2000 Business Wire:
"MONTREAL--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 4, 2000
Quebec Craft Gallery (d'arts du Quebec) will be presenting works from 11 renown Quebec craft artists at the Sculptural Objects and Functional Art (SOFA) exhibit taking place November 3-5 2000 in Chicago at the Navy Pier.
The gallery's juried exhibition will feature the work of contemporary Quebec craft artists in a variety of media. Exhibiting with the gallery this year:
- Chantal Gilbert, jeweller and sculptural knifemaker. Part of her work stems from a desire to codify the knife in a different way. The pieces are no longer weapons or tools-her unique appropriation of the knife results in stunning works of art rather than mere utilitarian objects. - Luci Veilleux, jeweller. The fascination of Veilleux's wearable art lies in its fluid lines, metamorphosis over time, changes in rhythm and the logical, unusual and harmonious interaction of materials. - Christine Larochelle, jeweler. Her stunning pieces are inspired by carapaces, shells, fur and plumage observed in wildlife. - Rosie Godbout, textile artist: In an attempt to free herself from the constraints of traditional weaving techniques. Godbout explores the various possibilities that fabric printing offers by applying pigment directly onto the warp and weft threads. - Jean-Marie Giguere, glass. His work is intended to evoke communication between individuals. The use of signs and symbols explains the intentions and interactions between living beings, as well as their relationship with their community. The use of geographic, cosmic and folkloric indicators situates humankind in time, with all its strengths and weaknesses. - Sylvie Belanger, glass. Belanger looks to history and mythology for inspiration. The images and ways of the past spark her imagination and are conveyed in her blown, cast and twisted glass assemblages of metal pigments and sand. - Paul Bogati, ceramist. Through his bronze, stoneware and terracotta sculpture Bogati succeeds at illustrating his fascination with two extremes: human misery and the greatness of man. - Mitsuru Cope's ceramist. Her whimsical and humorous creatures are loosely based on Japanese folk tales. Her ideas come from her experience and observations of people and animals. - Eva Lapka, ceramist. Lapka explores the characteristics of people in all eras; people crushed under the weight of their condition, torn and worn down by a turbulent past; but also people as bearers of all the power of ideas, burning with both infinite wisdom and an unquenchable thirst for truth. - Gary Merkel, ceramist. With its hint of whimsy and intrigue, his work ranges from the functional to the decorative to the sculptural. - Danielle Carignan, sculptor and fine woodworker. Her sculptural furniture pieces resemble animals or characters, each with their own personality.You will find many of these artists on site to discuss their work.
Each year the SOFA exhibit has been attracting collectors, gallery owners, architects and art lovers from around the world. Last year SOFA CHICAGO 1999 closed after record sales and gate attendance. Patrons were delighted by a multitude of sophiticated and innovative artworks. This year the exhibit will feature 90 select galleries mostly from the United States but also including galleries from London, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Australia and three from Montreal: Galerie des metiers d'art du Quebec, Galerie Elena Lee and Option Art.
The Quebec Craft Council's head office is located in Montreal, Quebec. The Council has been instrumental in assuring a Quebec presence at SOFA, including the presence of its own gallery-the Galerie des metiers d'art du Quebec. In November 2000, the gallery will be presenting unique and innovative crafts at booth #1301 in the Festival Hall of the Navy Pier in Chicago.
For additional information on the Quebec Craft Council visit their site at http://www.metiers-d-art.qc.ca or contact France Bernard at 514.861.2787 ext. 310. For further information on the SOFA Chicago 2000 exhibit go to www.sofaexpo.com"
"Craft Artists from Quebec Featured at Prestigious SOFA Chicago." Business Wire. October 4, 2000. Retrieved November 05, 2009 from accessmylibrary: http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-28396612_ITM
2000 Art Popham:
"If you think you have lots of precious packages to send around the country this holiday season, consider the shipments Allen Vinup regularly handles. It might elevate your shipping appreciation level, as you languish in line at the post office or sweat the on-time arrival of the gifts you're sending.
Vinup works as shipping manager for internationally renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly. Last January, Chihuly consolidated all shipments of his valuable, ornate blown glass in a 73,000-square-foot warehouse near Jefferson Avenue in Tacoma. Few people realize Chihuly's entire shipping operation, including distribution of all his Portland Press books, is based right here in the artist's hometown. Chihuly is a 1959 Wilson High School graduate and an honorary alum of Stadium High.
Glass blown in Seattle comes to Tacoma for distribution. When Chihuly travels to Mexico, Scandinavia, Ireland or anywhere in the world to create his treasures, all new art not going directly to an exhibition comes to Tacoma for storage. Glass shipments to destinations worldwide emanate from Tacoma.
