newsletter prohibited without permission from the Glass Art Society Inc. The Glass Art Society reserves the right to deny applications for Tech Display, advertising participation, GAS membership or conference participation to anyone for any reason.

2

GASNEWS

SUMMER 2019

VOLUME 30, ISSUE 2

PRESIDENT’S LETTER My dear fellow members,

This issue of GASNews addresses a topic close to my heart: place. Place is kind of a wonderful idea, not only speaking to localities, culture, history and people but also of art and craft making. As a topical theme, placemaking has moved to the forefront of craft discourse. It often has a social and/ or political aspect to it. Placemaking is often folded in with the social practices allowing for artworks and experiences that invite the public in to participate rather than just to look. These practices celebrate the local while including a broad range of secondary themes like community building, public action, environmental issues, etc. The artists herein follow the spectrum including CUD and their public practice, the rhizomatic and community approach to “greening up” the Orrefors glass midden, and others.

We have been extremely fortunate with all of the wonderful locations and places we have had our conferences, and by holding next year’s conference in a seminal site like Småland (Sweden) presents us with so many opportunities. There’s lots to be excited about with this conference above beyond the fact that every corner has a rich and deep history of glass and glass making.

The hub for the conference will be in Kosta, where the factory still produces Orrefors, Kosta, Boda designs. Kosta is in the middle of the Kingdom of Crystal acting as a gatewate to the towns of Boda, Målerås, Orrefors, and Pukeberg, all of which are an easy 20 minutes apart. Be prepared to spend a bit more time in the region as the conference will only scratch the surface of what is possible to see and experience.

The company of Orrefors Kosta Boda has had a long history of working collaboratively with artists and designers both to produced production lines but also as a space for artistic innovation. Bertil Vallien and Ulrica Hydman-Vallien are perhaps the most wellknown of these artists in North America, but scratch the surface a little bit in other names come forward, like Jan Erik Ritzman, Micke Johansson, Tyra Lundgren, etc. We should also not forget the development of the graal by Knut Bergqvist and Heinrich Wollman and designed for by Simon Gate. In addition to the historical makers are some very interesting new makers and artists that you will all get to meet and experience in Sweden, like Hanna Hansdotter who uses a hinged metal blow mold to in such a marvelous way. The region is so steep in glass making you’ll also be able to visit the Kosta pot makers who make all the furnace pots for the factory by hand.

I look forward to seeing you all in Sweden, All the best,

Natali Rodrigues, President, Board of Directors

G A S N EE W W SS

SWUIM NM T EE R R 2019 4

VVO OLLUUMMEE 3205, , I ISSSSUUEE 2 4

EDITOR’S LETTER A locality often defines the historical traditions of glassmaking, consider the associations made with Mesopotamian, Venetian, or Scandinavian glass. While the places of historic and contemporary glassmaking often give identity to their communities, artists and leaders examine and activate those places through environmental recovery, community and individual rehabilitation, and the examination of historical trends and material resources responsible for developments in the field. The Summer issue of GASnews explores the theme of Place in broad and nuanced ways.

Writers delve into a host of ways that artists engage with, respond to, and create Place.

Place is a complex and complicated topic in modern societies. Technology, communication, and the resulting social dynamics have influenced rapid transformations in the way that we engage with the world on both local and global platforms.

As outlined by Jennifer Detlefsen’s article, the glass studio has become a place where social and physical interaction can facilitate growth and counteract the effects of trauma.

Since the earliest glass makers sourced sand, locating reserves with the quality and abundance necessary for enterprise was essential. Awareness of the planet’s limited material resources has caused artists to consider the perils of current methods for product manufacture. Phoebe Stubbs’ timely piece highlights the work of Atelier NL and Anne Vibeke Mou, who are bringing attention to historic production through practices that embrace specific regional geologies and the resulting qualities of glass.

It should come as no surprise that concerns over the environmental impact of glassmaking are ubiquitous within our community. Appropriate to our theme of Place, Caitlin Vitalo describes the efforts around the Småland region of Sweden to remedy toxic pollutants left behind by the oncebooming glass industry.

This issue focuses on artistic practices that seek to unite people and engage communities. Writers explore the ways that glassmaking has given identity to places around the world and vice versa. I hope this issue inspires forwardthinking ideas influenced by the individuals and locations explored within its pages, looking not only at the impact that the places we work and create have on us, as makers, but also the impact we have on those places in return.

Michael Hernandez GASnews Editor

3

MENDING THE BLUE MARBLE

by Caitlin Vitalo Apollo 17’s iconic 1972 image, “Blue Marble” depicts our planet – our place – floating in the limitless expanse of the universe. This visual puts into perspective our dependence on Earth for survival and provides a reminder of our responsibilities in the reciprocal relationship we have with our planet. We, as a community focused on glass, have been provided with abundant raw materials, specifically silica, soda ash, and limestone. Glass chemists and engineers have combined these raw materials with ingenuity to explore glass and all its possibilities. In our community's proclivity to expand on what the material can do in the visual and physical manifestation of ideas, enhancing techniques and facilities, we are only recently beginning to address our approach to glass, and its processes are poisoning our planet. While glass affords the world many beneficial innovations, from passive solar to safe and sterilized surfaces, the next steps forward must address our mistreatment of the place that gave us the opportunity to work with this versatile material in the first place.

Many methods used in glass production negatively impact our environment.

Elements often used in the manufacturing of glass such as silica, soda, lime, lead, and boron, while abundant in supply, are nevertheless non-renewable natural resources. Their use is often without regard for their finite supply or consideration of the effort expended to acquire them. Glass also requires a significant amount of energy to transport and melt. The burning of natural gas to transform raw materials into glass, and for its use in molten form, emits a substantial amount of CO2, a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere far longer than other greenhouse gas.1 In addition to CO 2 emissions, chemicals used to create glass color, such as cadmium, manganese, lead, and arsenic, can end up in the air and soil during glass production or when disposed of improperly.2 These

4

View of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon.

Image courtesy NASA Johnson Space Center

byproducts of glass production create serious lasting health risks for workers, surrounding populations, and can even destroy environmental stability.

Glass facilities across the globe are beginning to address the unsustainable methods and practices of glass production.

