Lynda Benglis @ MOG June 23-27

From the Tacoma Museum of Glass website:

"Lynda Benglis is a pioneer of the Post-Minimalist movement of the 1960s and is perhaps best known for her poured sculptures, including her translation of Jackson Pollock’s drip technique into sculptural forms. Over her notable career, she has worked with myriad materials—from plastic, wax and polyurethane to ceramics, bronze and video—creating works that portray her interest in themes of body and gender. A 40-year retrospective exhibition organized by the Irish Museum of Modern Art is currently traveling and will open at the Rhode Island School of Design this fall. During her residency, Benglis will utilize African masks as canvases for applications of glass using with her own unique aesthetic sensibility."

Conversation with the Artist: June 27, 2 pm

http://www.museumofglass.org/live-glassmaking/visiting-artists/

Tacoma Arts Commission funds HART, MOG, and TAM in 2010

The Tacoma Arts Commission offers three annual funding opportunities for Tacomans: The Anchor Fund, Tacoma Artists Initiative Program, and Arts Projects. This year, Hilltop Artists in Residence, the Museum of Glass, and the Tacoma Art Museum each were awarded with the Anchor Fund.

From the Tacoma Culture Website:

"Anchor Fund
This biennial program supports and stabilizes established arts organizations in Tacoma with budgets greater than $200,000."

http://www.tacomaculture.org/arts/funding.asp

From The City of Tacoma website:

"The Tacoma Arts Commission recently announced that its Anchor Fund program has provided $265,000 to 12 Tacoma arts organizations.

The 2009-2010 recipients are: Acoustic Sound; Children’s Museum of Tacoma; Grand Cinema; Hilltop Artists in Residence; Museum of Glass; Northwest Sinfonietta; Tacoma Art Museum; Tacoma Musical Playhouse; Tacoma Opera; Tacoma Philharmonic; Tacoma Symphony Orchestra; and Tacoma Youth Symphony Association. The organizations received awards ranging from $12,000 to $28,500.

The Tacoma Arts Commission established the biennial Anchor Fund program in 1995 to provide financial support to major local not-for-profit arts organizations that improve the quality of life for Tacoma residents. Anchor Fund recipients offer work of exceptionally high quality and exhibit a solid history of organizational and financial stability. Funding supports artistic fees and production expenses to keep arts activities affordable and accessible."

Strom-Avila, Naomi. "Tacoma Arts Commission to fund 12 arts organizations " April 9, 2009 Press Release. http://www.cityoftacoma.org/Page.aspx?hid=11822

'A banana with speed and a fish with a place to go.'

Banana Bam!
Designed by Macay Fischer
Museum of Glass, Tacoma

I could really go for a slice of pizza cat right now

"Pizza Cat"
Designed by Kaylee King, age 9 and 3/4
"Kids Design Glass" University of Washington Press, Seattle. 2009.
Tacoma Museum of Glass

Preston Singletary and Marcus Amerman @ TMOG

2009 ABJ Seattle Glass Online:
Laura Grabhorn of The Evergreen State College asked questions of Preston Singletary, Marcus Amerman, and Joe Feddersen at a Tacoma Museum of Glass panel today.

Singletary is, of course, a bass player, Amerman is best known for his bead work, and Feddersen for his printmaking. The panel of three are all a part of the Native glass movement happening right now.
There are probably 8-10 native persons who both design and blow glass, Singletary said. It is growing due to the community it fosters when the glassblowing team comes together to make a piece of art. Each glass blower has their own particular skill, for example 'naturalistic' or 'sculptural.' This is a reflection of the native community itself. The Native glass movement is all due, according to Amerman, to Singletary. He taught him to 'incorporate your own culture's aesthetic to your own work.' Amerman called him a 'hero who revives traditions' who should be sent around the world doing the same for others!

Amerman and Singletary were the hot shop artists in residence today and they started a killer whale portrait of Singletary which took about one hour to blow. The piece went into the box as a couple of very clean black shapes put together hot. After it's cold, the piece will be taped with adhesive rubber, which is then cut with an X-acto knife to make the surface patterns, and finally will be sandblasted so that the inner color is revealed while the glass under the rubber tape stays a black outline.

Feddersen didn't work on the hot shop floor today, but he has been a visiting artist in the past. He first came to glass at the University of Wisconsin in the 80s. He has experimented with all types of media including computer graphics and basketweaving. The panelists were asked how they challenge views of Native art. Feddersen replied that he takes recognizable forms and overlays them with contemporary designs on his vessels. These designs are often signs that represent the land as it is today, including parking lots, housing developments and power lines.

Singletary came to glass through work at a factory. He was raised outside of his Tlingit culture and so he learned a lot about Tlingit art from books and other artists. Applying the art of his family to his glass blowing gave him purpose and his art meaning. The symbols and codes, he says, are protected and he feels his work is carrying those ancient codes into the future. Due to the medium, they may last 1,000 years from now. Amerman added that what they are doing is 'experiential archeology': They are discovering values and experiences of their ancestors by recreating Native art.

A woman in the audience questioned the panel about how they were able to be open to the opportunities they were given to make their art. This led to Amerman concluding, "I planned my life before I was born and I planned to meet Preston and Joe."

Sarah Gilbert

2009 Sarah Gilbert, Tacoma Museum of Glass:

TravelTacoma, YouTube.
August 28, 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZwWD-6GcR8

oh boy oh boy oh boy!

http://museumofglass.org/exhibitions/kids-design-glass/

OCTOBER 31, 2009 - FEBRUARY 2011
TACOMA MUSEUM OF GLASS

LET'S GO NEXT FRIDAY!!

REMEMBER IT'S FREE ON 3rd THURSDAY!

Echoes, Fire, and Shadows @ the Tacoma Museum of Glass

2009 ABJ Seattle Glass Online:

Last year Preston Singletary was a selected artist in the youngest of three age categories at the Seattle Art Dealer’s show “Century 21: Dealer’s Choice.” One year later he has a mid-career “survey” at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. This demonstrates the challenging nature of being an artist in a medium that takes at least ten years to master the basics of… at age 45, he is both “young” and mid career.

Melissa G. Post curates his mid career survey, “Echoes, Fire, and Shadows”, with an honest approach that places Singletary humbly in both the lineage of the glass masters and in the traditions of his Tlingit heritage. The show suggests that his artistic voice, and thus his success, was found by melding two strong and interesting traditions, studio glass and Native art.

The correlation between glass technique and form and Native formline symbols and designs is striking: Both require a type of initiation and approval to be used. In glass that means proving that you learned from the masters, Italian, European, and American. In Native art the use of certain symbols, such as the eagle and the bear, is inherited through your family. Great care was done in this exhibit to show Singletary’s effort to achieve ability and also permission to use both certain glass technique and also the Tlingit symbols.

The path of his career winds from the simple, unadorned “Prestonuzzi” vases to the mythically charged “Land Otter Man.” “Echoes, Fire, and Shadows” repeats throughout how indebted he is to his teachers. Singletary learned glassblowing from Lino Tagliapietra and Benjamin Moore. He partnered with Dante and was influenced by him. He made vases inspired by Martinuzzi. Here’s a scribble vase that looks like a Jackson Pollock, the wall text states. Martinuzzi, Tagliapietra, Marioni, Moore, Asa Sundland, Joe David, Tony Jojola…even books, Singletary appears indebted to them all. The curator’s goal of establishing his place in the history of studio glass diminishes his personal identity.* But to validate him as worthy artist for a giant show is not necessary and Singletary’s work shines greater than the context it is sown in and grows out of the cement of academic history.