It's a huge operation that requires a staff of 31 people. They must make positively sure glass arrives at museums, galleries and to private patrons on time and unbroken. Remember, we're talking delicate glass here. And lots of it.
Consider these mind-numbing numbers from this year alone.
-- Chihuly's Tacoma operation has made 770 domestic shipments in 2000, an average of more than two for every single day. By year's end, it will have made more than 800.
-- It has made 55 international shipments this year, averaging more than one per week. Destinations include Monaco, Australia and Iceland. Loads range in size from a single corrugated cardboard box to ocean containers.
-- It has shipped 80 of Chihuly's massive chandeliers. Each contains as many as 2,000 individual parts. The average is 500. Each chandelier requires 100 hours of work to prepare for shipment.
-- Overall, it has shipped more than 10,000 boxes of artwork this year.
-- This phase of Chihuly's operation spends $500,000 on shipping costs and $500,000 on supplies in a single year.
-- Those supplies include $100,000 worth of boxes, $90,000 of block foam and $11,000 for 144,000 cubic feet of foam peanuts.
-- In addition to actual glass, Chihuly-owned Portland Press has shipped 44,000 books this year. Portland Press has 26 books in print, plus many exhibition catalogs. Chihuly has had 41 exhibitions this year.
The local economy benefits from much of this shipping activity.
"We buy mostly from local vendors," Vinup said. "We use a local transportation firm, Interstate Distributor in Tacoma. We use local trucking firms to and from the port. We build display cases for some glass pieces locally."
Foam is a key packing element to protect the glass. Vinup's staff uses different forms of foam for different types of glass.
Chihuly's round floats and colorfully spotted Macchia, which are round at the bottom and splay open at the top like a flower are cushioned by pouring heated liquid foam into the box around the glass. It solidifies into foam-in-place.
For seaforms or baskets, they use foam cut to the exact shape of the piece, similar to the tool box fillers that precisely hold specific tools in place.
The delicate, paper-thin Persians, with multiple, erratically shaped parts, are suspended in a box filled with foam peanuts that provide uniform pressure.
The boxes are a story in themselves. They come in 53 different sizes, with various dividers to create 4-inch to 14-inch squares and lengths up to 90 inches for chandelier parts. They're double-wall corrugated cardboard with rope handles on each end for sure grip. Chihuly himself designed the cartons years ago.
"That's an old Dale idea," said Terry Rishel, manager of Chihuly Studio in Tacoma. "In the very beginning, it was only Dale. He blew the glass. He packed it himself, so he became aware of details. We still use some of his ideas today."
But Chihuly is a bit too much in demand to do the packing himself nowadays. That's where Vinup comes in. In the Air Force, the 43-year-old Tacoma native learned about careful shipping by running warehouses that handled such hazardous commodities as bullets. He gained experience with international shipping laws. For the past five years, he's applied his background to Chihuly glass.
Despite his expertise, doesn't that precious, fragile freight often break en route?
"We actually don't have that much breakage. It's less than 1 percent," Vinup said.
"That's directly related to our extensive internal shipping and safety training video," Rishel said. "It teaches many important things, like where the thickest and thinnest parts of the glass are. Some Venetians are so delicate you have to handle them precisely, or you can stick a finger right through it."
Timeliness of deliveries is at least as significant a pressure as safety.
"This does have time-sensitive issues, with specific openings and closings," Vinup said. "Exhibitions must be shipped on time. We track everything. It gets intense. But not one time has an exhibition failed to open on time."
"Even though there have been times our crew is going out the back door when the people are coming in the front," Rishel said.
Exhibition logistics are complicated. A massive Jerusalem display that has drawn more than 1 million patrons in the past 18 months required the gathering of material from Japan, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, New York and Alaska.
Alaska?
"We sent 64 tons of ice from Alaska to Jerusalem (for a neon-in-ice display)," Vinup said. "We sent 10 ocean containers of art, plus lots of air freight shipments."
If you think Chihuly throws cost to the wind and simply spends whatever it takes to transport glass safely, think again.
"Cost is very, very important," Vinup said. "We try to reuse as much material as we can for as long as it's of acceptable quality. Some boxes have been with the company longer than I have."
Like the rest of us worrying that special Christmas package might not arrive safely or on time, Vinup finds this a particularly stressful month for shipping.
"This time of year is the worst time of year to ship glass because shippers hire so many temps who don't really know how to handle boxes," he said. "We just try to pay more special attention to all the glass we ship now.""