Sweden, the host of the 2020 GAS Conference, is actively addressing the environmental pitfalls of its industrial past including its glass factories in the southern region of Småland, also referred to as the “Kingdom of Crystal.” Småland became the center of glass production in Sweden when new glass factories took over defunct ironwork sites. Glass factories in Småland such as Kosta, Pukeburg, and Orrefors were founded in the 18th and 19th centuries aided by the region's abundant available natural resources of wood and water; the latter closed its doors in 2012.3 The glass produced at these factories, celebrated for its high-quality crystal, also had a

GASNEWS

disturbing impact on the surrounding environment.

Many of Småland's factories disposed of raw materials and unsorted waste by dumping it on the factory grounds and throughout the surrounding villages. As a result, recent tests on soil and glass waste, specifically from Pukeburg's dump sites, revealed that high levels of lead, zinc, arsenic, and barium had been leaching into the ground around the factory. Many of these heavy metals are known to contribute to cancer in humans, thus making the findings concerning for both the environment and the surrounding communities. The first proposed solution to address the hazardous contamination was to remove the waste and polluted soil and move it to specialized landfills.3 This process would not only be expensive, but it overlooked the possibility of recycling these resources into reusable raw materials.

Research has provided alternative

SUMMER 2019

VOLUME 30, ISSUE 2

solutions to landfilling, and promising results have been reported in processes like lead extraction and phytoremediation.

Preventative efforts are also being pursued, such as hydrogen-fired furnaces, energyefficient melting processes, and off-grid glass studios.

Studies into lead extraction through reduction melting are currently taking place in Pukeberg. This research will help to determine the success and practicality of this type of lead extraction to mitigate the effects of contamination from glass waste. In essence, the process of chemical extraction from glass waste is as follows: toxic glass waste collected from factory dumpsites is crushed into a powder, the crushed glass is then mixed with sodium carbonate to lower its melting point, the powdered glass and sodium carbonate mixture is melted in a furnace at 1100 °C (about 2000 °F) for around two hours, and, lastly, once the glass is cooled, trace elements become visible and can be manually removed. Extracted materials like lead, cadmium, and arsenic can then be recycled as they are in the battery industry.4 Glass waste that had been disposed of improperly can be reused as raw material after the toxic substances are extracted. More research needs to occur to determine the full efficacy and usability of the glass post-extraction. This process circumvents moving materials to a dumpsite never to be used again; instead, the materials can become part of a wasteless circular economy.

Another environmentally friendly technique, called phytoremediation, is being used to reverse pollution created by, the now-closed, Orrefors glass factory in the village of Orrefors. Phytoremediation is the use of plants to reduce the amount of heavy metal pollution in soil. It is an alternative to chemical soil clean-up, which is much more expensive than phytoremediation and is also destructive to the surrounding ecosystems. The Phytoremediation

GASNEWS

SWUI M N TMEERR 22001149

Mapping of the glass dump using geophysical methods to find glass for future recovery.

Photo: William Hogland, Professor of Environmental Engineering and Recover at Linnaeus University, Sweden

MSc and PhD students from Baltic Countries participate in a course that includes sorting soil and glass from glass dumps. In one such course students were from 17 different nationalities allowing knowledge of the process to spread as students bring the knowledge back to their home countries and become teachers.

V VO O LL U UM M EE 23 50 ,, II SS SS U U EE 42

5

Park at Orrefors provides a communitybuilding experience for students and the surrounding population and has created a space for newly immigrated people to integrate into the community and introduce themselves to their new home's language and culture.5 The phytopark also offers visitors the opportunity to learn about this environmental process and enjoy the aesthetics of the park with plants like sunflowers, hops, and dill that specifically clean soil of lead, arsenic, and cadmium.

The park at Orrefors officially opened in July 2017 and has already seen thousands of visitors.

As our community moves towards the future, addressing the environmental impacts of the past is an immediate necessity. Investing in proactive solutions and embracing the positive ecological uses of glass in society will affirm the

Students watering sunflowers at Orrefors Phytopark. Photo: William Hogland

sustainability of glass and all it has to offer.

Changes to standard practices in glass production are occurring all over the globe, not just in Sweden, and they deserve our acknowledgment and support. It is also the consumer's responsibility to be aware of how materials are sourced and disposed of after use. Our solitary blue marble contains multitudes, and in order to support the diversity on this planet, we must be willing to adapt and grow in ways that are sustainable, positive, and community-based.

Notes: 1. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Carbon Dioxide Emissions,” Overview of Greenhouse Gases (2019) , https://www.epa.gov/ ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases (accessed June 2019).

2. International Agency for Research on Cancer, “Beryllium, Cadmium, Mercury, and Exposures in the Glass Manufacturing Industry,” IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans 58 (1993): 35-36.

6

GASNEWS

3. “A short History of Swedish Glass – how a nation conquered the world,” http://www.glassfrom sweden.com/history-of-swedish-glass.html (accessed June 2019).

4. Yahya Jani, and William Hogland, “Reduction melting extraction of trace elements from hazardous waste glass from and old glasswork’s dump in the southeastern part of Sweden,” Environmental Science and Pollution Research 24:34 (2017): 26341-26343. doi: 10.1007/ s11356-017-0243-4.

5. Jani, and Hogland, “Reduction-melting extraction of trace elements from hazardous waste glass f rom and old glasswork’s dump in the southeastern part of Sweden,” 26347-26348.

6. Kristine Valujeva et al., “Phytoremediation as a tool for prevention of contaminant flow to hydrological systems,” Research for Rural Development, 1:24 (2018): 189-190, 192. doi: 10.22616/rrd.24.2018.029.

Caitlin Vitalo is the Student Representative for the GAS. She is a recent MFA graduate from the Tyler School of Art & Architecture, and currently Education Coordinator at the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, NJ.

