1981

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.

1981 Paul Hollister:

“Not all the glass [at Heller Gallery] is the pleasing easy-to-live with work that most collectors enjoy; some of it is frankly outrageous and some, like the weighty skull sculptures of Raoul Goldoni shown recently, evoke solemn thoughts. Such work is there because Douglas feels it is important to educate, but he shows it along with more salable work that, in effect, subsidizes the exhibitions.”

“The country is in the midst of glass madness and it’s partly my fault.” -Douglas Heller

American Craft. April/May 1981. p. 20. “Contemporary Art Glass Gallery: Heller Gallery” by Paul Hollister.

1981 Matthew Kangas:

“Seattle Glass Artists, a broad survey of glass being made in and around Seattle, curated by Walter Lieberman for the Northwest Crafts Center; raises three critical issues about the use of glass as an art medium today in America.  Firstly, some of the artists whom I thought were offering an alternative to the famous Pilchuck Glass Center’s ‘aesthetic of perfection” have in fact, caved into it; secondly, glass may not be the sturdy vehicle for carrying art-meaning that I had previously thought it was; thirdly, though glass is flourishing as one of the most vital crafts media in the Pacific Northwest, it has still not made the heroic strides that clay made twenty years ago.

That said, this is a beautiful exhibition, infinitely superior to Portland State University’s recent west coast survey (Artweek, March 28, 1981).  Most of the major local talents are included (except Buster Simpson, Dick Weiss, and Michael Burns) and are shown to advantage.  Dale Chihuly is represented by a set of eighteen pale green and coral-striped dishes of varying sizes.  This is art that unabashedly refers to a tradition of functional form yet is elevated to the realm of fragility and grace.  Chihuly’s technical mastery is unquestioned, but I just wish he would turn it toward more experimental ends; presently he heads up what I have called the Pilchuck ‘perfectionists’.  Benjamin p Moore is a major member of that group.  I suppose that, by some standards, his uranium yellow plates and bowls are ‘experimental’’ because of their unusual tint. To me they resemble a matched set of Tupperware: uniform, plastic, and machine-made.

One artist has done an about-face away from both Seattle’s hard-core ‘antiperfectionists’ and the Pilchuckers.  Charles Parriott;’s earlier work was a marvel of social issues wedded to functional, beautifully cast glass shapes (fans, etc.) incorporating slogans and phrases with photo transfer newspaper images (bombs Away, Jonestown Fan).  Now all that seems to have been tossed aside (welcome to the 1980s!) in favor of retardataire, gold-leafed salad bowl shapes.  Only Serene Apathy has its title inscribed on the surface, and ironically seems to be a dismaying commentary on what has happened to the direction of Parriott’s work.  Stephen Edwards, in Brakken, Englesby, and Sonja Blomdahl also employ basic vessel shapes with varying results.  Again, elegance and technique supersede any attempt at meaning beyond the decorative aspect.

On a purely sculptural, nonfunctional level, Dorit Brand’s and Therman Statom’s works emerge as vividly individual.  Brand’s Bound Shard, a wall sculpture, uses gold thread to extend its territory in a striking way.  The black and gold Duo X, recalling art deco jewelry, suggests monumental earrings.  Two of Statom’s untitled cast-glass house-shapes, set on high, decorated pedestals, balance transparent and opaque qualities of glass.  Broken bits of brightly colored glass are embedded int eh works, which are covered with pastel and Day Glo pink chalk.  This use of found or shattered glass is a hallmark of ‘antiperfectionsism’ and symbolizes the vitality of Seattle artists who are shying away from the Pilchuck approach. 

Paul Marioni is the only other hot glass sculptor worth mentioning.  His red mono-print on glass, depicting archbishop Romero’s face in a kind of updated, memorial Shroud of Turin, indicates that Parriott’s apparent forsaking of social conscience in his art is probably an isolated case.  Marioni’s other flat piece, the premonition, leads us into two-dimensionality, its straight forward depiction of a pink house with snakes on the ground and volcanoes in the distance forms the exhibition’s strongest single image.  It is lit from behind and reveals the influence of the nineteenth-century Tiffany tradition of etching and painting but with a limited use of lead.

Michael Kennedy, Douglas Hansen, and Richard Spaulding are three leading artist working in large-scale flat glass and who are represented int this show.  Their contributions remind us that Seattle artists’ interest in combining representationalism and abstraction is wide spread.  Hansen’s Spaghettini Calamari, a tall vertical design, is flawed by a typical crafts “sin”: virtuoso use of material.  The tour-de-force application of lead line compresses the image into a dense metal screen over glass.  By comparison, Spaulding’s pas de quatre which abstracts the human figure as it assumes four different dancers’ poses, reveals a mastery o lead, and raises hopes that the most exciting glass of the current decade will achieve an imagery worthy of the technical accomplishments so convincingly demonstrated throughout this display.”

"Image and Technique in Contemporary Glass." by Matthew Kangas. Artweek. April 25, 1981. vol 12 no 16 pg 24.