Popham, Art. "The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash., Art Popham Column.(Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News)." Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. Dec 19, 2000. Retrieved November 05, 2009 from accessmylibrary: http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-6424981_ITM
2000 Neil Watson:
"Is it meaningful to continue to debate the distinction between art and craft? Doesn’t it seem fruitless, if not a little absurd, to debate craft’s inclusion in the contemporary art canon when artists are suspending sharks in tanks or drawing on the floor with hair saturated in Loving Care? It’s a free-for-all out there. Forms expand. Barriers fall. And it all happens at the accelerated point-and-click pace of contemporary culture. The contemporary curator who has the time to make judgments about whether the medium of glass is craft or art is wasting time. But curators are in the business of judgment, after all.Back in the early 1970s, when I was studying painting and printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design, I wasn’t thinking about judgments. I was gobbling up instruction as fast as I could.Studio glass was in its infancy, and Dale Chihuly was head of the glass department. He was also one of the coolest teachers around. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to take his flat glass course. I can’t say that I was among his stellar students, but I was struck with Dale’s vision of where glass was heading, and the fact that he saw no divisions, no barriers between what he did and what other artists did. For the first time, I connected glass to sculpture, glass to drawing, glass to paint.
Since that experience, I had always wanted to visit the Pilchuck Glass School in Washington State. Twenty-five years later, I got my wish. Last May I was invited to participate in their curator’s workshop and it was everything I had hoped. To stand in the hot shop and encounter close up the jump-back blistering heat of the furnaces and see the glassblowers perform their seemingly choreographed dance is to glimpse the remarkable progress of the studio glass movement as well as where it’s headed.
Studio glass is a collaborative effort. The material requirements are demanding and costly, the help and assistance of others a necessity. That fact doesn’t limit glass; it expands it. It charges and challenges artists. You can feel it all at Pilchuck, permeating Washington State’s thick fog-laden air; passion, challenge, generosity, rivalry, vision. Even now, studio glass is still young. During the early 1960s when artists were experimenting with glass, their ambition was often hindered by the size of the work that could be created. With the advancements of furnaces and their capabilities and techniques, as well as a large does of ingenuity, the artists were able to create larger scaled work. Trailblazers such as Harvey Littleton and Dale Chihuly were instrumental in bringing studio glass to the forefront and effectively giving it a popular appeal. At the same time, artists such as Toots Zynsky, Judith Schaechter, Christopher Wilmarth, and longtime collaborators Joey Kirkpatrick and Flora C. Mace have pushed the boundaries of the medium to a point where the glass has become an integral component of a larger idea. Today’s artists are not constrained by medium; in their search for meaning, they slip back and forth across the borders of craft and art and, in the process, push us all in a new direction.
Much like photography, glass, when in the hands of gifted artist, becomes something altogether different from its traditional and more narrowly focused beginnings. Glass can be many things: smooth or coarse, opaque or clear, intimate or heroic, subtle or eye-popping.It can also be seductive—some critics say too seductive.In the world of contemporary art these days, beauty often annoys.It can be a problem.Beauty cant’ be taken seriously, after all. The impulse to beauty, some think, is an easy road, especially if the artist is technically proficient.
This is one of the challenges facing today’s contemporary glass artists. Their technical virtuosity is unquestionable. But the artist who relies too heavily on technique will always be anchored to craft. In the end it will be the artists working with glass s who look to art history as well as the work of their contemporaries who are non-glass artists who will have the greatest chance of being judged on their own terms as artists.It is the job of the museum curator to try to make sense of it all. Finally, what all of these issues distill down to is what is good, what will last. All the heated discussions regarding the validity of glass as art will eventually disappear, and what will be left is the work, whether a classic vessel or a sculpture formed from thousands of carefully extruded colored glass threads. Talk fades. Vision endures."
2000 National Endowment for the Arts:
"Glass Art Society, Inc.
Seattle, WA
$12,000
DISCIPLINE/FIELD: Visual Arts
To support the 30th annual conference of the national service organization of artists working in glass. G.A.S. 2000: Bridge to the Future will be held in Brooklyn in June 2000."
http://www.nea.gov/grants/recent/00grants/Ed.html
2000 Karen S. Chambers:
“The future of glass might seem to be a frivolous question or alternatively a deeply philosophical one. For some, glass has no future, meaning that studio glass will die because glass as a medium will be subsumed into the larger category of sculpture. It will become a material for those working three dimensionally with perhaps the skilled studio glassworker functioning like a master printer or foundry foreman to execute an unskilled glass artist’s concept.
That is not the future of studio glass that I see although I do believe that it will become an increasingly significant trend….There will forever be artists like Maurice marinot who feel they must conquer the medium. Responding directly to the seductiveness of the material will always yield unexpected and perhaps even aesthetically pleasing results….
I, personally do not subscribe to the notion that big is better…but larger may be the natural consequence of more technically skilled glassworkers.