SUMMER 2019

VOLUME 30, ISSUE 2

MATERIAL MATTERS: SAND AND ASH, SILICA AND FLUX

by Phoebe Stubbs Though we all know that glass is comprised largely of silica and flux, in a contemporary glass studio it’s possible to imagine that the raw material for glassblowing is simply a uniform, man-made element divorced entirely from a geographical place – a glass batch. We have little cause to give thought to either the geological or historical conditions required for glass’s existence, or its complex material relationship to place. Recent archeological theories about Roman glass production suggest that, rather than using local sand from the myriad sites where glass kilns have been unearthed, the Romans had several centers for cullet or batch production on the Eastern Mediterranean where the clean white sand was optimal for transparent glass. The sand was then traded all over the Empire to glassware producers who heavily recycled the glass. Even 2000 years ago, glass as a product was quite divorced from the places from which its materials derived.1 Several contemporary artists and designers are turning their attention to connections of resources and place in making work that deals with the raw materials of glass. Two projects that investigate the key components of glass manufacture, silica and flux, are the work of Atelier NL and Anne Vibeke Mou, respectively. Their works act as reminders of the complexity of place in glass related to the earth’s resources we share.

Atelier NL, design duo Nadine Sterk and Lonny van Ryswyck, has a deep engagement with raw materials. An ongoing project addressing glass uniformity, called ‘To See a World in a Grain of Sand,’ asks global participants to collect small bottles of sand in places local to them, and send it to Atelier NL, who work with glassmakers to melt it, creating a library of samples. The color palette produced from the different sand types demonstrates that sand is anything but uniform. When melted, these samples produce little pools of color and

GASNEWS

SWUI M N TMEERR 22001149

A collection of bottles sent by participants in the project To See a World in a Grain of Sand by Atelier NL. Sand samples from different geographical locations demonstrate the huge variations in the material. Photography (c) Blickfänger.

A selection of melted 'wild glass' samples, made from sand samples collected by participants in Atelier NL's project To See a World in a Grain of Sand.

texture varying from pale turquoise to dark brown. The collection represents mineral and metal deposits, painting a geological picture of the earth. We don’t think of sand as a depleting resource, but as Atelier

V VO O LL U UM M EE 23 50 ,, II SS SS U U EE 42

NL’s project beautifully illustrates, that is because we tend to misunderstand the complexity of the material and the scarcity of locations and types of sand used for the glass we melt.

5 7

A detail of Anne Vibeke Mou's a story of its own telling showing the waldglas style beakers arranged in the pattern of the Devonian tree forest map. Fossils of the trees, along with potash from the forests around Corning, created the glass used. Dimensions variable. Photo: John McKenzie.

Carafes and tumblers from the Zandglas series by Atelier NL. The different colours and textures are the result of the naturally occurring metal and mineral deposits in the sand samples used. Photo (c) Blickfänger.

Atelier NL dedicated this project to Michael Welland, a geologist who wrote the book, Sand: A Journey through Science and the Imagination. He writes, “We rarely think of sand as a resource and its countless contributions to our lives, but [Atelier NL’s] innovative project takes us on a journey that provokes contemplation of our connections not only with sand, the apparently most humble of materials but with the Earth as a whole.” This rethinking comes at a time when sand for glassmaking is being threatened by illegal sand mining, overuse from rapid land expansion, and huge construction booms across the world.

In fact, we have approximately 20 years of supply remaining.2

8

Working with glassmaker Gert Bullée in the development this project, the pair have created a series of mold-blown carafes and simple tumblers, made from what they call ‘wild sand’ gathered in different, specific locations, that highlight how different these glasses are from the commercially produced glass we use to blow. ‘Zandmotor’ was the first collection made from fused sand collected from a large artificial peninsular made to protect the Dutch coastline from erosion. There are now eight editions drawn from different locations. The beauty of the different colors and chorded textures in these simple objects make us question the need for a universal glass product when options for a GASNEWS

more localized process might suffice.

Variations in glass’s chemical composition over different historical periods and geographical locations have more to do with the flux, the alkali salts added to silica to reduce its melting temperature, than the silica (or sand) that it mostly comprises.

While silica content ranges from around 60% to 70% in older glass, the variations in flux types and quantities are much more significant. The addition of approximately 16% of potash (potassium salts from ash from burning trees in specific conditions) creates perhaps the most distinctive kind of glass in the material’s history, waldglas (forest glass). Prevalent in Northern Europe in the late Medieval period, waldglas is known for its natural variation of color, from deep green and brown to pale blue, depending on the soil and tree type that generated the ash, as well as its simple forms and fragile composition.

Glasshouses during this period were nomadic, burning trees and depleting the area then moving on. Its’ natural color tied the glass to specific, very local material conditions.

Anne Vibeke Mou’s project, a story of its own telling, considers the history of waldglas and situates it in a broad sense of geological time and specific but shifting sense of place. An artist and glass engraver, Mou’s work often involves engraving on windows. As a transparent surface, the view through the window became part of the work – trees and landscape merged with the image on the window, caught by the light. She began to consider how the landscape could be incorporated into the work itself. Through a residency at Corning Museum of Glass where Mou had the opportunity to make her own glass, she started re-searching waldglas and the surprising related history of the local area around the Catskills. In what is thought to be some of the earliest economic activity in the area, hardwood forests were cleared for farming in Upstate NY and a potash industry developed. While the potash was used mainly to make lye for things like fertilizer, some was shipped to the UK where it was used for glassmaking.

SUMMER 2019

VOLUME 30, ISSUE 2

Glassmaker Gert Bullee adding the Atelier NL Zandglas prunt onto the 'Zandmotor' mold-blown carafe.

Photo: (c) Blickfänger.

The burning of forests for potash was banned in the UK in 1615 due to an increased need for wood in shipbuilding.

Composed of beakers resembling waldglas and a fine diamond point engraved roundel, the installation a story of its own telling celebrates the locality with its much more ancient, geological history. The roundel is engraved with a map detailing the location of the Devonian forest trees at Gilboa, the site of giant trees from the oldest known forest (approx.

416 million years ago) which is located beneath a dammed area of the Catskills.

Collaborating with paleobotanists Dr. William Stein of Binghamton University and New York State Museum and Dr. Christopher Berry at Cardiff University along with glassmakers from Corning Museum, the glass from a story of its own telling was made from the ground-up fossilized remains of the ancient forest combined with potash made from the local forest. More than simply creating glass objects, Mou considered the composition of the glass recipe as a way of putting together a story about the area over time: its trade history, geological composition, our glass history’s design, form, and color.

Speaking about the many discoveries she made while working on the project, remarked, “Materials aren’t just materials GASNEWS

SUMMER 2019

Zandmotor Carafe just completed in the hot shop by glassmaker Gert Bullee.

Photo: (c) Wouter Kooken.

