Revamped crystal ball that debuted in 2009 will return for 2011 Times Square New Year’s celebration

A birds-eye view of Times Square, where the crowds will gather to usher in the New Year this evening.

The revamped high-tech Waterford Crystal ball that wowed the crowds thronging Times Square when it descended to mark the start of  2009 and 2010 will make a return appearance for New Year’s 2011. Sporting a different color scheme thanks to a change in the programming of its 32,000 individual LED lights and 288 new Waterford crystals in this year’s theme of  “Let There Be Love,” the iconic globe will drop 70 feet to mark the moment the calender flips to 2011.

Toledo Museum of Art acquires provocative work in glass by Fred Wilson

Fred Wilson, Iago's Mirror, 2009. Murano glass. H 80, W 48 3/4, D 10 1/2 in.

Just unveiled at the Toledo Museum of Art’s Glass Pavilion is a recent purchase of a 2009 work by Fred Wilson entitled Iago’s Mirror. It has been installed adjacent to a Karen LaMonte frosted glass Dress Impression with Train (2005), a chromatic and weighty counterpoint to the translucent and ethereal work.

Nine works by an Australian glass artist languish in an American gallery: A sign of the times?

Sallie Portnoy, Lilith. Cast glass. H 37 1/2, W 6, D 6 in. photo: courtesy

The same challenging economic environment that pressures artists to seek new venues to sell their work also impacts art dealers when work doesn’t sell. With both parties under stress in the current art market, a bitter tug-of-war can sometimes break out. Case in point is the standoff between Australian glass artist Sallie Portnoy and American artist and art gallery owner Rachel Darnell of Darnell Fine Art in Santa Fe. Doing our best to sort  through their conflicting claims, the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet has been able to determine this much: Nine pieces of glass art by Australian glass artist  are being stored at Darnell’s Canyon Road art gallery with an uncertain time frame for when they will be returned to the artist. The nine pieces, including Lilith (pictured at right) have spent the last several years moving between four galleries in the United States and Canada, and are currently in storage in Santa Fe.

3 Questions for . . . Sandra De Clerck

Sandra De Clerck working on "Self Portrait with Implants and Veil."

 

GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet: What are you working on?
Sandra De Clerck: I just completed a show in Bruges which is related to the female, her position in society, and the potential decline of women’s rights. The work in the show includes a life-size figure bust, it’s a veiled self portrait with enormous augmented breasts made out of incredibly seductive transparent pink glass. A stained-glass window with the silhouette of a kneeling female nude and an energy spiral made up of 80 glass breasts molded off of live models and cast in pate de verre.

DESIGN: Glass art panels help soothe pediatric patients at UK hospital

This architectural glass panel by Sarah Galloway references the interior architect's oceanic concept, but its wave form also connects to the high technology line graphs and charts used in this medical center.

The Women and Children’s Unit at Blackpool’s Victoria Hospital uses rear-lit glass panels to help reduce stress in patients and family members. The abstract compositions etched onto the glass reference the waves that bring tourists to this seaside resort city, but also the graphs that chart patients’ health at this busy pediatric health care facility. Sarah Galloway, an architectural glass artist with over 20 years experience, worked from her design studio in Pilling, Lancashire, England, for 5 months to create the custom artworks.

In Memoriam: Elio Quarisa (January 4, 1936 – December 17, 2010)

The late Elio Quarisa would have been 75 in January. photo: lee harris

At a funeral today in Murano, the glass community mourned the loss of Maestro Elio Quarisa, who died last Friday, December 17th, after an extended battle with cancer. Quarisa would have turned 75 on January 4th, 2011.

A star-studded summer looms for Pilchuck in just-released catalog

The covered open-air hotshop at Pilchuck beckons with its unique atmosphere of creative cooperation.

With five sessions each summer, timing an educational trip to this mecca of glass education is always a trade-off.  The choice of when to hit Pilchuck won’t be any easier in the coming 2011 line-up, with some of the biggest names in glass teaching from the very first classes on May 24th all the way through to the last session’s closing on August 26th. Come for Gene Koss’s “Hot Casting for Sculptors” class in Session One, for example, and you’ll miss out on sessions Two to Five, when Michael Glancy, Bertil Valien, Benjamin Moore, Pike Powers, Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, and Jiri Harcuba share their considerable knowledge.

OPENING: “Chihuly at Litvak” kicks off 25-year retrospective in Tel Aviv tonight

Dale Chihuly, Garnet Persian Set with Kohl Lip Wraps, 2001. Hand-blown glass. H 15, W 36, D 25 in.