One thing I do not see happening in the future is the widespread acceptance of glass objects into museum collections , despite the efforts of organizations like the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass and the popularity of recent glass survey exhibitions in major museums. The simple truth is that museum collections are intended to preserve the best art, an evaluation subject to change over time."
Chambers, K. The Future of Glass, a question posed by editor Perreault. “UrbanGlass Art Quartlery” GLASS no 78 spring 2000. [editor John Perreault]. pg. 20.
2000 Matthew Kangas:
“For the time being, the number of glass artists seems likely to grow, but what about the next generation of connoisseurs and collectors? Not at all definite."
Kangas, M. The Future of Glass, a question asked by editor Perrault. “UrbanGlass Art Quartlery” GLASS no 78 spring 2000 editor John Perreault. pg. 21.
2000 Matthew Kangas:
"Clearly Brilliant: A Decade at Pilchuck Glass School's Emerging Artists in Residence," (to Jan. 1, 2001) "...Chihuly's hunch proved prophetic for, if anything, the EAiR [Emerging Artists in Residence] underscored and facilitated a general trend in contemporary art toward the implementation of glass as art element rather than its exclusive focus for decorative crafts.
EAiR echoes Pilchuck's already existing artist-in-residence program that has invited such well-known artists as Lynda Benglis, Willie Cole, John Torreano, Dennis Oppenheim and Italo Scanga to have works executed in glass according to their design whims.
By concentrating on younger, unknown artists of promise, Pilchuck wisely plants seeds for the future, a day that, in a way, has already arrived within the past decade when glass became fully accepted as one of a variety of art materials attracting artists today.
Viewers will be startled and delighted by the range of works on view. The bright color associated with Pilchuck glass (because of its Venetian heritage) is there but it is accompanied by a cool, clear color sense ratcheting up the intellectual caliber of the show, and reminding us that much of the appeal of glass to younger artists lies in its transparency. Icy, frosty, crystalline, colored or blurry, the 66 works on view by 34 artists make references to human anatomy, technology, botany, calligraphy, medicine, genetics, adolescence, childhood, femininity, masculinity, and consumerism. With such a full plate, curator Bell was able to differentiate his survey from TAM's benchmark 1991 exhibit, "Glass: Material in the Service of Meaning," guest-curated by artist Ginny Ruffner. "'Clearly Brilliant' is about emerging artists for one thing," Bell noted, "but, like Ginny's show, not everyone in "Clearly Brilliant" is known for working in glass. I tried to create a show that would look good in our space."
[...]
It's too soon to tell which of the 54 former residents may become "big names" nor is that the gauge of the program's success. Several have managed to exhibit their work in galleries afterwards and a few, like Carl Hasse, Karin Richardson and Lisa Zerkowitz, joined the venue that also displayed their EAiR showcase, in this case, the Bryan Ohno Gallery. Other artists who found gallery affiliation as a result of the program include: Masami Koda and Kait Rhoads at the William Traver Gallery; Patricia Davidson and Patrick Martin at the Friesen Gallery.
Either way, the program is becoming one of the most desirable artistic residencies available in North America. What the next decade will bring is hard to say but, given the TAM survey and Pilchuck's sterling record for encouraging new talent, it is sure to remain the fount of some of the most promising and exciting art being made in our region."
2000 Brad Broberg:
"For years -- more like forever -- the only thing tourism and Tacoma had in common was the letter T.
But that was before world-class car and glass museums were in the works. And a new convention center and art museum were on the drawing boards. And an aquarium and an excursion train to Mount Rainier were being considered.
"I said a couple of years ago we needed a pair of jumper cables in this town," says David Allen, director of the Executive Council for a Greater Tacoma. "Now we need a traffic cop."
Once a dead end, downtown Tacoma believes it is on the road to becoming a magnet for travelers and meeting-goers.
"We're just going to be so (exciting), they're going to have to get off I-5 and explore our fine community," says Ruthie Reinert, executive director of the Tacoma/Pierce County Convention and Visitor Bureau.
The bureau is so confident that Tacoma will emerge as a convention destination that it recently flip-flopped its name to place the word convention before the word visitor.
Tacoma has been gaining momentum for more than a decade with the creation of a theater district, construction of the Washington State History Museum and arrival of the University of Washington branch campus. Before that, there was the Tacoma Dome and Exhibition Hall.
But the best is yet to come, say boosters.
"The year 2002 will be an unprecedented year," says Don Meyer, executive director of the Foss Waterway Development Authority. "This isn't rhetoric. This is real."
The waterway, which forms downtown Tacoma's eastern boundary, is one of several focal points in Tacoma's transformation and an example of the kind of public/private partnerships that are fueling the city's progress.
