Talking Out Your Glass podcast

Tim Tate: Alternate Paths In 1989, Tim Tate received an HIV-positive diagnosis and was told he had one year to live. The terrible news inspired him to follow a dream he'd had since the age of 9 when he visited the Corning Museum of Glass. Driven to use the time he had left to become a glass artist, Tate travelled to Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina for the first in an intensive succession of classes. Penland and the artwork made during this time saved his life. A Washington, D.C. native, Tate has been working with sculpture now for 30 years. Co-Founder of the Washington Glass School, his artwork is part of the permanent collections of a number of museums, including the Smithsonian's American Art Museum and the Mint Museum. He participated in 2019's Glasstress show with Ai Wei Wei and Vic Muniz during the Venice Biennale. Tate has received numerous awards and honors including the 2010 Virginia Groot Foundation award for sculpture; a Fulbright Award from Sunderland University, England, in 2012; second place in the 2017 London Contemporary Art Prize; and the 2018 James Renwick Alliance Distinguished Artist Award. Along with William Warmus, Tate is the founder and moderator of the Facebook group 21st Century Glass – Images and Discussions. His involvement at Penland includes teaching, serving as featured artist for the 2018 annual auction, and acting as the Development Chair for the Penland Board of Trustees from 2014 to 2018. In 2001, Tate helped establish the Washington Glass School to focus on sculptural glass made by kiln-casting and mixed media rather than traditional studio glassblowing techniques. Modeled after Penland and the Crucible in Oakland, the school has offered instruction to more than 4,000 students while providing a permanent studio in which Tate makes his work. After 10 years of making bowls, between 1999 and 2005 Tate made 30 large blown glass hearts, an exercise which required him to work with a glassblowing team and revealed his preference to work solo. His Reliquary works created between 2004 and 2014 drew attention from journalists, galleries and critics, putting Tate on the map of the art world at large. Never fully fitting into any one definition of Studio Glass, steampunk or video artist, Tate blends traditional craft with new media technology, the framework in which he fits his artistic narrative. Through moving images and endless mirrors his contemporary work possesses the aesthetic of Victorian techno-fetishism, which emerged from fascination with Jules Verne as a boy. Artwork and video, he believes, will be society's relics of the future. He says, "I like to reference many possible histories and will do so with video or mirrors to show our common artistic ancestry and illustrate alternate paths. Perhaps centuries from now my work will have the same presence as abandoned archaic machines from the Turn of the last Century, as people marvel over what could have possibly been its intent."

Michael Dupille: Creating an Art Form An early pioneer of the fusing movement in the Northwest, Michael Dupille is accustomed to developing the processes and products necessary to achieve his aesthetic goals in glass. As the creator and early master of Fritography, the artist's work can be found in numerous public and private collections including those of the Washington and Oregon State Arts Commissions, The Everett Cultural Commission, The Seattle Times, The Pierce County Arts Commission, Amazon.com, and the Seattle Mariners. He says: "At first, I was the only person doing frit work. Now there are many people teaching the techniques. Working with frit and fusing in general gives you freedom of expression. Learning how the colors work, how they fire, and what you can do with the different sizes of frit provides a conduit for your imagination." Some of the most unique developments in Dupille's work have been the result of experimentation or aesthetic accident. He has the mindset of a perpetual student, always looking for ways to make his art more interesting and extraordinary. This led to the birth in 2003 of Tranchant du Verre, Dupille's exclusive process requiring a mix of his specially formulated CMC gum called Vitrigel with System 96 powdered glass. He is also the developer of Castalot Glass Mold material. Innovation and creation have always gone hand in hand for Dupille, as seen in everything from his large-scale glass feathers to his frit paintings of baseball games to his recent 4-foot custom glass hockey sticks. Dupille's journey in glass began in the mid-1970s. Upon graduation from Central Washington University in Ellensburg, the young artist moved to the Seattle/ Tacoma area where he attended Clover Park Vocational Technical Institute, studying offset printing and lithography. Meeting fellow fusers Richard La Londe and Ruth Brockmann at a street fair, Dupille was eventually invited to their studio and introduced to one of the founders of Bullseye Glass Co., Boyce Lundstrom. Dupille's training in design and illustration came in handy for the early print advertising, book layouts and T-shirts he produced for Bullseye and Lundstrom's glass school, Camp Colton. While working on Lundstrom's Fusing books two and three, Dupille started teaching glass classes at the school. As an innovator of new techniques and products, Dupille has been in demand as a teacher for the last three decades, instructing all over the United States and Mexico. Two workshops will be offered in 2020, one at Anything in Stained Glass, in Frederick, Maryland, this September, and in October in the UK at Glassification. Dupille is also working on a couple of new e- books and will release a series of production casting molds later this year. One of Dupille's favorite experiences is opening up a glass magazine or book and seeing a former student's work. In the early 1990s, Brockmann won a competition sponsored by the Oregon Arts Commission to create a pair of murals for the lobby of the Portland State Office Building. Created in collaboration with her partner Hal Bond, Dupille was also enlisted to collaborate on the two murals, which covered a total of 320 square feet and included fused glass, kiln cast glass, and colored cement. Since those early days, public and private commissions have comprised a large portion of Dupille's work in glass. Some of his largest and most challenging artwork touches the lives of hundreds of teachers and students in the Public School environment every day. His most recent, Manito Glow was installed in 2017 at Hutton Elementary School in Spokane, Washington, a Percent for Arts project offered through the Washington State Arts Commission. Although the process of creating art for schools is not significantly different from producing other large-scale work, Dupille's goal is always to inspire his audience. "Glass has such unique and beautiful properties, and the students, parents, and faculty are drawn to it for that as well as the process used to make the work."