– they’re in fluid transition over geological time.” When raw materials are considered in time-frames as vast as these, place as a notion becomes as fluid as glass.

The projects of Anne Vibeke Mou and Atelier NL address the widespread understanding of glass as a ubiquitous material.

These timely works investigate the taxonomy of glasses through their visual and physical characteristics, bringing attention to where it came from, how the material behaves because of its chemical composition, and the geological time used to create them. In today’s world, where we are increasingly faced with issues of depleting resources, these artists highlight the relationship between glass and place, focusing on the histories of extraction, global trade, and the imminent material shortage that lies ahead.

her time between hot glass and her small publishing imprint, Pink Jacket.

Notes: 1. https://journals.openedition.org/perspective/ 5617?lang=en#tocto1n5 2. https://aworldofsand.com/about 3. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ long_reads/sand-shortage-world-how-deal-solve issue-raw-materials-supplies-glass-electronics concrete-a8093721.html 4. https://www.dezeen.com/2017/10/11/sand crisis-scarce-expensive-threatening-glassmaking construction-atelier-nl-dutch-design-week/

Phoebe Stubbs is an artist, writer and editor, now based in London, UK. She splits

VOLUME 30, ISSUE 2

9

PUT YOUR HANDS TOGETHER GASNEWS INTERVIEW: CUD CUD is the duo of John Drury and Robbie Miller, whose ongoing collaboration serves to upend the establishments of the authoritarian, capitalistic, and mainstreamed art world through teaching, making, and community engagement.

Captain Cook’s Hands, made in collaboration with University of Hawaii students.

Photo: John Drury

GASnews: Please lay the foundation for how CUD formed.

CUD: Early in our endeavors, works employing mixed-media in glass were frowned upon; a sort of purist’s nonsense, stiflingly tethered to an outdated craft mentality. CUD knew from the start that we would make art to comment on politics, recycling, and current events with humor and unabashed freedom. Our first body of work was made up of paintings on onegallon wine jugs from the Pilchuck dump.

We are not interested in monkey-seemonkey-do technical expertise, nor the trappings of traditional beauty. Perfection is stagnant. Stagnation is death.

The collaborative effort began while also painting for artist Italo Scanga, a repeat visiting artist at Pilchuck and Dale Chihuly’s buddy. Italo sent us off to investigate fired enamels (Cappy Thompson was on campus, Walt Lieberman, and others), and all those we asked told us you could not mix the enamel colors. If you look at early work incorporating fired enamels, you find all the same reds, yellows and blues.

As Italo was a painter, this wasn’t going to “fly.” Italo would want an avocado green, a sky blue, lemon yellow – and throwing caution to the wind we freely mixed the hues without a problem; myth debunked. With an illustrated dictionary at his side, Italo would grab images from which to paint, incorporating them as pictorial elements amongst his cubist designs. Italo allowed us free access to his paint, and following suit, we would grab individuals from about campus, shove an image in front of them and ask them to paint it. This practice was somewhat revolutionary, and maybe still is today; to go to a prestigious craft school and

10

encourage people to express themselves intuitively on a recycled glass jug or liquor bottle and then confiscate it in the name of anti-authorship art practice. This was the beginning of both the collaborative effort and the incorporation of community in procuring works reflective of a situation.

We asked ourselves early on, “How do we make work that’s not John’s, and how do we make work that’s not Robbie’s?” As we both made personal work, the obvious answer was, “Well, we won’t make it!”

While we lay conceptual parameters, much of our work is a residue of the teaching process and that community engagement.

For example, during our residency at the Pittsburgh Glass Center, the public was invited to join us, then they were paired up and asked to paint one another on bottles donated by a local manufacturer. In the end, we had 500 painted bottles with which to build; paintings of Pittsburghers,

by Pittsburghers! Bottles are a common theme and form for us as they are essentially bricks. We have made a number of

GASNEWS

benches from painted bottles, a direct reference to any given public and its participating citizenry. We hope for the opportunity to construct a bottle house.

GAS: CUD has a worldwide network established through teaching, residencies, and community engagement. Please describe how Place influences CUD and its practices.

CUD: When we step foot on new territory, we attempt to understand that Place, its history, and the people to the best of our ability. Our objective is to educate, to make work that is respectful and contributes insight into that new experience and location. We have been lucky to instruct and create throughout the US, including Hawaii, as well as in Norway and Australia.

When at the University of Hawaii Manoa (2002), while working with the students of Rick Mills, our body of work centered around the topic of the egregious interloper Captain Cook, who had been dismembered there, to explore the issue of indigenous

SUMMER 2019

VOLUME 30, ISSUE 2

rights and the practice of “taboo.” Humor might teach. With our student body, we created two large mosaics depicting a cartoony, detached right and left hand.

That pair of mosaics graced the art office at UH Manoa for many years. The panels included pieces of glass mirror, and with the bright Hawaiian sun, activated the space like a disco every day, lit with a hundred points of light scattered about the room!

CUD then made, incorporating a huge, cut and polished glass gemstone, an oversized steel ring conforming to the dimensions of Captain Cook’s Hands, those gargantuan mitts – Captain Cook’s Pimp-Ass Ring.

GAS: What are some of CUD’s proudest honors as purveyors of subversion, outsider tactics, and unruly artmaking?

CUD: Among our proudest accomplishments are the exploits of our past students.

We call them CUDites. In fact, some of our stand out cronies are running their own college programs, indoctrinating the next generation. Justin Ginsberg (University of Texas, Arlington), James McLeod (Massachusetts College of Art and Design), and David Schnuckel (Rochester Institute of Technology) are just a few of the past students we hold in high regard. These individuals, and so many others we have

Dark Festival, fired enamel on glass. A palette painting made from the collective residue of enamel mixing over the course of a week. Photo: John Drury

instructed over our 31-year collaborative effort, remain first and foremost, unique makers building from a stout conceptual base; the proverbial torch passed.

Kate Baker, the intrepid explorer of photographic imagery on glass, who cemented her importance in the worldwide studio glass movement with her inclusion in “Glass Now,” alongside her many accolades, is another one. We teach the characteristics of the material – cold, warm, hot – and stress the non-traditional, grab-bag approach to mixing techniques freely. A “natural,” Kate took to mosaic like few do, easily combining disparate pieces of glass to achieve a graceful and intuitive flow to her pictorial imagery.