In a previous exhibition that included Singletary, “Fusing Traditions,” it was written, “[Singletary is] working in a cultural realm where the visible is not always legible to the uninitiated, yet even the culturally initiated will find these figures in glass startlingly new.“

The soft light that glows from within the pieces “Threshold Amulet”, “Land Otter Man” and “Soul Catcher” is the personal identity of Preston Singletary. This is his major contribution to the arts. Without knowing more about Tlingit art, this is all I can say with certainty: His technical mastery of luminous color (matte black and frosty/radiant color) is what makes him unique among artists.

Native artists of the Pacific Coast expressed their personal identities through they way they executed their art onto the object at hand. (B. Holm, B. Reid) The sharp formlines and minimal but effective coloring of “Raven” and “Wolf Hat” are in that style of art, from what I’ve seen. Glass artists have an infinite variety of shapes to work with now, not limited to functional vessels, but limited in the making process due to first the temperature and second to the fragility of the medium. Singletary’s eminence as an artist can only increase from working within the limits of these two art forms, and it will be interesting to see the innovations that come from him in the future.

There is a section of the show dedicated to his collaborations with other First People artist.

His collaborations with Ed Archie NoiseCat on ‘Frog Mask’ (1999) and ‘Frog Woman Mask’ (2000) produced a mold that Singletary still uses. The mold is of a face, broad and open with wide lips and prominent cheekbones. “Chieftain’s Daughter,” made in 2006, has black synthetic hair and abalone earrings.

Viewing the masks, I felt privileged to be gazing upon an exquisitely cared for group of Non-European faces, not in a history museum where they document the past, but in a contemporary art museum. Exquisitely cared for, but maybe the protective, dim-light made the museum seem more interested in the preservation of these “artifacts” than with their current importance in the world of contemporary art. This may have not been the intent; it would certainly be too blatant a cultural misstep.

Singletary’s works are not artifacts, nor simply contemporary translations of traditional forms. What are assembled in this show are careful, meticulous, spiritual pieces of sculpture heavy with the weight of responsibility taken seriously. As an artist and public figure charged with uncovering the truth to the world and as a man with multiple family names to do justice to, Singletary has a lot riding on his artwork. It is this well-shouldered responsibility to each world that makes him an interesting artist to examine mid-career. Whether Singletary steps out of the bounds of glass and Native art, or whether he develops new technology to work within them, he will become a great artist. In viewing this show, it is hard to see how that won’t happen.

*The exhibit was undergoing repairs while I was there; the guitar, baskets, and Clan House were unavailable to see. There wasn’t any mention that half the exhibit was gone. I didn’t know until I read Rosemary Ponnekanti’s review. So this point may be mitigated by what I wasn't able to view.

Red Hot Auction 2009

The Red Hot Gala at the Tacoma Museum of Glass raised over $600,000 this year. Martin Blank and team did a demo and the live auction included pieces from Preston Singletary, Dale Chihuly, Cappy Thompson, and John De Wit.

Photo of the Day

Lino Tagliapietra and Hilltop student Donovan Strange-Pruss at the Museum of Glass, Tacoma.
PhotoCredit: Kathy Traxler Anderson

2003 part two

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.

