1991

In this time line I pull quotes to illustrate a thread in popular and scholarly writing and criticism about glass. Here we will see current glass artists defending their art against the accusations and separating themselves from these stereotypes and, hopefully, find out how and where the now-common opinion was born. Fundamentally, the general thesis seems to be born of the question, What Is Art? This question I will leave to others to answer, here I am only documenting the written history of a popular way of thinking and a popular taste.

1991 Ginny Ruffner:

"Currently the field of “glass art” is awash in objects, many beautiful, some ugly, most about glass itself–material as content. But if this medium-specific subgroup is to progress beyond a fascination with the materials, the evocative contradictions of glass have to be pursued more aggressively, manifested more succinctly. There have been many superficial depictions of beauty but few examinations of the meanings of beauty though a material that so successfully conveys it."

Ginny Ruffner, 1991, Tacoma Museum of Art, "Glass: Material in the Service of Meaning."