A major exhibition of Dale Chihuly‘s work debuts this evening at Litvak Gallery in Tel Aviv. The artist has made the trip to Israel to attend the opening of this retrospective show that includes his installations, Seaforms, Persians, Macchia, Jerusalem Cylinders, Venetians, Picollo Venetians, Ikebana and Baskets, as well as drawings, all of which will be displayed in the museum-like setting of this unusual commercial gallery. According to an exhibition essay by Barbara Rose: “His [Chihuly’s] 2010 show at the Litvak Gallery in Tel Aviv is the result of a dialogue with the gallerist, Muly Litvak, which picked up, among other themes, the narrative of Chihuly’s longstanding relationship with Israel.”

3 Questions For … Paula Hayes

Paula Hayes being interviewed in her studio for the MOMA blog Inside/Out.

GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet: What are you working on?
Paula Hayes: I’m currently working on a show for the Wexner Art Center which opens September 2011. I’m also working on my show at the Tang Museum which is a series of dinners over the course of a year.  All the dinners are on hand-made glass, ceramic, and hand-silk-screened linens: dinnerware. (Deborah Czeresko made the plates and glasses for me.) My installation at the Museum of Modern Art, “Nocturne of the Limus Maximus,”  is up until February 28th, 2011,  and I maintain the plantings for the duration of the show. Jim Mongrain blew the terrarium in the center of the vertical piece. I’m also developing my “Paula Hayes Domestic” and “Paula Hayes Outside” lines which are accessible products for living with organic forms in daily  life. There are some other exciting things in the pipelines but too early to say yet!!

Seattle mayor signals truce in battle between Chihuly Center supporters and indie rock fans

An early design concept for the proposed Chihuly Center had a "cascade of glass" as a central design element.

Unless you live in Seattle, you’ve probably missed the escalating battle for what to do with a shuttered amusement park at the foot of the Seattle Space Needle since the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet last wrote about the proposed Chihuly Center in April 2010. The Wright family, owners of the tourist destination originally built for the 1962 World’s Fair, wanted to partner with the area’s other towering local figure, Dale Chihuly, in a bid to increase traffic to the Seattle Center area of the city. They proposed leasing space at the base of the Space Needle occupied by the now-defunct Fun Forest Amusement Park to build a $15 million, 44,000-square-foot exhibition center for Chihuly’s work. Then, in June 2010, came a serious alternate bid by the local radio station KEXP, which proposed to use the same space for a new home for their well-loved independent radio station that included a performance stage for local musicians and public green space, and garnered the support of big-name musicians such as Dave Matthews and members of Pearl Jam. Even though a review of all proposals by Seattle officials and a citizen’s committee convened to study the issue both favored the Chihuly Center because it would cost Seattle taxpayers nothing and had the potential to draw the largest number of visitors and generate the most tourist-dollars, Seattle mayor Mike McGinn announced this morning that he favors a compromise of a 12,500-square-foot indoor Chihuly exhibition area, with a 26,000-square-foot art garden, and an additional 6,800 feet of retail and lobby space, that shares an expanded site plan with a 27,900-square-foot facility at an adjacent site to be taken over by KEXP as well as a new children’s playground, financed through $2 million paid by the Wright family.

Summer 2011 issue of GLASS: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly to be bundled with the Corning Museum’s New Glass Review

The 32nd installment of New Glass Review will be distributed with the Summer 2011 edition of GLASS: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly.

Subscribers and newsstand purchasers of GLASS: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly will find something special when they pick up the Summer 2011 edition. GLASS is collaborating with The Corning Museum of Glass to distribute its annual journal known as New Glass Review bundled together with the regular quarterly magazine that goes on sale June 1st, 2011.

Berlin to be site of new nonprofit glass center in 2011

The future site of Berlin Glas, a nonprofit art center projected to open in August 2011.

American-born Nadania Idriss, owner of the New Glass Art & Photography gallery she opened in Berlin in 2007, is spearheading the creation of a new nonprofit art center devoted to glass in this major art capital of Europe. Established as a nonprofit in 2009, Berlin Glas is scheduled to open in August 2011 in an industrial space that is still being renovated to accommodate a glass facility.  

AWARDS: A roundup of recent Canadian glass prizes

Rachel Wong, Blue Affect, 2009.

The 2010 RBC Glass Prize — juried this year by Laura Donefer, David James, and Francis Muscat — went to recent Alfred MFA grad Rachel Wong. The Royal Bank of Canada Award for Glass includes a $7,000 (Canadian) prize, which is administered by the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery. The award was announced during the CCGC’s annual awards dinner in November 2010.  An installation artist, Wong is currently a resident in glass and flameworking at the Living Arts Centre and participated in the 2009 Cheongju International Craft Biennale in South Korea. The RBC Award is designed to facilitate a period of research and studio investigation.

OPENING: Pittsburgh Glass Center asks, Can glass be functional and decorative at the same time?

Melissa Fitzgerald, Great Blue Heron (Ardea Herodias), 2010. Flameworked glass.