2003 The Times of India:
"HYDERABAD: Glass sculptures created by Sisir Sahana are on display for three days from August 25 at the L V Prasad Eye Hospital Art Gallery.
The sculptor has compressed, fused, moulded and melted glass of all sizes and shapes to form faces, birds and trees.
Sahana said he has used a technique known as 'casting' wherein glass made from sand, potash and other raw materials is framed around painted glass.
The sculptor has also used a 'fusion' technique to melt coloured glass pieces into representations of birds and trees. "I have attempted to represent life and forms in a realistic manner,'' Sisir Sahana said.
Also on display are his acrylic paintings that showcase the harsh realities of life. In one of the paintings, for instance, farmers are shown working in the fields even as highways encroach upon the fields.
Selected sculptures are on sale and interested art lovers can purchase them for Rs.16,000 and more."
"Mirroring life through glass sculptures." Asia Africa Intelligence Wire. 2003. Retrieved November 05, 2009 from accessmylibrary: http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-24208954_ITM
2003 Cheryl Petten:
"When most of us think of Native American art, works created from glass aren't usually what first comes to mind. But a visit to an exhibit being hosted by the Heard Museum in Phoenix this summer could change that.
Fusing Traditions: Transformations in Glass By Native American Artists opened at the museum in April, and runs until the end of August. The exhibit features the work of 18 Native artists from across North America, some of whom have been working in the medium as early as the 1960s and 1970s.
While exhibits in the past have looked at the work of individual Native glass artists, this exhibit is the first to provide an overview of Native glass art as an art movement. The exhibit was put together by co-curators Carolyn Kastner and Roslyn Tunis, who met through happenstance and a mutual interest in Native glass art.
Kastner, curator of the Museum of Craft & Folk Art in San Francisco, explained how the exhibit came about.
"The most mature artists in this exhibition have been working for more than 20 years. And yet no one had ever put an exhibition together that looked at the history of how all these people came to work in glass," she said. "And so in the summer of 2000, I began to gather information to work on this based on my knowledge of a few artists, primarily coming out of the southwest, that I knew about. And when I began to ask around here in the San Francisco Bay area, someone said to me, 'Are you working with Roslyn Tunis on her glass show?' And I was just floored. Because in 20 years, nobody had done this, and now somebody's telling me somebody else is doing this. So we met, and she had a similar epiphany on a trip to Haines, Alaska, and she saw an exhibit of primarily northwest and Alaskan artists in Haines at a small gallery there. And she had been thinking the same thing."
Tunis, an independent curator, had been focusing on the work of Preston Singletary, a glass artist of Tlingit ancestry, who grew up in Seattle, while Kastner's focus had been on the work of Tony Jojola, an artist from the Isleta Pueblo in New Mexico.
"So we had these sort of two points, with Tony Jojola, who does really very free and open work, and Preston Singletary, who's very detailed and elaborate in the kinds of work he produced. And they're like the two poles of this kind of artistic production at this point in time," Kastner explained.
Singletary came on board the project, serving as a consulting curator to the exhibit.
"Sort of keeping us on track about the sensitivity to the Native traditions and that kind of thing."
What Singletary also did was introduce Kastner and Tunis to the next generation of glass artists. Students in their 20s who are learning glass art from Singletary and Jojola.
One of the ways in which the newest generation of glass artists differs from the artists who have been working in the medium for some time is in the approach they take in combining glass with their Native culture.
Whereas the older artists, those in their 30s and 40s, faced more resistance and more limitations on what they could create, the younger artists are approaching their art with more freedom, explained Kastner.
"For instance, Tony Jojola had difficulties. He's from Isleta Pueblo and his pueblo rejected the medium, and when he tried to open a school there, they didn't want a glass school, because it wasn't traditional," she said. "So with these new, younger generations, they didn't have any of that political limitation, or hesitation. They just embraced glass and their Native culture, and they are making things that are extraordinary, and not limited in any way."
One artist whose works demonstrates this freedom to combine the medium and the culture is Robert Tannahill, a Metis artist of Mohawk and Scottish descent, who has created a series of blown glass figures he has called the False Face series.
"He has blown glass into a wooden cylinder, and what happens then, he's burned out some holes, and it allows the glass to expand outside of the wood, and actually burns and chars the wood at the same time .... He's Mohawk, and in the Mohawk tradition, masks are carved on the tree, and then at a certain point when the mask is done, it's taken off, it's cut away from the living tree. But it's carved, actually, on the tree before it's removed. It's not created from a plank of wood. So the artists were doing a couple of things. One is they were creating really ferocious masks that were meant to scare people, to terrify people, and they were used for ritual purposes. And when you look at Robert Tannahill's pieces, they're grotesque, and the glass flows out of these holes and gravity works on it. And so you can see all the characteristics of glass ... it's not using it in another way, it's allowing the glass to just show its properties, to expand and to drip and to do things like that. But it's also similar, not in its look, to the old false face mask, but in his way of working with contingencies and natural imperfections in the same way that the Mohawk carver would have originally done on the tree. Because once you start carving into a tree, you open the tree up and then there are knotholes and things you didn't know about, and the artist would work around those and they would become part of the mask. And that's what Robert Tanahill is doing," she said.
"He's creating art, and he's doing that on his own, because at the same time, he refers to the series as autobiographical. In the series, he uses names like a ghost from my grandmother's basement, and things like that. So that it's taken completely out of the realm of the sacred, and he's working from a concept, which is this false face, scary mask that's carved from nature, but it doesn't look a thing like it. So the point is that there are no limits, both on his artistic intention, because he's inventing new ways of working with glass, and at the very same time, he's not being limited by the traditions of the false face."
In addition to the works of Jojola, Singletary and Tannahill, the exhibit also features Choctaw artist Marcus Amerman, who uses glass beads to create portraits of contemporary figures such as Brooke Shields and Janet Jackson, and Coast Salish artist Susan Point, for whom glass is but one of the many mediums in which she works.
The works of C.S. Tarpley are also featured in the exhibit. Tarpley, who lists Choctaw, Chickasaw and Anglo as his heritage, recreates traditional pottery forms in blown glass, then employs his experience as a goldsmith and lapidary, sandblasting decorations into the glass surface, then electroplating it with metal.
Other artists in the exhibit include Salish artist Ed Archie NoiseCat, Navajo artist Conrad House, Hopi artist Ramson Lomatewama, Quinalt artist Martin Oliver, Inupiat artist Larry Ahvakana, Salish artist Shaun Peterson, Alaskan Native artist John Hagen, Tlingit artist Clarissa Hudson, Nuu-chanulth artist Joe David, Pawnee artist Brian Barber, Siberian Y'upic artist Michael Carius, and Tlingit artist Wayne Price.
The Fusing Traditions exhibit originally opened at the San Francisco Museum of Craft and Folk Art in September 2002, and then traveled to Los Angeles, where it appeared at the Los Angeles Museum of Craft and Folk Art before coming to the Heard Museum. After its run in Phoenix, the exhibit will be at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History before heading to Alaska. The exhibit will open at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art in February 2004, and will travel to the Alaska State Museum in Juneau in May 2004.
For more information about the exhibit, contact the Heard Museum at 602-252-8840, or visit the museum's Web site at www.heard.org."
Petten, Cheryl. "Exhibit explores work of native glass artists. (All My Relations)." Windspeaker. Aboriginal Multi-Media Society of Alberta (AMMSA). June 1, 2003. AccessMyLibrary. 5 Nov. 2009. http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-23634044_ITM
2003 C.R. Roberts:
"The virtues and distinctions of Tacoma were once compared to the likes of Spokane, Portland and Seattle.
Times change. Cities grow.
In this month's issue of the upscale Conde Nast Traveler, Tacoma finds its match alongside Bangkok, Riyadh, Innsbruck and Fuji City.
In the fourth installment of the magazine's annual look at consequential architecture worldwide -- in an article called "The Next Seven Wonders of the World" -- Tacoma's Museum of Glass: International Center for Contemporary Art earns a two-page spread.
Featuring one fine photograph.
There's the silver-scaled cone reflected in a pool of bobbing apples. There's the suspension bridge seemingly tethered at one end by the curved roof of the Tacoma Dome. There's Thea Foss Waterway below a soft blue sky.
"When you have a picture like that, it makes a tremendous impact. It's something people will remember," said Julie Gangler, director of public relations at the Tacoma Regional Convention & Visitor Bureau.
"That's the foremost travel magazine in the country, it's the most highly regarded," she said.
She said a mention such as this one can have a positive effect -- one that can be measured in prestige as well as counted in tourist dollars.
"People will clip it and save it. We'll have people show up clutching the article. It's the sort of thing, down the road, that will continue to produce tourism," Gangler said.
Articles such as this "definitely validate Tacoma. It makes us look like we have a world-class museum. And we do."
Conde Nast Traveler is not the only national publication looking at Tacoma this month.
Metropolis Magazine, prestigious among architects and designers nationwide, focuses eight pages of its April attention on several Tacoma projects, including the Tacoma Art Museum, University of Washington Tacoma and Union Station, as well as the glass museum.
"(T)he City of Destiny has pursued an ambitious center-city redevelopment strategy stressing new arts and educational institutions, cultural tourism and a degree of historic preservation," the article says.
Arthur Erickson's glass museum is "strong, lucid ... a retreat from his recent Post-Modern essays and a return to his Modernist roots." Antoine Predock's Tacoma Art Museum is "subtly detailed."
And a Seattle designer is heard to say, "Seattle's renaissance is in Tacoma."
"Our goal is to create a buzz about Tacoma," said Becky Japhet of the city's Economic Development Department.
Hers is the office that has created an advertising campaign to promote Tacoma among the business leaders of surrounding counties, attempting to court them into relocating here.
"The more you raise Tacoma's visibility, the better it is," she said. "The word is getting out."
Had the city bought an equivalent amount of advertising since 1999, it would have spent $1,045,797, the city department estimates. That's how much space Tacoma has received in publications ranging from The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times to Asahi Shimbun in Japan and Tekniika & Talous in Finland.
At Conde Nast Traveler, spokesman Jon Buchmeyer said nominations for the Seven Wonders feature are submitted from "world-leading design and architectural firms."
Nominations "span the gamut of architecture, coming from the ones who know what's going on, what's cool."
Tacoma may be cool in April, but what about tomorrow?
Ruthie Reinert, head of the convention and visitor bureau, is looking toward June.
April may have seen the area featured in Conde Nast Traveler and Metropolis -- and even in Courier Magazine, aimed at members of the National Tour Association -- but Reinert has begun thinking about early summer.
That's when a band of travel writers will visit the city for a gathering of the American Society of Travel Writers.
"Sweep the street and plant the pansies," Reinert said.
They're on their way."
Roberts, C.R. "World-Class Publications Take Note of Tacoma, Wash., Resurgence." Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. 2003. AccessMyLibrary. 5 Nov. 2009 published April 4, 2003. http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-6078351_ITM