Owned by the city and managed by the development authority, much of the waterway's western shoreline is being converted from a blighted former warehouse district into an $88 million mixed-use development featuring shops, restaurants, condominiums, a hotel and a pedestrian esplanade along the water's edge.
Team Tacoma, a consortium of bankers, brokers, architects and developers, is expected to complete the project in 2002.
To the south of that development will sparkle the future crown jewel of Tacoma's renaissance -- the International Glass Museum, also scheduled to open sometime in 2002.
"It's like getting an anchor tenant in a shopping mall," says Meyer of the museum's importance to the waterway's redevelopment.
Inspired by the success of Tacoma-born glass artist Dale Chihuly, the museum is intended to become "an international home for the art form," says Allen.
Besides static displays, the museum will feature a huge "hot shop" where people can watch artists from all over the world at work.
The museum is expected to attract approximately 200,000 visitors a year, says Allen.
Site preparation for the museum already has begun near the south end of the waterway. A glass bridge linking the museum site and downtown will be finished later this year.
The glass museum won't be the only addition to Tacoma's cultural scene in 2002. A new $25 million Tacoma Art Museum will open north of Union Station on Pacific Avenue.
The final new attraction scheduled for completion in 2002 is the city's $51 million, 130,000-square-foot convention center. Also located north of Union Station on Pacific Avenue, it will be the centerpiece for surrounding private development -- including a possible multiplex movie theater.
Developer Opus Northwest LLC -- recently chosen by the city over two other firms -- is to present a final proposal in mid-February.
In a separate but related endeavor, the nearby Tacoma Sheraton is pondering a 200- to 225-room expansion, says Martha Anderson, an economic development manager for the city.
Reinert envisions the new convention center drawing midsize gatherings of up to 5,000 people. She says meeting planners who previously never considered Tacoma are already asking about dates.
Margaret O'Brien, executive director of the Catholic Daughters of the Americas, recently scouted Tacoma as one of two possible sites (the other is in Minnesota) for the New York-based group's 2004 convention.
In O'Brien's eyes, Tacoma already shines.
"Waking up and seeing the mountain outside my window was beautiful," she says. "You don't see that in New York."
The new convention center, museums and waterfront developments will make Tacoma that much more "fabulous," says O'Brien. "I think they will probably bring a lot more people there."
If her organization's board selects Minnesota instead of Tacoma for the 2004 convention, O'Brien wants the 800-member gathering to occur in Tacoma in 2006.
"I would choose it right now, but I'm only one person," she says.
Preceding completion of Tacoma's 2002 construction boom will be the arrival of a light rail spur. Scheduled to begin operation in 2001, the line will run along Pacific Avenue between the Tacoma Dome Station -- a terminus for Seattle-bound buses and commuter trains -- and the Theater District at the north end of downtown.
But wait. Those are just the "done" deals. Several other projects may also gain the funding and/or political support to move forward.
The grandest is the Harold E. LeMay Museum, a 200,000-square foot temple to the history and social impacts of the automobile. If all goes well, the museum and an adjacent 10-level open storage structure will house about half of LeMay's 2,300-car collection -- the largest private car collection in the world.
The museum's board is scheduled to decide by spring whether to begin raising funds. So far, the $74 million proposal "pencils out real well," says Eric LeMay, grandson of Harold and director of the museum.
The museum has a handshake agreement with the city to study constructing the complex in the south parking lot of the Tacoma Dome, says LeMay. It would take four years to build and could open as early as 2004, drawing as many as 360,000 visitors a year.
Harold LeMay, now 80, owns Pierce County Refuse and has been collecting cars for 50 years. They range in age from turn-of-the-century to modern-day.
About 250 of the cars would be displayed in the museum proper at any one time amid memorabilia of the era from which the car originated.
"We never refer to it as a car museum," says Eric LeMay. "It's a 20th century American culture museum ... that uses the car to put people in times and places to understand what was happening in the world to create that car."
Another project chugging to ward fruition involves running a tourist train from downtown Tacoma to Elbe, just outside Mount Rainier National Park. Weyerhaeuser already has donated the tracks, but the city must find $6 million to $7 million to upgrade them, says Allen.
Lastly, Alien is busy gauging support for building a Northwest Waters research aquarium. A site has been reserved along the Foss Waterway, but only until July 1. If Allen can't find a sponsor and major funding sources for the $60 million to $70 million project, the aquarium may evaporate.
"I find it hard to tell," he says of the aquarium's chances.
Allen has been executive director of the Executive Council for-a Greater Tacoma since it was formed in 1987.
"We're a leadership group," he says, "a subtle form of leadership. We are not project sponsors. We are project starters."