Sole Brothers exhibition poster at S12 in Bergen, Norway.

Photo: John Drury

GASNEWS

SUMMER 2019

Ben Wright, who led the education program at UrbanGlass before taking his current post as the Education Director at the Pilchuck Glass School, understands that the world is his metaphorical pallet and employs a potpourri of materials in his work. There is no matter incapable of expressing human emotion - shit or gold, all can be used without hierarchy; glass is but a worthy one. This is an important predilection that not Ben alone, but many of our co-conspirators share. It is an ability to make do; ad hoc and Frankenstein.

University of Hawaii students working on Captain Cook’s Hands.

Photo: John Drury

VOLUME 30, ISSUE 2

11

BUILDING WITH FIRE

by Jennifer Detlefsen

Veterans returning from combat often struggle to communicate with their loved ones, and the communication skills learned and constantly tested in glassmaking lead to stronger feelings of connection with their vital support systems.

Photo: Patricia Davidson

Anyone familiar with the fire, passion, teamwork, and intensity of glassmaking is aware that our medium has the power to captivate. In the hands of the communityminded leader, this potent mix of traits can be a tool to build relationships, establish a sense of belonging amongst the displaced, and heal the wounds of trauma. Across the globe, programs are capitalizing on the unique ability of glass to bring people together, make them forget their differences, and work together to renew and revitalize their communities.

In many instances, these programs elevate the glass studio into what the sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined a “third place,” a setting that is neither home nor the workplace where people can gather, socialize, and form networks that reach across socioeconomic barriers. These “third places” are crucial in combating the isolation and polarity that plagues

12

modern life. Today, the opportunity to put down your phone and have a moment of sincere connection with someone from a different political or cultural background has become exceedingly rare and valuable.

The hot shop floor provides fertile ground for such exchanges. Two people sweating it out to produce a complicated piece together won’t be strangers for long.

An audience witnessing the magic of a blob of lava turning into a dragon goblet are united in a moment of joy and wonder, barriers down for a moment, eager to bond. These islands of conviviality are a direct result of community builders looking empathetically at the needs of their neighborhoods and responding in kind.

We owe much to the visionaries in our field who actively craft spaces for these exchanges to occur.

Not everyone is a natural-born community builder. When Patricia Davidson

GASNEWS

was approached by the Museum of Glass to develop glass programming for the Warrior Transition Unit at Washington’s Joint Base Lewis McChord, she nearly turned down the opportunity, thinking she wasn’t qualified to work with that population. Fortunately for both her and her students, deep respect for her own father’s military service motivated her to take on the task.

Davidson describes the experience of working with veterans as “life-changing,” noting that she learned as much from her interactions as her students did. In order to connect with the veterans, she had to put aside her feelings about war, the government, and the military, and, as she stated, “Get down to the humanness of it all.” She quickly became conscious of how profound the needs of her students were, and just as quickly, how well-suited the veteran population is to working with glass. “If there’s one thing the military does well,” Davidson notes, “it’s teach you how to learn.”

The familiarity with high-risk situations, dangerous environments, and scenarios where everything can go wrong in the blink of an eye put the “disaster” of a smashed piece of glass in perspective. The teamwork aspect of glassmaking also presents an interesting paradigm for those readjusting into civilian life. In Davidson’s hot shop, rank doesn’t apply, and a private will be sweeping up shards right alongside their former commanding officer. For veterans, putting aside the rigid hierarchy of the military can be a challenge in civilian reintegration, and being the gaffer in charge of a piece is a way to test out both creativity and leadership at the same time.

The intense mind/body focus required working with hot glass is another boon to those suffering combat fatigue and PTSD – Davidson recalls a student who expressed tearful gratitude for even just three minutes of being pain-free,” thanks to the immersive transfixion of glassblowing. The challenge of simultaneous physical and mental concentration can transcend the trauma

SUMMER 2019

VOLUME 30, ISSUE 2

Project FIRE students demonstrating to an audience. Project FIRE director Pearl Dick says that the glass is the thing that gets her students in the door - but the real gift is the mentorship that continues beyond the hot shop. Photo: Marine Tempels

inflicted by the chaos of war. “It’s the gift of the glass itself... It demands that you get inside your body and work within yourself.

It is the teacher,” Davidson states. After completing the Hot Shop Heroes program, many of Davidson’s former students went on to rent time together at local studios, taking advantage of Tacoma’s robust glass art scene and bringing along their placemaking energy.

The Pittsburgh Glass Center has also responded admirably to the needs of its local veteran population and marginalized communities. On the path to becoming a relevant and vital resource for its area, it has also become an innovative version of a “third place.” PGC’s rich and varied programming includes after-school workshops that engage the local neighborhood kids, open demos, lecture series, and performance nights. Classes and workshops are offered for all levels with full scholarships available for veterans and people of color. When describing the key to balancing these distinct missions, director Heather McElwee comes back again and again to the term “intentionality.”

For each new program, McElwee ensures that her team communicates with the population they’re trying to reach –

GASNEWS

SUMMER 2019

listening to their needs and limitations and designing the programming around them instead of prescriptively giving the community what a board thinks best.

McElwee emphasizes that her ultimate goal is to create a space that draws people in and makes them feel instantly included.

Too often, she says, arts institutions address diversity through the creation of targeted programming but neglect to follow through in their hiring practices, resulting in a staff that does not represent the population of the area. “If you walk in and see someone who looks like you, you’re much more likely to feel like you belong,” McElwee asserts. As a result of the inclusive atmosphere and mutual respect at PGC, a community of regulars has formed around the studio. “Groupies” flock to the Wednesday night lectures in the summertime as regularly as if going to church.

Especially among returning students, there is camaraderie born over the shared experience of struggling to learn the basics of glass. “Because glass is foreign, it levels the playing field. Your first time in front of the furnace, it’s hot and intense and intimidating whether you’re a youth from the neighborhood or a software engineer from Google. No one’s good

VOLUME 30, ISSUE 2

from the first gather,” McElwee laughs. In some cases, talented young artists have graduated from youth programming to become TAs or studio assistants, gaining valuable professional skills and further strengthening their ties to their colleagues and mentors.