Opening tonight, December 10th, at the Pittsburgh art space Future Tenant is an exhibition entitled “Futilitarian” organized by the Pittsburgh Glass Center. Billed as an “interactive glass exhibit,” it seeks to answer the question of whether glass can simultaneously be both useful and decorative. 

DESIGN: Bubbly glass panels celebrate craft beer in Oklahoma City

The interior of Republic Gastropub in Oklahoma City uses glass panels to effevescent effect. photo: scott mcdonald

Republic Gastropub is a contemporary brewpub that seeks to bridge the gap between beer bar and upscale eatery. With an emphasis on American craft beer and an imaginative menu built specifically to complement this beverage, the owners wanted the interior design of Republic Gastropub to share in the celebration of barley, malt, and hops. The architect, Elliott + Associates, realized that glass panels would be the best design strategy to evoke the bubbly golden liquid and they worked with Nathan Allan Glass Studios, Inc. to achieve the desired effect.  

Help Wanted: Harrisburg Area Community College seeks adjunct glass professor for Spring 2011 semester

A fine arts student at HACC

Harrisburg Area Community College seeks to fill an immediate opening for an adjunct faculty member to teach glass classes at the Harrisburg campus in Pennsylvania. The glass program is part of the college’s “Contemporary Craft Marketing Program,” which blends an apprentice-like experience in the studio with courses in English composition, business math, phyical fitness, art history, and other related coursework. This unusual approach to glass and other craft skills education falls under the college’s Communications, Humanities, and the Arts division, and even includes a catchy tagline: “Turning artisans into pros.”

Lino Tagliapietra’s work gets enthusiastic reception at Art Miami

Art Miami director Nick Korniloff with the maestro, who sold six major works during this important contemporary art fair, pictured at the home of prominent Florida collectors Bob and Florence Werner.

Hot on the heels of his November SOFA CHICAGO sale of a major installation for a quarter-of-a-million dollars, the Italian glass master Lino Tagliapietra triumphed at one of the most important contemporary art fairs, where six of his works sold at the 2010 Art Miami this past weekend. While his sales prices may have been a fraction of the figures fetched by work by some of the most-established 20th-century artists such as Alexander Calder (whose work Smeary sold for $550,000 at Mark Borghi Fine Art) or Helen Frankenthaler (whose painting sold for $475,000 at Scott White Contemporary Art), Tagliapietra’s prices, and the number of sales, caught the attention of Internet publications such as artdaily.org reporting on the fair.

3 Questions For … Blanche Tilden

Blanche Tilden in her studio with one of her glass components used in her jewelry series that references 19th-century architecture.

GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet: What are you working on?
Blanche Tilden: I’m continuing to develop work for my “Fer et Verre” [French for “Iron and Glass”] exhibition series, which is glass and silver jewelery inspired by late-19th-century architecture. This new work was first exhibited at the Canberra Glassworks earlier this year, and is scheduled to be re-exhibited as part of the 2011 Ausglass Conference in Sydney, at Metalab. I’ve been flameworking borosilicate rod and tubing for the past 15 years but now I’m moving in a new direction, using CAD and water-jet cutting borosilicate sheet in combination with hand-finishing and flameworking to produce new components for the “Fer et Verre” series of necklaces.

“Green” bottles now come in a range of colors

Manufacturers are looking to more environmentally responsible bottles, such as these from Verallia's "Eco" series, which are made using recycled glass.

Between all of the Christmas parties, family get-togethers, and New Year’s celebrations coming up in the next few weeks, Americans can expect to drink almost 30% more than usual this December. That translates into a lot of empty bottles heading into the trash during clean-up. Eco-conscious revelers can rest easy knowing that many of those same bottles (which will hopefully get recycled and not sent to a landfill at the end of the night) had been made using recycled glass. Glass manufacturers such as Verallia “re-gift” all year by producing more and more wine bottles out of cullet, crushed recycled glass to save energy (and improve their own bottom line in the process).

Hot Off the Presses: GLASS #121, Winter 2010-11

Ann Wolff's 2006 work entitled Domus I graces the cover of the winter edition.

The new issue of GLASS: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly hits newsstands and subscriber mailboxes this week. On the cover: A kiln-cast sculpture by Ann Wolff, one of the first European academy-trained artists to fully embrace the American Studio Glass model of total artistic independence. When Wolff decided to leave her establish post as a designer for the Swedish glasshouse Kosta Boda in 1978, she made one of many bold steps toward realizing her unique vision in the space and volume of weighty glass forms. The cover article by arts writer Martina Windels traces Wolff’s evolution from her spirited early drawings, to her work for Swedish glasshouses, to the influence of Stansilav Libensky and Jaroslova Brychtova, to her discovery of how to capture movement in mass through innovative compositional and technical discoveries.