The council consists of the city's top business leaders. Bill Philip, chair of Columbia Bank, has chaired the council since its birth.
Created during the depths of the downtown's demise, the group has teamed up with City Hall to help turn Tacoma around, first by attracting projects like the UW branch campus and state history museum and now by supporting the glass museum, convention center and other coming attractions.
"For a long time Tacoma wanted to be like Seattle," says LeMay. "Now, look at all the things we can do to complement Seattle.""
Broberg, B. "Tacoma tourism: 'This isn't rhetoric, this is real'." Puget Sound Business Journal. January 21, 2000. American City Business Journals, Inc. 2000. AccessMyLibrary. 5 Nov. 2009 http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-59483074/tacoma-tourism-isnt-rhetoric.html
"Glassblowing thrives on the Venetian island of Murano in the work of a countess, a legendary g/ass artist's granddaughter, and an American furnishings firm
"I said a couple of years ago we needed a pair of jumper cables in this town," says David Allen, director of the Executive Council for a Greater Tacoma. "Now we need a traffic cop."
Once a dead end, downtown Tacoma believes it is on the road to becoming a magnet for travelers and meeting-goers.
"We're just going to be so (exciting), they're going to have to get off I-5 and explore our fine community," says Ruthie Reinert, executive director of the Tacoma/Pierce County Convention and Visitor Bureau.
The bureau is so confident that Tacoma will emerge as a convention destination that it recently flip-flopped its name to place the word convention before the word visitor.
Tacoma has been gaining momentum for more than a decade with the creation of a theater district, construction of the Washington State History Museum and arrival of the University of Washington branch campus. Before that, there was the Tacoma Dome and Exhibition Hall.
But the best is yet to come, say boosters.
"The year 2002 will be an unprecedented year," says Don Meyer, executive director of the Foss Waterway Development Authority. "This isn't rhetoric. This is real."
The waterway, which forms downtown Tacoma's eastern boundary, is one of several focal points in Tacoma's transformation and an example of the kind of public/private partnerships that are fueling the city's progress.
Owned by the city and managed by the development authority, much of the waterway's western shoreline is being converted from a blighted former warehouse district into an $88 million mixed-use development featuring shops, restaurants, condominiums, a hotel and a pedestrian esplanade along the water's edge.
Team Tacoma, a consortium of bankers, brokers, architects and developers, is expected to complete the project in 2002.
To the south of that development will sparkle the future crown jewel of Tacoma's renaissance -- the International Glass Museum, also scheduled to open sometime in 2002.
"It's like getting an anchor tenant in a shopping mall," says Meyer of the museum's importance to the waterway's redevelopment.
Inspired by the success of Tacoma-born glass artist Dale Chihuly, the museum is intended to become "an international home for the art form," says Allen.
Besides static displays, the museum will feature a huge "hot shop" where people can watch artists from all over the world at work.
The museum is expected to attract approximately 200,000 visitors a year, says Allen.
Site preparation for the museum already has begun near the south end of the waterway. A glass bridge linking the museum site and downtown will be finished later this year.
The glass museum won't be the only addition to Tacoma's cultural scene in 2002. A new $25 million Tacoma Art Museum will open north of Union Station on Pacific Avenue.
The final new attraction scheduled for completion in 2002 is the city's $51 million, 130,000-square-foot convention center. Also located north of Union Station on Pacific Avenue, it will be the centerpiece for surrounding private development -- including a possible multiplex movie theater.
Developer Opus Northwest LLC -- recently chosen by the city over two other firms -- is to present a final proposal in mid-February.
In a separate but related endeavor, the nearby Tacoma Sheraton is pondering a 200- to 225-room expansion, says Martha Anderson, an economic development manager for the city.
Reinert envisions the new convention center drawing midsize gatherings of up to 5,000 people. She says meeting planners who previously never considered Tacoma are already asking about dates.
Margaret O'Brien, executive director of the Catholic Daughters of the Americas, recently scouted Tacoma as one of two possible sites (the other is in Minnesota) for the New York-based group's 2004 convention.
In O'Brien's eyes, Tacoma already shines.
"Waking up and seeing the mountain outside my window was beautiful," she says. "You don't see that in New York."
The new convention center, museums and waterfront developments will make Tacoma that much more "fabulous," says O'Brien. "I think they will probably bring a lot more people there."
If her organization's board selects Minnesota instead of Tacoma for the 2004 convention, O'Brien wants the 800-member gathering to occur in Tacoma in 2006.
"I would choose it right now, but I'm only one person," she says.