2003 Jen Graves:
"Eighteen months after he arrived and six months after the Museum of Glass: International Center for Contemporary Art opened, chief curator Neil Watson is leaving.
He'll depart at the end of the month to become director of the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts in Wilmington, where he said colleagues interested in his work contacted him in late summer, not long after the Museum of Glass opened.
Watson was in Tacoma 18 months. He organized "Some Assembly Required," the group show that's up now.
"This was a hard choice," said 49-year-old Watson.
He has been curating at museums for less than a decade and this is his first chance to run a museum rather than simply manage exhibitions. And the Connecticut native and his wife want their infant daughter closer to their East Coast families.
"I have always had a wonderful time here, but we did have that Lou Piniella syndrome where it was far from everything for us," Watson said.
When museum director Josi Callan will begin the search for an artistic leader is unclear. Callan will use guest curators to fill in this year's schedule, Watson said.
Callan was unavailable for comment Saturday.
"We're taking a look at strategic vision and that will include curatorial," said museum spokeswoman Julie Pisto.
Watson is not a glass specialist, though he briefly studied with Dale Chihuly in the 1970s while earning a printmaking degree at Rhode Island School of Design.
After graduating, he was an illustrator for Atlantic Monthly and Houghton Mifflin before becoming a painter.
Established galleries in San Francisco and New York sold his abstracted landscape paintings in the 1980s. For the first half of the 1990s, Watson managed a SoHo gallery.
With his connections, the Tampa Museum of Art in Florida in 1995 hired him as curator of contemporary art. A year later, he went to the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, where he was contemporary art curator for five years.
At the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts -- a smaller, non-collecting space with galleries and 26 artists' studios -- Watson can work closely with artists.
"I came out of the studio and I feel more affinity with that," he said.
He enjoyed a good relationship with Callan that he hopes to continue in exchanges from his new post, he said: "I really loved working with her. She's a strong director."
Contemporary art in all mediums is Watson's true love.
"I was hired (in Tacoma) because I was a curator of contemporary art, not a curator of glass," he said.
Two other staff members who helped the museum open departed last month, Pisto said: a new store manager and security director are already on board."
Graves, J. "Tacoma, Wa. Glass museum curator takes new job." January 12, 2003. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. 2003. AccessMyLibrary. 5 Nov. 2009 http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-7943080_ITM


2003 MetNews:
"A California glass artist cannot copyright his lifelike glass-in-glass jellyfish sculptures because they are not sufficiently distinctive, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday.

The panel overturned a preliminary injunction granted last year by U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell of the Eastern District of California.

Burrell enjoined Christopher Lowry, a Hawaii artist, from making or selling sculptures with “a vertically oriented, colorful, fanciful jellyfish with tendril-like tentacles and a rounded bell encased in an outer layer of rounded clear glass that is bulbous at the top and tapering toward the bottom to form roughly a bullet shape, with the jellyfish portion of the sculpture filling almost the entire volume of the outer, clear glass shroud.”

The judge ruled that Lowry’s sculptures appeared to breach several copyrights registered by Richard Satava. Lowry admitted that saw a picture of Satava’s sculptures in a magazine in 1996 and that a customer brought him a Satava sculpture to repair in 1997.

It was undisputed that Satava started making the sculptures, products of a centuries-old art form, several years before Lowry began making his.

But Judge Ronald Gould, writing yesterday for the Ninth Circuit, said Satava could not obtain copyright protection for his works because they were not “original” works within the meaning of the Copyright Act.

The originality requirement, the judge explains, means that ideas, or “expressions that are standard, stock, or common to a particular subject matter or medium are not protectable under copyright law.”

The judge elaborated:

“Satava may not prevent others from depicting jellyfish with tendril-like tentacles or rounded bells, because many jellyfish possess those body parts. He may not prevent others from depicting jellyfish in bright colors, because many jellyfish are brightly colored. He may not prevent others from depicting jellyfish swimming vertically, because jellyfish swim vertically in nature and often are depicted swimming vertically—.

“Satava may not prevent others from depicting jellyfish within a clear outer layer of glass, because clear glass is the most appropriate setting for an aquatic animal—.He may not prevent others from depicting jellyfish ‘almost filling the entire volume’ of the outer glass shroud, because such proportion is standard in glass-in-glass sculpture. And he may not prevent others from tapering the shape of their shrouds, because that shape is standard in glass-in-glass sculpture.”

Gould acknowledged that a combination of unprotectable elements, taken together, might be something original and thus entitled to protection. But that is not the case with Satava’s sculptures, he said.

“The selection of the clear glass, oblong shroud, bright colors, proportion, vertical orientation, and stereotyped jellyfish form, considered together, lacks the quantum of originality needed to merit copyright protection,” Gould wrote.

The judge noted that the panel had looked at dozens of photographs of glass-in-glass jellyfish sculptures, and said in a footnote that they were basically similar, with each artist adding or omitting some standard element. The court would be allowing Satava “to fence off private reserves from within the public domain” if it allowed him copyright protection, Gould declared.

Judge Barry G. Silverman and Senior U.S. District Judge Charles R. Weiner, a visiting jurist from Philadelphia, concurred.

The case is Satava v. Lowry, 02-16347."

Unknown. MetNews Staff Writer. "Panel rejects copyright protection for jellyfish sculptures." March 21, 2003. Metropolitan News Empire. acc. November 2, 2009. http://www.metnews.com/articles/sata032103.htm

2003:

""Marvin Lipofsky: A Glass Odyssey"
2003-07-19 until 2003-10-12
Oakland Museum of California
Oakland, CA, USA

A translucent pink bubble punctured by a tube of clear red glass, a multicolored primordial glass form, a sinuous two-foot-long purple tube of flocked glass ending in a bulb that looks strangely sensual -- these are just three of the approximately 60 works that will be on display in the exhibition Marvin Lipofsky: A Glass Odyssey, at the Oakland Museum of California from July 19 to Oct. 12, 2003. This retrospective exhibition spans the 40-year career of Berkeley artist Marvin Lipofsky, founder of the California studio glass movement and one of the world's best-known glass artists.
The early works in the exhibition are simple bubble and bottle forms. In the 1970s, Lipofsky began working with subjects from popular culture, evidenced in the humorous "Great American Food Series," where pickles and hamburgers were fashioned of glass. In the "California Loop Series," Lipofsky created sensuous forms with flocking and plated glass surfaces. The pieces for which he is best known today are the three-dimensional globe-shaped forms he has made in many variations at glass factories the world over. These sculptural forms are most often semi-opaque on the outside, inviting the viewer to explore their inner dimensions.
Studio glass, or glass sculpture, was made in Czechoslovakian factories as early as the 1950s. It was pioneered in the United States in the early 1960s by artist Harvey Littleton, one of Lipofsky's teachers when he was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Lipofsky received a Master of Science degree in 1963 and an M.F.A. in sculpture in 1964 from the University of Wisconsin.
After graduation Lipofsky joined the faculty of UC Berkeley, where he established the second studio glass program in the country. In 1967 he founded the glass program at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. The work of Lipofsky and his students during the 1960s and '70s made the San Francisco Bay Area one of the centers of the early studio glass movement. "Cutting-edge talent," said Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown recently, "that was Lipofsky's gift to the world."
In 1970, Lipofsky began a global odyssey that would take him abroad on more than 50 journeys -- from Italy, Sweden and Poland to Taiwan and China. He was one of the first glass artists to travel to Czechoslovakia, a famed glass center to which he has returned a number of times during his career. He has worked with local artisans and materials in factory settings around the world to produce blown glass for his artworks. The resulting pieces were shipped back to his Berkeley studio for cold working -- sawing, grinding, sandblasting and polishing.
The exhibition includes large photographs of Lipofsky working with glass artists in workshops, studios and factories throughout the world. A video of the process of finishing glass in his Berkeley studio brings Lipofsky and the glassmaking process to life in the gallery space. Also included are works on paper, working drawings and tools revealing the artist's creative process.
As a teacher, Lipofsky has trained a generation of artists who currently staff studio glass programs and operate glass studios throughout the country. He was a founder of the Glass Art Society, and has been editor of its journal. He has had more than 40 solo exhibitions and has been included in hundreds of group shows. He twice received NEA Fellowships and has been selected as an American Crafts Council Fellow and as a Living Treasure of California by the Crocker Art Museum.
His work appears in more than 80 museum and corporate collections and in numerous private collections. Museums that own works by Lipofsky include, in addition to the Oakland Museum of California, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum Boymans-Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Holland; Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania; Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; and the Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The exhibition is curated by Suzanne Baizerman, curator of decorative arts at the Oakland Museum of California.
Marvin Lipofsky: A Glass Odyssey is accompanied by a catalog of the same name, edited by exhibition curator Suzanne Baizerman, published by the Oakland Museum of California and distributed by the University of Washington Press (2003).
The exhibition is sponsored by the Oakland Museum Women's Board, with additional support provided by the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass and individual patrons."
Unknown. "Marvin Lipofsky A glass oddessy." Absolute Arts. Accessed October 18, 2009. http://www.absolutearts.com/artsnews/2003/07/18/31219.html
2003 Mary Thomas:

"With her engaging exhibition "Matter," Brooklyn artist Jill Reynolds not only shakes up standard expectations of what glass art looks like, but also throws into question isolate readings of scientific precepts.