Before PGC opened its welcoming doors, only a handful of glass artists were working in Pittsburgh, mostly in isolation.

Since then, McElwee estimates that around 50 glass artists have moved to the area, to work on staff and make work at PGC as artists, independent contractors, instructors, assistants, and technicians.

The feeling is that of an ever-growing family bursting at the seams. As a result, PGC is eyeing the possibility of expansion to make room for growth in all areas of programming.

Growth and change are at the root of The Bead Project, located at Brooklyn’s UrbanGlass. Over its 22 years, this program has transformed as much as the hundreds of economically disadvantaged women it has helped to gain a foothold in glass bead making. Amy Lemaire, the director of the Bead Project, describes its transition as driven by listening and responding to the needs of the women it serves. Initially conceived as a kickstart into a cottage

13

GET INVOLVED Learn more about the Bead Project at the Urban Glass website Check out this amazing video of the Project FIRE team at work Support Project FIRE as they work to expand their programming for graduates!

Learn more about Hot Shop Heroes program by visiting their website and watching Patricia Davidson’s recent TEDx Talk: In the Community Healing with Fire

Jaime Guerrero demo at PGC. Friday Night Hot Jams are always free, welcoming in the community to experience an evening of hot glass and socializing. Photo credit: Nathan J. Shaulis

industry, the project provided women with training and tools to start home-based businesses as glass artists. When Lemaire became involved in the program in 2013, it was clear that something was missing.

What these women needed more than anything else was a community. Working with the leadership of UrbanGlass during their major renovation gave Lemaire the space she needed to shift the program away from home-based business towards a studio-based model.

The benefits of this change were immediately apparent. Not only could the participants work greener with centralized fuel tanks and better bench torches, but they were also able to share knowledge with each other while working shoulderto-shoulder. Lemaire encouraged this with a studio directive to always work with a buddy - ostensibly for safety, but also so participants would never feel alone or alienated in the unfamiliar space and always have someone to talk to.

“You think you’re talking about making beads, but that’s just a starting point for enabling the flow of knowledge,” Lemaire says. Conversations would range from passing along glass techniques and tricks to information on useful social services

14

to sharing stories and life experiences across generations. Lemaire recalls one instance of an established artist and an emerging maker forming a bond, trading advice on how to build and grow a practice to providing help navigating social media, and building a website. The benefits flow from the students to the studio as well. Lemaire is quick to remark upon the baseline privilege of being a glass artist; from access to tools to the cost of the materials themselves, glass is not an easy medium to break into. As a result, the glass community, at large, suffers from a lack of representation in marginalized communities. The Bead Project expands the voices and experiences which reverberate at UrbanGlass, enriching the studio for everyone involved. “There’s organic skill sharing as a result of activating the third space, and there’s no limit on what can flow through there,” Lemaire muses.

The transformation of the program continues to respond to the needs of the students, and Lemaire hopes in the future the administration will be decentralized and largely alumni run. “I want to remove my voice and give that platform back to them. We’re just planting the seed for

GASNEWS

Support Pittsburgh Glass Center’s Groundbreaking Community Programming

GLASHAUS The International Magazine of Studio Glass

German/ English, 4 issues p.a. 49 Euros Dr. Wolfgang Schmölders Glashaus-Verlag, Stadtgarten 4 D-47798 Krefeld (Germany) Email: glashaus-verlag @ t-online.de Web: http://studioglas.jimdo.com

SUMMER 2019

VOLUME 30, ISSUE 2

them to find themselves, and when they generate their own content to take on the role of the educator, they’re empowering themselves and creating a regenerating cycle of mentorship.” Lemaire often sees Bead Project ladies drift toward other areas of the UrbanGlass campus, enjoying the gallery openings, learning other glass modalities, and integrating themselves into the larger landscape of the glass community. This space is magical for them in that it has a special kind of freedom from both the responsibilities of home life and the stressors of their jobs. In many instances, the project participants have experienced a rupturing life event or illness that took them away from their community, and glass is the lure that guides them back to their personal identity.

The studio scene at Chicago’s Project FIRE (Fearless Initiative Recovery Empowerment) is likewise full of kids who know a thing or two about life-rupturing changes. This dynamic program, headed

by Pearl Dick in conjunction with ArtReach Chicago, serves local adolescents whose lives have been affected by gun violence.

Dick and her collaborators have found a winning combination of glassblowing classes, therapy sessions, and shared meals that keep students coming back despite a host of barriers that few outside their experience could even imagine.

“Being involved with this risky material has a draw,” Dick explains. “It holds their attention, and they have respect for it right out of the gate.” She continues, “A lot of times we break things, and there is a loss, but these people have experienced other losses: the loss of a loved one, the loss of a limb.” The smaller catastrophes of glass making and breaking provide an avenue to talk about other, more charged instances of trauma - and the conversations continue in the group therapy sessions and over mealtimes.

Project FIRE students staff the hot shop, teach classes, and help run the studio. It is only one of many programs at the studio serving the Chicago community through glass, but the intensity of the backstory means Dick is careful to discourage what GASNEWS

SUMMER 2019

she refers to as a “fishbowl” atmosphere.

“It’s really easy to fall into the trap of, ‘Wow, that kid’s been shot.’ But he’s not here to teach you glass because of what he’s been through; he’s teaching you glass because he really knows the material.” Dick proudly notes that her Project FIRE glassblowers often gaff for visiting artists at affiliated SAIC, and one local ceramicist hired an alum to teach their class once a week.

“We had a master designer from Japan visiting the studio, and a kid from the South Side of Chicago teaching them how to make their work.”

Dick enjoys seeing the layers of community colliding in her studio and notes that the experience of teaching this population has made an imprint in her own practice. She explains, “My new work is directly related to how these young people enrich my life.” While teaching the team how to pull glass flowers, she decided to stick a few on one of her sculpted heads, and a new series was born. The ability to express her experience in glass is a gift she treasures, and one that she feels honored to be able to share with all her students.

“You get emotional, making work... You get to make choices when you might not have a lot of opportunities in your life to make choices. There’s a lot of passion in the process, and in the end, the result is a new sense of self-worth.”

Interpersonal relationships that are forged in flame are both immediate and intimate. This transcendent material lubricates conversation, engenders trust and cooperation, and demands collaboration. Wherever there is access to glass, a community will follow, and actively working to make those spaces as welcoming and inclusive as possible, brings benefits that will extend far beyond the reach of the furnace’s glow.