Preceding completion of Tacoma's 2002 construction boom will be the arrival of a light rail spur. Scheduled to begin operation in 2001, the line will run along Pacific Avenue between the Tacoma Dome Station -- a terminus for Seattle-bound buses and commuter trains -- and the Theater District at the north end of downtown.
But wait. Those are just the "done" deals. Several other projects may also gain the funding and/or political support to move forward.
The grandest is the Harold E. LeMay Museum, a 200,000-square foot temple to the history and social impacts of the automobile. If all goes well, the museum and an adjacent 10-level open storage structure will house about half of LeMay's 2,300-car collection -- the largest private car collection in the world.
The museum's board is scheduled to decide by spring whether to begin raising funds. So far, the $74 million proposal "pencils out real well," says Eric LeMay, grandson of Harold and director of the museum.
The museum has a handshake agreement with the city to study constructing the complex in the south parking lot of the Tacoma Dome, says LeMay. It would take four years to build and could open as early as 2004, drawing as many as 360,000 visitors a year.
Harold LeMay, now 80, owns Pierce County Refuse and has been collecting cars for 50 years. They range in age from turn-of-the-century to modern-day.
About 250 of the cars would be displayed in the museum proper at any one time amid memorabilia of the era from which the car originated.
"We never refer to it as a car museum," says Eric LeMay. "It's a 20th century American culture museum ... that uses the car to put people in times and places to understand what was happening in the world to create that car."
Another project chugging to ward fruition involves running a tourist train from downtown Tacoma to Elbe, just outside Mount Rainier National Park. Weyerhaeuser already has donated the tracks, but the city must find $6 million to $7 million to upgrade them, says Allen.
Lastly, Alien is busy gauging support for building a Northwest Waters research aquarium. A site has been reserved along the Foss Waterway, but only until July 1. If Allen can't find a sponsor and major funding sources for the $60 million to $70 million project, the aquarium may evaporate.
"I find it hard to tell," he says of the aquarium's chances.
Allen has been executive director of the Executive Council for-a Greater Tacoma since it was formed in 1987.
"We're a leadership group," he says, "a subtle form of leadership. We are not project sponsors. We are project starters."
The council consists of the city's top business leaders. Bill Philip, chair of Columbia Bank, has chaired the council since its birth.
Created during the depths of the downtown's demise, the group has teamed up with City Hall to help turn Tacoma around, first by attracting projects like the UW branch campus and state history museum and now by supporting the glass museum, convention center and other coming attractions.
"For a long time Tacoma wanted to be like Seattle," says LeMay. "Now, look at all the things we can do to complement Seattle.""
Broberg, B. "Tacoma tourism: 'This isn't rhetoric, this is real'." Puget Sound Business Journal. January 21, 2000. American City Business Journals, Inc. 2000. AccessMyLibrary. 5 Nov. 2009 http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-59483074/tacoma-tourism-isnt-rhetoric.html
2000 Christopher Petkanas:
"Glassblowing thrives on the Venetian island of Murano in the work of a countess, a legendary g/ass artist's granddaughter, and an American furnishings firm
Before Marie Brandolini founded her upstart company, Laguna B, the humble drinking glasses known as got/were largely unavailable to the general public. Fashioned at the end of the day from bits and pieces of leftover glass, melted and reblown, these seductively artless tumblers were always reserved for the use of the craftsmen who made them.
"Traditionally they are the fruit of chance," says Brandolini, a countess through her marriage into one of Italy's grandest families. "Since I control every step of production, my goti are an interpretation. I select the glass rods and murrini--little glass ornaments that look like hard candies, which supply the decoration. I wanted them used in a variety of ways--as whiskey or Coca-Cola glasses, as pencil cups or vases, even as holders for votive candles."
After meeting some initial resistance (many feared she was merely a bored socialite), Brandolini is now a member of the Murano glass community. She knew she'd made it when craftsmen began calling her "the Glass Contessa."
Laura de Santillana's grandfather, Paolo Venini, and father, Ludovico de Santillana, did more to open the art of Venetian glass to the world than anyone in the 20th century. Even people who never buy glassware more exotic that what is offered at Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn know the name Venini.
"A decommissioned soldier who had been a lawyer in Milan, my grandfather arrived in Venice after World War I, fell in love with the city, and looked for an activity that would allow him to stay," says Laura de Santillana. "In 1921 he opened a workshop that would launch the mode for Venetian glass in northern Europe, especially Scandinavia. After my grandfather died in 1959, my father welcomed American artists like Dale Chihuly, Dick Marquis, and James Carpenter to the factory, and the market in the United States exploded."
Having grown up among the furnaces of Murano, surrounded by glass artisans, Santillana distanced herself as a teenager from her family and the visionary business it built from the ground up. "I wanted to escape Venice," she remembers. She landed in New York as a graphic design student at the School of Visual Arts, but returned to Italy in 1975 at age 20. Her father welcomed her back and set her to work designing.