	This glass skeleton by Jill Reynolds, titled "Gnomon" -- the word for the column on a sundial that casts the shadow -- adds a reminder of mortality to the passing of time. In the background, "Beauty," from 2000, comprises mirrored glass letters that tempt the viewer, in vain, to look for his reflection. Photo Credit: Pittsburg Post-Gazette.

Reynolds was artist-in-residence earlier this year at the Pittsburgh Glass Center in Friendship, which has already reconfigured the face of glass for local audiences although it hasn't yet reached its second anniversary.
Intent upon putting Pittsburgh on the map as a nationally and internationally important site for studio glass education and creation, the center also has in its mission the support of glass artists and the education of the public about contemporary glass through exhibitions and talks.
The center's second resident artist, Reynolds contributes with a conceptually strong exhibition that's flavored with the medium rather than intoxicated by it. Indeed, at times it disappears altogether: Those toothpick-imbedded Styrofoam balls are just that, and not some tour de force illusion.
Reynolds -- who was an emerging-artist-in-residence at Pilchuk Glass School, Stanwood, Wash., and who's received a commission from the Corning Museum of Glass -- has exhibited at, among other venues, the MIT List Visual Art Center and the Seattle Art Museum.
The Hodge Gallery, partitioned for the exhibition, shows earlier works made as parts of larger installations in the first section, which illustrate Reynolds' humor, irreverence and palpable querying. "Are we considering all the angles?" you can almost hear the artist asking.
Sand pours through the dozen bulbous hourglass-like globes of the motor-driven "Analog," referencing the unremitting passage of months and hours. The three small, transparent glass skulls of "Ancestor, Recollection, Memorandum" contain, respectively, a smaller carbon skull, rose-colored sand that's seeping out and an alphabet-inscribed slate that calls to mind the Rosetta Stone. "Body Alphabet," represented in 26 backlit slides, inspires new ways of looking at both the body and letters.
Most exciting, because it is of one cloth, is the work made at the center shown in the second gallery.
The centerpiece is "Table of Elements," a take-off on chemistry's periodic table, with numbers of mixed-media objects arranged on a light table, some of them modified lab vessels like flasks or test tubes. Elsewhere, cute-as-buttons twins connected with a rubber hose umbilicus, "Replicate," raises questions about cloning, near a fabulous configuration of "Molecula" that glows eerily green. "Kekule's Dream" was inspired by the discoveries of a German chemist of that name, while the "molecular" chain of "Family Line" carries references to Reynolds' own. "Gravity" sounds scientific but has a beauty that's as arresting as innocence.

	"Replicate," one of the works created by Brooklyn artist Jill Reynolds while she was in residence at the Pittsburgh Glass Center this year, is a humorous appearing commentary on a topical subject, cloning. PhotoCredit: Pittsburg Post-Gazette

All specifics aside, what becomes evident as the viewer attempts to decipher facts stylistic and technical is that he's stumbled into an undefined world that exists between them.
The overall effect is to show how cultural expectations precondition our reading of all components of our universe. That a viewer's life experience influences his or her interpretation of an artwork is a given in contemporary art dialogue. To claim that the reception -- even perhaps the structuring -- of a scientific principle may be culturally steered is a harder sell. Reynolds' presentation introduces the notion that absolute might not be as unmitigable as we think, and that categorical separations may be as arbitrary as racial classifications.
It's a good time to visit the center (see hours below) because classes have been suspended during torturously hot August and parking is readily available in its adjacent lot. Or, attend the free Hot Jam Open House from 6 to 9 p.m. Sept. 5 and see "Matter" along with glass blowing and flame-working demonstrations, snacks and entertainment.
"Matter" continues through Sept. 19 at 5472 Penn Ave. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays. Admission is free. For information: call 412-365-2145 or visit www.pittsburghglasscenter.org."
Thomas, M. "Art Review: 'Matter' is more proof that glass art matters." Pittsburg Post-Gazette. August 23, 2003. Accessed September 8, 2009. http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/20030823thomas0823p5.asp

Preston Singletary @ Tacoma Museum of Glass

2009 Little Marvel Stove:

"I also did a lot of things that were not productive in terms of meeting any immediate goal but that turned out to be an important reminder that there's more to life than grading the next set of papers.

Including: walking a dog, sailing a boat, receiving a free burrito, chatting at a bar with the wryly reticent son of a famous author and his talkative wife, going to see Shakespeare in the park with a big group of gay Mormons, and, today, going to the totally awesome Museum of Glass in Tacoma where we spent a long time watching a bunch of guys working with blowtorches and a 2000 degree oven on what, after a lot of rolling, wrestling, cradling in a frying pan filled with water, caressing with a wet newspaper, and direct application of flames turned into what looked like a mad chemist's super-vial. We also saw a talk by the awesomely-named Preston Singletary, who makes versions of traditional Northwest native art out of glass. They are conceptually interesting as well as gorgeous (based on the slides--we got distracted by the "hot shop" and the museum closed before we got to the exhibit)."

Sarah. "The Hot Shop." July 12, 2009. Little Marvel Stove blog. accessed July 20, 2009. http://littlemarvelstove.blogspot.com/2009/07/after-hard-spring-term-and-no-break.html

PUBLIC LAW 111-5

2009 the Seattlest:

"Artistic happy dances are going on within the Seattle arts community. News came this week that $1 million in federal funding will be spread out among local art, theatre, music, and literary organizations to help preserve nonprofit arts jobs in jeopardy. Thirteen local arts groups received $25,000 or $50,000 in funding, including: On the Boards, Northwest Folklife, Pilchuck Glass School, Intiman Theatre, and Seattle Theatre Group. Both the City of Seattle and the Cultural Development Authority of King County received $250,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts, which will be allocated--via an application process, due August 10--in a one-time arts stimulus for additional Seattle-based arts nonprofit groups.

the Seattlest blog. "Saving King County Arts Jobs $1 Million at a Time. July 8, 2009. website accessed July 12, 2009. "http://seattlest.com/2009/07/08/saving_king_county_arts_jobs_1_millo.php

2009 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA):

"The following nonprofit arts organizations are receiving grants to support the preservation of jobs that are threatened by declines in philanthropic and other support during the current economic downturn.