Disclosure: Heather McElwee is the Treasurer and member of the GAS Board of Directors.

Jen Detlefsen is a maker, mother, writer, and veteran based in Norfolk, Virginia.

VOLUME 30, ISSUE 2

15

THE DENIZLI 5TH INTERNATIONAL GLASS BIENNALE

by Shane Fero Opening ceremony with the featured artists and Mayor Osman Zoltan.

Photo courtesy of Omur Duruerk

Since joining the Glass Art Society in 1990, I have been interested in connecting with glass communities around the world. For years, I had been hearing from my friends about the Denizli International Glass Biennale in Turkey. At past GAS conferences, Sally Prasch and Lucio Bubacco introduced me to Omur and Fatih Duruerk, who are the primary organizers and curators of the Denizli Biennale. Following our introduction and conver-sations, I was pleased to be invited to participate in the Denizli Biennale in late April/early May of this year. I started to research Denizli the city, which looked like it was located on a large plain surrounded by mountains, some of which were snowcapped. There were also Greco/Roman ruins galore, with geothermal locations

for bathing. However, I was still somewhat unaware of the glassmaking approaches and community I would find there.

When I arrived by plane from Istanbul, I was fascinated by the surrounding mountain landscape on the drive to Denizli.

The city itself was multicultural with great restaurants, a bustling economy, and very friendly people. The food was delicious, with Mediterranean and Arabic influences.

The prices were very low for food and drink as well as hotels because of the exchange rate.

I visited Denizli Cam, a subsidiary of the Şişecam Group that owns the largest hand-blown glass factory in Turkey and the Balkans, and also ranks among top European producers with a broad, diverse

The Denizli CAM factory in action.

Photo courtesy of Denizli CAM

16

GASNEWS

product portfolio. Şişecam Group was established in 1935 on the directive of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. Şişecam Group’s global design brand, Nude, also produces its handmade glass collections in the Denizli Cam factory. Nude’s vast portfolio of glassware is designed by a pool of leading international talents including Ron Arad, Nigel Coates, Tomas Kral, and Sebastian Herkner, continuously honored with industry accolades. Denizli Cam is one of the production facilities of Şişecam Group which has been in its present location since 1973. It has more than 700 employees, producing handmade and blown glassware for more than 50 of the world’s most illustrious brands and national retailers.

There might be 350-400 glassblowers on the floor at one time, plus the cutters, engravers, and other production workers. It was quite impressive, and I found the work to be of high quality. They produce a lot of wine-related products such as Nude’s Stem Zero collection, goblets and decanters as well as vases, bowls, candleholders and other utilitarian objects, mostly in lead-free crystal, but some in color. For more information, go to their website: www.denizlicam.com.tr/en www.nudeglass.com A couple of days later, after sight-seeing and settling in, I began to teach a workshop at Karma Studios, owned by Omur and Fatih.

SUMMER 2019

VOLUME 30, ISSUE 2

lectures, demonstrations, and events were held in this venue. The public was invited, free of charge, which made for great interaction with the community at large. Of particular interest was the flameworking station where attendees could try their hands at making a glass bead with the help of volunteers. I was most impressed with the sheer number of participants, over 1250, trying their hand at flameworking over the four days of the Biennale.

Omur and Fatih, along with their crew, did an amazing job of organizing this event. During the event, Lucio and I were discussing that Denizli has a rich history, both culturally and as a glassmaking community, that deserves wider recognition.

We agreed that this has great potential as a venue to host a future GAS conference.

Volunteer helping at the flameworking station.

Photo courtesy of Omur Duruerk

Exhibition of Lucio Bubacco and Karma Studio collaboration. Photo courtesy of Omur Duruerk

Besides being a small teaching facility in kiln casting, flameworking, and cold working, they produce their own work there, rent studio time, and work in conjunction with other artists. They have done a number of collaborations in casting and flameworking with Lucio Bubacco. The other featured artists finally arrived after my workshop, and we were treated to visits to the fantastic archeological sites of Laodicea on the Lycus and Hieropolis, both in Pamukkale, during the off times of the Biennale.

This year, the international participants were Lucio Bubacco, Aysem Otuk, Catherina Zucchi, Deniz Divieli Ozdemir, Ibrahim Dincol, Marie Odile Savigny, Marta Gibiete, Serbay Duro, Mauro Vianello, Sahin Ozdemir.

Additionally, they featured over 300 masters GASNEWS

SUMMER 2019

Shane Fero is an artist based in North Carolina next to the Penland School of Craft.

He has exhibited, taught, and lectured worldwide and participated in international symposiums on glass. Fero is a former board president of the Glass Art Society.

and academicians in the history of the Biennale. The focus of the Biennale is on flameworking, but the event includes glassblowing, kiln casting, slumping, engraving, cold working, and pate de verre. There were seven exhibitions which were broken down into thematic or categorical subjects.

This Biennale was held for the first time in the new facility, the Nihat Zeybekci Congressium Centre built by the mayor, Osman Zolan, and the city of Denizli. It was a huge and impressive facility, with three theatres: 2000-, 1000-, and 500-person capacities. Two seminar rooms held 250 people, and six rooms for 100 people besides two huge exhibition areas on the top floor as well as a planetarium located on the top floor. All of the ceremonies, VOLUME 30, ISSUE 2

17

VENETIAN INFLUENCE RAKOW INTERVIEW: CRAWFORD ALEXANDER MANN III When I heard you speak at The Corning Museum of Glass recently, as part of your David Whitehouse Research Residency, you mentioned that several important collections of Venetian glass have not received a lot of attention. Why is that?

Alexander Mann. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Crawford Alexander Mann III is currently Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He was formerly the Brock Curator of American Art at the Chysler Museum of Art and a Mellon Curatorial Fellow for Prints and Drawings at the RISD Museum of Art. He recently completed his 2019 David Whitehouse Research Residency at The Corning Museum of Glass, where he made extensive use of Rakow Research Library collections in preparation for the upcoming four-venue traveling exhibition “Sargent, Whistler, and Venetian Glass: American Artists and the Magic of Murano.”

The exhibition will open in 2021 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

We had the opportunity to speak on the phone in July 2019 about 19th-century Venetian glass, American art, and the upcoming exhibition.