With the sale of Venini and a second family company, Eos, Santillana now works as a freelance designer. Her slender, tapering vases for Arcade are just big enough for a single blossom. Sei Sensi (Six Senses) is a collection that was designed for Japan, which has little tradition of fine glass tableware, but that has also found enthusiastic customers in this country.
Expert at divining niches in the home furnishings arena, Donghia Furniture/Textiles recently put its muscle behind a 20-piece line of Venetian glass. Created by the company's New York design team, which is headed by Sherri Donghia, and produced in Murano, the trade-only collection comprises lighting, mirrors, and accessories, including compotes, urns, and vases. Most objects are flecked with gold leaf.
"A lot of Venetian glass is over-the-top in terms of shape and color," says Lloyd Jackson, Donghia's marketing manager. "We saw the need for historic designs that are cleaned up, pared down, and brought into contemporary focus. The palette draws on the rich and muted colors of the 17th and 18th centuries, the ones you see in Venice: burnt blood-red, golden ocher. What we call `breen'--not blue and not green--was inspired by the Venetian lagoon."
Donghia is betting on the power of the new collection to "round out" (read: soften) interiors that might be considered stark or chilly, adds Jackson. It also carries forward poetically the firm's practice of vaulting the divide between the traditional and the modern."
PETKANAS, CHRISTOPHER. "THREE WAYS WITH BLOWN GLASS." House Beautiful. May 2000. Retrieved November 06, 2009 from accessmylibrary: http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-27664668_ITM
"Traditionally they are the fruit of chance," says Brandolini, a countess through her marriage into one of Italy's grandest families. "Since I control every step of production, my goti are an interpretation. I select the glass rods and murrini--little glass ornaments that look like hard candies, which supply the decoration. I wanted them used in a variety of ways--as whiskey or Coca-Cola glasses, as pencil cups or vases, even as holders for votive candles."
After meeting some initial resistance (many feared she was merely a bored socialite), Brandolini is now a member of the Murano glass community. She knew she'd made it when craftsmen began calling her "the Glass Contessa."
Laura de Santillana's grandfather, Paolo Venini, and father, Ludovico de Santillana, did more to open the art of Venetian glass to the world than anyone in the 20th century. Even people who never buy glassware more exotic that what is offered at Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn know the name Venini.
"A decommissioned soldier who had been a lawyer in Milan, my grandfather arrived in Venice after World War I, fell in love with the city, and looked for an activity that would allow him to stay," says Laura de Santillana. "In 1921 he opened a workshop that would launch the mode for Venetian glass in northern Europe, especially Scandinavia. After my grandfather died in 1959, my father welcomed American artists like Dale Chihuly, Dick Marquis, and James Carpenter to the factory, and the market in the United States exploded."
Having grown up among the furnaces of Murano, surrounded by glass artisans, Santillana distanced herself as a teenager from her family and the visionary business it built from the ground up. "I wanted to escape Venice," she remembers. She landed in New York as a graphic design student at the School of Visual Arts, but returned to Italy in 1975 at age 20. Her father welcomed her back and set her to work designing.
With the sale of Venini and a second family company, Eos, Santillana now works as a freelance designer. Her slender, tapering vases for Arcade are just big enough for a single blossom. Sei Sensi (Six Senses) is a collection that was designed for Japan, which has little tradition of fine glass tableware, but that has also found enthusiastic customers in this country.
Expert at divining niches in the home furnishings arena, Donghia Furniture/Textiles recently put its muscle behind a 20-piece line of Venetian glass. Created by the company's New York design team, which is headed by Sherri Donghia, and produced in Murano, the trade-only collection comprises lighting, mirrors, and accessories, including compotes, urns, and vases. Most objects are flecked with gold leaf.
"A lot of Venetian glass is over-the-top in terms of shape and color," says Lloyd Jackson, Donghia's marketing manager. "We saw the need for historic designs that are cleaned up, pared down, and brought into contemporary focus. The palette draws on the rich and muted colors of the 17th and 18th centuries, the ones you see in Venice: burnt blood-red, golden ocher. What we call `breen'--not blue and not green--was inspired by the Venetian lagoon."
Donghia is betting on the power of the new collection to "round out" (read: soften) interiors that might be considered stark or chilly, adds Jackson. It also carries forward poetically the firm's practice of vaulting the divide between the traditional and the modern."
PETKANAS, CHRISTOPHER. "THREE WAYS WITH BLOWN GLASS." House Beautiful. May 2000. Retrieved November 06, 2009 from accessmylibrary: http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-27664668_ITM
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