Art in General, Inc.
New York, NY
$25,000

International Sculpture Center, Inc.
Hamilton, NJ
$25,000

Penland School of Crafts, Inc.
Penland, NC
$50,000

Pilchuck Glass School
Seattle, WA
$50,000

Worcester Center for Crafts, Inc.
Worcester, MA
$50,000

Number of Grants: 41
Total Amount: $1,725,000"

NEA. "FY 2009 Grant Awards: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act." website accessed July 12, 2009. http://www.nea.gov/grants/recent/09grants/arra09.php?DIS=Visual%20Arts

Museum of Glass
Tacoma, WA
$50,000
CATEGORY: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Museums

City of Seattle, Washington
Seattle, WA
$250,000
CATEGORY: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Local Arts Agencies

Cultural Development Authority of King County
Seattle, WA
$250,000
CATEGORY: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Local Arts Agencies

http://www.nea.gov/grants/recent/09grants/states2/arra.php?STATE=WA

2009 NEA:

"There has been much public conversation recently regarding the role of the arts and culture industry in economic stimulus. Following is information that seeks to clarify this issue through two key points: that the arts and culture industry is a sector of the economy just like any other with workers who pay taxes, mortgages, rent and contribute in other ways to the economy; and that the National Endowment for the Arts is uniquely positioned to assist in job stimulation for that industry.

Arts businesses are small businesses

More than one in three full-time artists -- nearly 690,000 workers -- is self-employed, compared with less than 10 percent of the labor force. Artists are entrepreneurs and sole proprietors, the very definition of small business.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, any organization with average annual revenues of less than $7 million qualifies as a small business. With 100,000 nonprofit arts and culture organizations in U.S. (according to Americans for the Arts), many arts organizations are operating on the scale of small business, generating revenue in their communities.

The arts and culture sector

A recent study released by the National Governors Association titled Arts & the Economy: Using Arts and Culture to Stimulate State Economic Development states, "Arts and culture are important to state economies. Arts and culture-related industries, also known as 'creative industries,' provide direct economic benefits to states and communities: They create jobs, attract investments, generate tax revenues, and stimulate local economies through tourism and consumer purchases."

As noted in the NEA study Artists in the Workforce (June 2008), there are two million trained, entrepreneurial working artists across the country who are assets to their communities. Representing 1.4 percent of the U.S. labor force, artists constitute a sizeable class of workers -- only slightly smaller than the total number of active-duty and reserve personnel in the U.S. military (2.2 million).

In addition to artists, there are many more arts administrators who manage arts institutions including office staff such as accountants and booking agents, production staff such as stage managers, and artistic staff such as ballet masters and artist managers.

According to research by Americans for the Arts, nonprofit arts organizations and their audiences generate $166.2 billion in economic activity every year, support 5.7 million jobs, and return nearly $30 billion in government revenue every year. Every $1 billion in spending by nonprofit arts and culture organizations and their audiences results in almost 70,000 full time jobs.

The National Endowment for the Arts

The NEA has in place processes to distribute federal funds quickly and effectively to organizations large and small in every Congressional district. The NEA's grant-making process of applications, panels, and grants distributes money to arts and culture organizations in six to nine months both through state governments and directly to the organizations themselves.

A review of NEA grants for FY 2008 revealed that for every $10,000 of grant money, 162 artists benefited. This number does not include the arts administrators involved in these projects as mentioned above.

Of the 884 grants approved in the NEA's October 2008 National Council on the Arts meeting, project costs totaled $403.8 million of which 22 percent was designated for salaries. Of the $53 million requested in those 884 grants, the NEA was able to fund more than $20 million or 38 percent.

The NEA has strong relationships with grantees and other institutions in the nonprofit arts field that can facilitate funds distribution. And finally, the projects the NEA supports aren't subject to hearings or studies at the front end that might delay the start of a project and don't put entitlements in place after a project is completed.

Examples from the arts and culture sector

Nonprofit arts organizations have been struck particularly hard in this economic downturn due to their reliance on both private and public, earned and donated monies to support their activities. Some examples of the impact of the economic crisis on arts organizations follow.

• The Los Angeles Opera said today that it had laid off 17 employees, or approximately 17% of its staff. It has also mandated a pay cut for all employees, averaging 6% but with higher-paid staffers taking an 8% cut. (source: Los Angeles Times, 1/27/09)
• The Milwaukee Shakespeare Theater Company, a high profile regional nonprofit theater closed down operations in October. (source: report from the field)
• The Seattle Art Museum has cut back five percent of its staff and is facing a $3.8 million annual shortfall if it can't find a new tenant for the space Washington Mutual had been leasing from it. (source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1/25/09)

Reports referred to above are available online:

Artists in the Workforce

Arts & the Economy: Using Arts and Culture to Stimulate State Economic Development (pdf)"

National Endowment for the Arts. "Information Regarding the Arts and Economic Stimulus." January 29, 2009. website accessed July 12, 2009. http://arts.endow.gov/news/news09/arts-and-economic-stimulus.html

2009 NEA:

"The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Public Law 111-5 ("Recovery Act") recognizes that the nonprofit arts industry is an important sector of the economy. The National Endowment for the Arts is uniquely positioned to fund arts projects and activities that preserve jobs in the nonprofit arts sector threatened by declines in philanthropic and other support during the current economic downturn. As part of this important investment, the Arts Endowment has designed a plan to expedite distribution of critical funds for the national, regional, state, and local levels for projects that focus on the preservation of jobs in the arts.

This program will be carried out through one-time grants to eligible nonprofit organizations including arts organizations, local arts agencies, statewide assemblies of local arts agencies, arts service organizations, units of state or local government, and a wide range of other organizations that can help advance the goals of the Arts Endowment and this program. Grants will be made either to organizations for their own job preservation projects, or to designated local arts agencies, eligible to subgrant, for subgranting programs to eligible nonprofit organizations (see "Subgranting Funds" below).

All applicants must be previous NEA award recipients from the past four years (see "Applicant Eligibility" for more information). In addition, organizations are limited to receiving NEA American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds through only one source – from the Arts Endowment directly, or directly through an entity eligible to subgrant NEA funds including a state arts agency, a regional arts organization of state arts agencies, or a designated local arts agency that is eligible to subgrant or regrant funds.

Projects are limited to:

• Salary support, full or partial, for one or more positions that are critical to an organization's artistic mission and that are in jeopardy or have been eliminated as a result of the current economic climate.

And/or

• Fees for previously engaged artists and/or contractual personnel to maintain or expand the period during which such persons would be engaged."

"Grant Program Description." http://www.arts.gov/grants/apply/recovery/index.html

Joseph Gregory Rossano @ Tacoma Museum of Glass

photo credits: ABJ Seattle Glass Online

2009 Auctions

Auctions Auctions Auctions...an artist could donate every piece they ever made and still there'd be MORE AUCTIONS. Solicitors for auctions claim that the benefits to the donors include both their art in front of a large audience of collectors and their name briefly in lights. Sometimes artists can opt for a percentage of the selling price rather than a full donation. An artist could thank an institution for their part in contributing to the artist's education or for anything else the artist might feel in debt for. An artist could also donate with the hope of generating a buzz in the bidding community. Could a career be made out of a series of donations to glass auctions an no other form of marketing? Regardless, I hypothesize that there is a greater demand on glassblowers for auction donations than there is a demand to buy work outright. Could it be that more glassblowers donate pieces to auctions than receive benefits from the auction institutions themselves? On the other hand, does the increase in glass awareness of the general public that comes from these institutions presence in turn lead to a greater collector base...therefore making donations of art to their auctions another benefit to the artist? And what do collectors feel with all these auctions? Are they cutting back on their minutes and their texting to come up with the cash?

Here's what's still coming up...

Red Hot Gala and Auction
Tacoma Museum of Glass
September 12, 2009

"Our annual RED HOT gala features live and silent auctions of glass and glass-related experiences; a dazzling live Hot Shop show; fine cuisine and after-dinner entertainment. Proceeds benefit the Museum's education, exhibition, and Hot Shop programs and the care, study and exhibition of the permanent collection. Donate goods, sponsor a table, invite friends, and have a ball!

