Hot Sheet blog features ABJ post on Glass & Tourism

Photo Credit: David Harpe, Martha Hewett Gallery
Martin Janecky "Violin with Mask"
http://www.martahewett.com/detail.php?cid=janecky07&artist_id=Janecky&no_a=1&artwork_id=60609

Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet blog has two posts by ABJ Seattle Glass Online inspired by a Douglas Lloyd Jenkins article in the October 24, 2009 edition of the New Zealand Listener called "Art: the last bubble." You can read that article here.

In it, DLJ wonders if the city of Wanganui's promotion of glass will negatively affect the value of glass.

In refute of the Listener piece, The Wanganui Chronicle published a have-your-say here in which three in the NZ glass community argue for the promotion of glass in Wanganui, as the idea worked well in Wagga Wagga, Australia.

The blog of the New Zealand Society of Artists in Glass wrote a response as well, read here and here, challenging DLJ's premise that glass is bought as an investment, but also offering a few solutions to the problems of quality and over-production.

This debate, along with many recent developments in the United States and abroad in which production hot shops and art museums have begun to feature glass blowing as a cultural tourist attraction, led to questions which I put forth in two blog posts for The Hot Sheet:

Guest blogger: Glass as tourist attraction Part 1.

Guest blogger: Glass as tourist attraction Part 2.

This was a short journey into the world of tourism and glassblowing and there is a lot untouched on the topic. At the end of Part 2, my post concludes with the statement that glassblowing on the museum floor constitutes a performance, and as such, adds the public's pressure to produce more interesting glass work and theater show, to which the glass community will have to respond quickly to.

To explore this more, we will have to look at the economics of theater in relation to glassblowing, art, and cultural tourism.

ABJ featured on Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet!

On October 5th ABJ Seattle Glass Online got some undeserved recognition from the Glass Quarterly blog! My blog on reviews is reviewed on a blog! The article highlights my "cut-and-paste" skills and diagnoses my "archival impulse."

Read the post here: http://blog.glassquarterly.com/2009/10/05/on-other-blogs-seattle-cut-and-paster-keeps-tabs-on-glass-scholarship/

Glass Quarterly on Portland's Museum of Contemporary Craft

2009 Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet Blog:

"This week, the Pacific Northwest College of Art has made official its “merger” with the Museum of Contemporary Craft, one of Oregon’s oldest cultural institutions, with the announcement of a joint operations agreement leading to “a formal integration.” Overextended, and with its finances in dire shape, the Museum of Contemporary Craft will continue on with its permanent collection no longer in peril and its crushing debt burden taken on by the college. How the mission of the institution, known for decades as the Contemporary Crafts Museum & Gallery before a 2007 re-branding , may change now that is has been taken on by an educational institution with a heavy emphasis on design, remains to be seen.

The story of the disastrous expansion of a long-running crafts institution is a cautionary tale for any nonprofit seeking to reinvent itself. In an excellent analysis Oregonian newspaper’s arts reporter D.K. Row chronicled the sad tale of the Museum of Contemporary Craft’s former executive director David Cohen and his bold plans to turn a 73-year-old sleepy arts organization into a cutting-edge craft, design, and contemporary art institution with a shiny new building in Portland’s Pearl arts district. Row lays the blame for the museum’s many missteps in the board’s embrace of a highly speculative vision, and its agreement to proceed with an expansion without sufficient funding or a large enough endowment. When the economy went sour in 2008, the museum was unable to meet any of its optimistic projections and its financial position steadily deteriorated.

In a joint press release, the two institutions are presenting the new partnership as a cooperation between two independent institutions: “PNCA and MoCC will continue as stand-alone 501(c)3 entities, retaining their respective assets and liabilities for the duration of the Joint Operations Agreement to allow further time for the two institutions to knit together coordinated programming, communications, finance and fund-raising efforts.”

In the release, Kathy Abraham, board president of MoCC, characterized the negotiations up to this point as “a journey of discovery and reflection,” emphasizing the importance of “a sustainable future for the museum.”

Responding to emailed questions from GLASS, museum spokesperson Rebecca Burrell said there “aren’t any major changes in the works” as a result of the merger. Namita Gupta Wiggers will stay on as the museum’s curator, and will continue to pursue her vision for the museum , which has included more conceptual projects in glass such as Portland artist Melissa Dyne’s 2008 installation of an industrially produced window supported in such a way that it bent under the stress of gravity. Later this fall, a collaborative exhibit featuring glass instruments will open when Andy Paiko and Ethan Rose debut the project they have spent the summer working on. That event remains on the museum’s calendar for a November 19th opening.

As Burrell puts it: “This is an ever-evolving process, so the nature of this collaboration will reveal itself in quite a few stages.”

Stay tuned as the story continues to develop."

Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet Blog. Edited by Andrew Page. "After audacious expansion falters, Portland's Museum of Contemporary Craft merges with local arts college for survival." Posted August 21, 2009. Accessed September 1, 2009. http://blog.glassquarterly.com/2009/08/21/after-audacious-expansion-falters-portlands-museum-of-contemporary-craft-merges-with-local-visual-arts-college-for-survival/#more-674