18

What drew you to the influence of Murano and the Venetian glass revival on American art?

This project led me, a scholar who had primarily worked on paintings, prints, drawings, and sculpture, to think more critically about connections between the fine arts and the decorative arts because that doesn’t happen enough within the overall field of art history. It’s very exciting to look at individual objects to see these relationships. Scholars who haven’t been to museums like Corning don’t know enough yet about the history and the level of appreciation, of esteem, that glass, and particularly Venetian glass, enjoyed in the time period that our show is investigating.

When you present an exhibition, and you bring together these objects that historically are not presented side by side in museums – that is, a show of Venetian glass and American paintings, prints, and drawings in the same gallery space – you raise questions.

GASNEWS

Nineteenth-century Venetian glass was collected by museums as soon as it came out of the kiln, almost. They were very eager to represent at places like the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art this new, fresh, beautiful, exciting production. Fifty years later, none of it is on view anymore.

With 19th-century Venetian glass, much of the work is visually very complicated and figural and sculptural in terms of its intricacy and its delicacy, and that is a set of values that the next generation rejected.

You think of the early 20th century as an era of sleek and refined, and simplification.

In the same way that one might look at what’s being produced at Corning, at Steuben, for example, there’s a change in taste and style that happens around the time of World War I and shortly after.

You can see a similar change happening in what museums are showing. I think it’s just a matter of aesthetic values shifting and museums following the taste of their contemporary audiences.

We tried to think really broadly about what and where glass is and where you find it, recognizing that there are ways that you are displaying and appreciating glass on your sideboard, in your dining room, in your parlor, and in museums, but also on the facades of public buildings in the form of mosaics, or potentially in jewelry when you’re looking at micromosaics and smaller pieces that have a market in this time period and are coming out of Italy from the same glass furnaces.

If your idea of a 19th-century Venetian vessel is a chalice with a dragon on it, that’s correct, but I want people who visit the exhibition to see that there was a lot

SUMMER 2019

VOLUME 30, ISSUE 2

greater variety, including beads that are an important part of the industry, and this is all playing hand in hand economically in Venice and viewed with similar interest by the folks who were visiting Venice in that time period.

We will be presenting the show here in DC at the same time that the Renwick Gallery will be presenting a show about the influence of Murano on contemporary American studio glass. I firmly believe that history has an impact on what artists are doing today, even when the artists themselves don’t always realize that. This is a great opportunity for us to look at old things and think about why those are relevant and how they can be inspirational today, then to walk down the street to the Renwick and see examples of that by some really great artists who are making the work right now.

Unidentified, Vase, glass, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

What are some of the themes that you’re hoping to explore in the exhibition?

The first is this relationship between the fine and the decorative arts. As we understand art, we need to get out of our silos and look at relationships between things, think about when artists worked in more than one medium and to think about why collectors often see relationships between the objects that they own, and what kinds of responses these can provoke.

I hope that the exhibition, in that way, will give people ideas for new ways that things can be installed in museums and to have a kind of equal appreciation that takes out of the equation questions of market value that I think often color some of our responses to works in museums or when we are buying or collecting for our own homes.

I’m really interested in the notion of creativity in the 19th century. The studios on Murano were challenging themselves to do larger, more complicated, more intricate projects, to invent new colors, to try out shapes that they might have thought were previously impossible and to expand the world’s understanding of what glass could do and what could be produced, in the same way that painters were rebelling, pushing boundaries, and challenging themselves.

GASNEWS

SUMMER 2019

Louise Cox, May Flowers, 1911, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William T. Evans.

Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

VOLUME 30, ISSUE 2

19

How would you characterize the influence of Venetian glass on these American artists?

Venice had a brand identity for Murano glass as being the finest quality, the greatest level of transparency, and the most delicate and complicated artistry.

This moment in the late 19th century was a time when they were trying to recapture past reputation and glory, and to surpass it. Other artists could understand that desire and that idea to have that same type of elegance and sophistication and excellence reflected in their own works.

If you look at world fairs and expositions, they included pavilions and displays of paintings as well as decorative arts, and these were all being seen and evaluated and desired and praised by visitors to those places. When you have a painter like Sargent or some of these other expatriate travelers visiting the glass furnaces of Murano or looking at the objects in shop windows in Venice, they are understanding this important set of values. The collectors who are buying the paintings and also purchasing the glass are in the same way shopping for an identity – and that is the concept of refinement and beauty.

Second is this idea about the complexity and originality and a sort of scientific side to what is happening to glass in that moment. The glassmakers of Murano are challenging themselves to invent new formulae and to push the physical limits of the medium. Many of the visitors, artists, customers, clients for Murano glass appreciate that this is a challenging medium with which to work and something that is a little bit of a mystery to many of them. So, it’s an opportunity not just to have a beautiful object, but to expand one’s understanding of what glass is, how glass is made, and what the limits and possibilities of that are – and how the workers in Murano are taking that further than anyone else in the world in that time period. That’s a kind of inspiration, and a challenge at the same time, to folks who are working in other media and something that, as a purchaser, becomes an opportunity to demonstrate one’s aesthetic connoisseurship as well as one’s scientific knowledge.

20

You’ve mentioned that Venice had created a “brand identity” with Murano glass.

Are there ways in which Venice, as a place, are an integral part of that brand identity?

I fully believe that the prominence of fish and sea creatures within the sculptural chalices is something that the makers of the glass understood as representing their city and that many of their customers were seeing visual references to Venice in some of the pieces that have more pictorial elements. We’ll be talking about that in the show when you see something that makes you think of the maritime quality of it, or pieces of glass that reference the lace industry on Murano, their connection, as a way to see a piece of glass and to immediately have multiple ways in which ideas of Venice are triggered.

GAS RESOURCE LINKS To access the Glass Art Society’s up-to-date resources, just click on the links below.

About the Interviewer: Mikki Smith is the Reference and Visitor Services Librarian at the Rakow Research Library at The Corning Museum of Glass.

CLASSES EXHIBITIONS AND WORKSHOPS CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS

JOB OPPORTUNITIES

FOR SALE

CALLS TO ARTISTS

OTHER OPPORTUNITIES

GASNEWS

SUMMER 2019

VOLUME 30, ISSUE 2