Become a part of RED HOT 2009. Are you a glass artist? Apply to become a participating artist in the exclusive RED HOT Auction.

Participating artists’ work is showcased to 300+ glass collectors and enthusiasts. An artist biography and donated work are also featured on our website, in email broadcasts to 8,000+ Museum supporters, and in the RED HOT catalog.

Download and submit our RED HOT Procurement Form to apply today!"

http://museumofglass.org/programs-and-events/red-hot-2009/

Glass Now Auction
National Liberty Museum, Philadelphia
October 3, 2009

"Thank you for your interest in submitting art to be included in the National Liberty Museum’s 10th Anniversary Glass Now Auction. This annual event is a major fundraiser for the Museum’s anti-violence and character education outreach programs, drawing support from the glass art community, the primary art form featured in the Museum.

The National Liberty Museum is the only museum is the world that uses contemporary glass art for the purpose of celebrating freedom and defusing violence and hate. By incorporating glass art in exhibits on Civic Responsibility, Respect for Diversity, Peaceful Conflict Resolution and Heroism, we make the point that freedom is as fragile as glass and every citizen has the duty to protect it through his or her own actions. More than 450,000 students, families and visitors from across the country and around the world have visited the Museum since we opened our doors in 2000. We have been told that our message is changing lives, while creating a whole new generation of glass art enthusiasts.

When you donate artwork to the Museum's Glass Now Auction, you become a partner in our important mission. You also share your talent with over 500 seasoned and emerging collectors, plus many others who see our auction catalog in the months that follow."

http://www.libertymuseum.org/glass/glassauction.html

Pilchuck Glass School Auction
October 23, 2009
Seattle, WA

"Your donation is important to us! By donating your artwork to Pilchuck’s annual auction, you help ensure
compelling artistic and residency programs in our comprehensive facilities. With your support, we can offer
innovative classes and provide more than 75 scholarships each summer. Along with the satisfaction of knowing
that you are contributing to a great cause, you also receive:

EXPOSURE
• Your artwork will be seen and bid on by many of the world’s top art collectors and gallery owners.
• Your artwork and biography are reproduced in full-color in the auction catalog with a distribution of at least 1,200.
• The catalog will also be featured online at www.pilchuck.com.

PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY OF YOUR ARTWORK
• You will receive a complimentary professional digital image of your donated artwork.
• If you prefer to provide your own image for the catalog, please send a slide or electronic file with your procurement form.
Please note that we may not be able to use your photography if the resolution or background does not fit with our design
guidelines. Be sure to mark the correct orientation and credit the photographer.

AUCTION TICKETS
Artists donating 100% of the proceeds from the sale of their artwork receive:
• Two tickets to Pilchuck Glass School’s annual auction on October 23, 2009.

Artists electing to receive a rebate on the sale of their artwork receive:
• 10% of the sale price of their artwork. (If the donated artwork is a collaboration, please clearly indicate to whom the check should be
written).
• One ticket to Pilchuck Glass School’s annual auction on October 23, 2009.
• The option to purchase a second ticket at a discounted rate of $85* ( The regular cost of each ticket is $250 per person)
*this offer limited to one discount ticket per donation."

http://www.pilchuck.com/

The 2009 Urban Glass Gala and Auction was held in April. The Pratt Fine Arts Auction was held in May. See, there's practically one per month...

Summer residencies at the Tacoma Museum of Glass

2009 Dawn Quinn of Tacoma Weekly:

"For the Museum of Glass’ (MOG) seventh annual Visiting Artist Summer Series, a new artist will present artwork in the Hot Shop, where glass is blown live in front of an audience, every week through August 30.

Visitors will be able to have a unique view of these artists’ take on glass. The artists have worked in a multitude of varying mediums.

According to Susan Newsom, communications manager for MOG, the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood is the initial draw for these artists that inevitably show at the museum during the series.

“Pilchuck brings in artists from around the world and country for their programs. We work with them to find out who they are bringing, and then ask certain artists to come exhibit,” Newsom said.

Melissa Post, curator for MOG, says that this series is an opportunity for both the museum and artists.

“We’re offering them (artists) an opportunity to come into the Hot Shop and explore new possibilities. (The program) has grown over the years, and it has expanded and re-shaped the way people look at glass.”

Attendance at this series every summer has included a varied mix of people coming to the museum for different reasons.

“It’s a good mix. The audience in summer tends to be lots of people from out of town. Locals who follow the series and want to know who’s coming also attend it,” Newsom said.

MOG hopes the same kind of interest is generated during this summer’s offering of artists.

One highlight for the show is artist Joe David, who will be exhibiting during the week of July 22-26. According to MOG’s press for the show, “David is recognized as one of the leading contemporary Northwest Coast Native artists. He is a member of the Nootka Tribe, the indigenous people of the west coast of Vancouver Island. He was born in the Clayoquot village of Opitsat on Vancouver Island and grew up in Seattle.”

David’s preference for art switched to Native art after he attended art school in the late 1960s and worked as a commercial artist. David is a woodcarver and is known for his work as a printer, jewelry maker and mask maker.

David has also been an instrumental inspiration and mentor to artist Preston Singletary, who will be exhibiting at the MOG beginning July 11 with his show, “Echoes, Fire and Shadows.” Singletary affirms that David helped him “develop a spiritual connection in a Native context.”

Artist Shelley Allen will also be an intriguing visiting artist, as she primarily works in oil painting. “Allen paints horses with oils. She makes beautiful pieces. She’s Canadian, and comes from a family of horse breeders,” Newsom stated.

The MOG Visiting Hot Shop Artists Summer Series will feature artists exhibiting Wednesday-Sunday for their five-day work residencies every week, and a “Conversation with the Artist” event, including a public lecture and slide presentation, at 2 p.m. on Sundays.

Glass fans and visitors to the museum can also track all of the artists participating in the Summer Series and their work from the MOG website during museum hours. Streaming video footage live from the Hot Shop Amphitheater, MOG gives attendants extra time with the artists, including sneak previews before and after the artist demonstrations. Each artist will also record an introduction to his or her work that will be posted on the MOG website every Wednesday throughout the series.

The Visiting Artist Summer Series is going on now through August 30 at MOG, located at 1801 Dock St. Museum hours are Wednesday-Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Third Thursdays 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Sunday 12-5 p.m. Admission is free for members, $10 general, $8 seniors, military and students (13 and older with ID), $8 groups of 10 or more, $4 children (6-12 years old), children under 6 are free. Admission is free every Third Thursday of the month from 5-8 p.m. For more information about the Summer Series, the Hot Shop, the visiting artists or MOG, call (253) 284-4750 or visit http://www.museumofglass.org."

Quinn, D. "Glass Exposure: Museum of Glass unveils seventh annual Visiting Artist Summer Series." Tacoma Weekly. June 25, 2009. Website accessed June 25, 2009. http://www.tacomaweekly.com/article/3261

From the Tacoma Museum of Glass website:

"2009 Visiting Artist Summer Series

• 

  June 17 – 21

  RIK ALLEN, Sedro-Woolley, WA

  Rik Allen’s current series of work has been in the form of spacecraft and scientific devices. While many of Allen’s pieces reflect his curiosity about science, they also convey humor, simple narratives, lightheartedness and an antiquated vision of the future that much of science fiction embodies.
  Artist website »
  Conversation with the Artist: June 21, 2 pm

• 

  June 24 – 28

  BENJAMIN WRIGHT, Providence, RI

  Benjamin Wright holds a BS in Evolutionary Biology from Dartmouth Collegeas well as an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. He combines both of these disciplines in his work. At MOG, he plans to create “large-scale blown environnments which will be inhabited by various communities of insects, plants, molds, bacteria, etc.”
  Conversation with the Artist: June 28, 2 pm

• 

  July 1 – 5

  LISA ZERKOWITZ, Seattle, WA

  Lisa Zerkowitz is inspired by nature and combines the use of blown and cast glass with steel, ink and bronze. “The steel panels are my canvas, where the landscape begins to take form from a simple line. The glass and bronze elements provide a layering that is akin to the organics of nature. Most importantly, the glass is the light, bringing the viewer to a specific moment in time when light and nature combined are a language of their own.”
  Artist website »
  Conversation with the Artist: July 5, 2 pm

• 

  July 8 – 12

  STEPHEN DAY, New Orleans, LA

  Stephen Day is based in New Orleans and exhibits and teaches nationally and internationally. He likes to work thematically, infusing his interest in opera and theater. He often restricts or frames the viewer’s perspective by presenting historical images and artifacts in a manner that creates an ironic, problematic or unverifiable relationship to what really happened.
  Artist website »

• 

  July 15 – 19

  PETER SHELTON, Los Angeles, CA

  Based in Southern California, Peter Shelton is a conceptual sculptor. He is best known internationally for his iron, steel and fiberglass sculptures, which often replicate abstracted parts of the human body as well as elements of architecture. “I’d say my work is somewhere between abstract and recognizable. The main thing is to convey a sense of something animated.”
  Artist website »
  Conversation with the Artist: July 19, 2 pm

• 

  July 22 – 26

  JOE DAVID, Vancouver, BC

  Joe David is recognized as one of the leading contemporary Northwest Coast native artists. He is a member of the Nuu-chah-nulth (or Nootka) tribe, the indigenous people of the west coast of Vancouver Island, and has been instrumental in the resurgence of Nookta art and ceremony. His art reflects a deep commitment to spirituality and cultural heritage. This residency is presented in conjunction with Singletary’s exhibition, Preston Singletary: Echoes, Fire, and Shadows.
  Conversation with the Artist: July 26, 2 pm

• 

  July 29 – August 2

  RICHARD WHITELEY, New So. Wales, AUS

  Richard Whiteley is the head of the prestigious Glass Workshop at the School of Art, Australian National University in Canberra. He has dedicated his studio practice to cast glass, having spent many years developing his techniques. During his Hot Shop residency, Whiteley will demonstrate techniques he uses to cold work (sandblast, engrave, cut, grind and polish) his glass works.
  Artist website »
  Conversation with the Artist: August 2, 2 pm

• 

  August 5 – 9

  SHELLEY MUZYLOWSKI ALLEN,
  Sedro-Woolley, WA

  Myth, magic and a touch of whimsy inform the work of Shelley Muzylowski Allen, whose oil paintings and glass sculptures serve as meditation on the enduring relationship between humans and beasts of burden. A Canadian native from a family of horse breeders, Allen captures the animals’ essence through color, form and scale. She often uses both mediums of glass an painting in her work.
  Artist website »
  Conversation with the Artist: August 9, 2 pm

• 

  August 12 – 16

  RICHARD NOTKIN, Helena, MT

  Richard Notkin is a full-time studio artist who has worked primarily with ceramics for nearly forty years. He is perhaps best known for his series of unglazed stoneware teapots, inspired by the Yixing wares of China (circa 1500 AD to present), but consciously maintaining a separate cultural identity. While in the Hot Shop, Notkin plans to “continue my bent for strong social/political commentary which would best be actualized in the transparent medium of glass.”
  Artist website »
  Conversation with the Artist: August 16, 2 pm

• 

  August 19 – 23

  TOM ROWNEY, Ainslie, AUS

  Tom Rowney uses traditional Venetian-style glass techniques with a contemporary viewpoint to create his art. Since 1997, Rowney has developed two major series, Map Series and Maelstrom. “The Maelstrom series is based on the fluid nature of blowing molten glass and the relationship to the visual "water like qualities" of the solid state of blown glass. Each form has its own memory of liquid water—a drip, a drop, a splash—and the elastic forms the water becomes.”
  Artist website »
  Conversation with the Artist: August 23, 2 pm

• 

  August 26 – 30

  JACKIE PANCARI, Andover, NY

  Jackie Pancari’s work represents a series of discoveries made while working with the properties of glass and light. “Glass speaks clearly about light. It seems so simple yet its ability to assume an infinite number of forms and to evoke just as many feelings, renders it complex. My greatest hope is that those who see my work walk away with a sense of wonder, mystery and the same inquisitiveness that I experienced in its creation.”
  Artist website »
  Conversation with the Artist: August 30, 2 pm"

http://museumofglass.org/live-glassmaking/visiting-artists/

2009 NEA Visual Arts Grants

Access to Artistic Excellence Awards:

"Pilchuck Glass School (aka Pilchuck)
Seattle, WA
$10,000
To support a summer artist residency program. Up to ten artists will be provided with resources, facilities, and technical assistance to experiment with new work in glass.

Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center, Inc. (aka WheatonArts) (on behalf of Creative Glass Center of America)
Millville, NJ
$20,000
To support a residency program for emerging and mid-career glass artists at the Creative Glass Center of America. Artists will be provided with housing, a stipend, studio facilities, and technical assistance to work in glass."

National Endowment for the Arts FY 2009 Visual Arts Grants. Website Accessed June 19, 2009. http://www.nea.gov/grants/recent/disciplines/Visualarts/09visual.php?CAT=Access%20to%20Artistic%20Excellence&DIS=Visual%20Arts&TABLE=1

"Glass Art Society, Inc.

Seattle, WA
$20,000
CATEGORY: Access to Artistic Excellence FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Visual Arts
To support the 39th annual conference. To be held in Corning, New York, the conference will include a series of exhibitions, lectures, panels, and workshop demonstrations.

Museum of Glass
Tacoma, WA
$64,000
CATEGORY: Learning in the Arts FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Learning in the Arts
To support Science of Art, a visual arts education program that encourage students to recognize the intersection between scientific exploration and the creative process. Students will identify and apply the processes of observation, rigorous experimentation and problem-solving, and visual literacy in the creation of glass art."

http://www.nea.gov/grants/recent/09grants/states2/09_states2.php?STATE=WA

"Chrysler Museum of Art
Norfolk, VA
$40,000
To support the exhibition Art of Glass II, with accompanying education programs, including glass blowing demonstrations, seminars, and workshops. The project is a region-wide celebration of contemporary art glass."

http://www.nea.gov/grants/recent/09grants/09AAE.php?CAT=Access&DIS=Museum

"University of Idaho (on behalf of Prichard Art Gallery)
Moscow, ID
To support the exhibit SLAG, The Anti Art Glass, which will explore the use of glass in non-traditional forms. Guests artists will include Elizabeth Lyons, Einar and Jamex de la Torre, Jaume Plensa, Renee Stout, and Walter Zimmerman.

Knoxville Museum of Art
Knoxville, TN
To support the exhibition Josh Simpson: A Visionary Journey in Glass. In addition to presenting a public gallery talk, Simpson will discuss his work with low-income students of Beaumont Elementary Magnet Honors Academy."

http://www.nea.gov/grants/recent/09grants/09cham.php?disc=Challenge%20America

"Pittsburgh Glass Center, Inc.
Pittsburgh, PA
$10,000
To support an artist residency program. Artists will be provided with resources, facilities, and technical assistance for exploration in glass making."

http://www.nea.gov/grants/recent/09grants/09AAE2.php?CAT=Access&DIS=Visual%20Arts