The Corning Museum of Glass Acquires its First Glass Cannabis Pipe, Created by David Colton The Corning Museum of Glass named David Colton as the recipient of its prestigious 2019 Rakow Commission, awarded annually to emerging and established artists whose work is not yet represented in the Museum's collection. Colton's sculpture represents the first-ever glass cannabis pipe to be added to the permanent collection of any major art museum. With its bright pink, red, and purple calligraphic forms, this expressive, graffiti-inspired sculptural object demonstrates the contribution of pipemakers to colored borosilicate glass, the palette of which has expanded greatly since the beginning of the glass pipe movement in the late 20th century. Heavily influenced by the rise of graffiti in America in the 1980s and '90s, Colton creates his own take on the graphic art form in sculpture, using glass as his chosen medium. Recognized by his peers for the distinct organic style he has developed, Colton's practice encompasses abstract borosilicate sculptures and functional glass pipes. Born in Westfield, Massachusetts, Colton began glassblowing in Fort Collins, Colorado in 1995 and currently resides in Westhampton, Massachusetts. The artist's work is also included in The Dr. Seuss Museum's permanent collection in Springfield, Massachusetts. Enjoy this fascinating conversation about how and where glass pipes fit in to the world of fine art and museum collections.

On November 12, 2019, Venice and Murano, Italy, were devastated by "acqua alta," record high water from tidal floods, which caused severe damage throughout the laguna and islands. Master glassblower Davide Fuin has established a GoFundMe campaign to help glass artists who need outside funding to make repairs and get shops, furnaces and studios back in working order. Born in 1962 on Murano, Fuin still lives and works on the island. Considered one of the most skilled glassblowers of the last 30 years, he has collaborated with Italy's famous glass houses including Venini, Toso, Pauly, Salviati, Elite, and De Majo, as well as with many international artists and designers. His work can be found in major galleries as well as private and museum collections in Europe, the United States, Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, EAU, and Australia. On September 15, 2015, at Palazzo Franchetti on Venice's Grand Canal, the Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti honored glass master Fuin for excelling in his ability to make blown work according to Murano tradition, highlighting especially the techniques of reticello and retortoli filigree, incalmo, and avventurina. Gherardo Ortalli, president of the Istituto; Gabriella Belli, director of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia; Georg J. Riedel, president of Riedel Crystal; and Rosa Barovier, glass historian, selected the award recipients and were in attendance. William Gudenrath, resident advisor for The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass (CMOG), Corning, New York, was also present at the ceremony. "Fuin's work was selected because he is the most visible, arguably the best, and some would say the last practitioner of the tradition of goblet makers on Murano, said to date from the Renaissance. The goblet tradition in both Murano and Venice is in considerable peril," says Gudenrath, who himself teaches advanced courses in Venetian techniques and ensures excellence in the CMOG studio facility and its programs. Every year Fuin spends several weeks teaching at art schools and studios around the world, including The Studio at CMOG. On January 3, 2020, the artist presented a workshop at The Glass Spot, in Richmond, Virginia, and in August will teach at his Murano hot shop. Known widely as the crème de la crème, Fuin's work defines classic Venetian glass. In 2000, he began producing a collection of goblets, vessels, and traditional Venetian baskets in Avventurina glass. His goal was to open new markets and appeal to a more exclusive clientele. The number of pieces and the preciousness of the sparkling, seemingly copper infused glass elevates this body of work beyond the functional. Fuin's Avventurina collection makes an artistic statement about traditional technique and the unimaginable beauty possible only at the hand of a true maestro.

Glass Vegas 2020: Come Experience the Love Well-known and respected as an organized, professionally run trade show, Glass Vegas promotes functional glass artists and brings together buyers and sellers of everything from simple dry pipes to rigs and bubblers to headies created by the nation's finest artists. The success of Glass Vegas can be attributed to a lot of hard work by the Glass Vegas trade show team, including mother-daughter duo LeeAnne and Amy Short, who made the love and bonds formed in this community an important part of doing business. The 2020 Glass Vegas Expo will be held January 28 through 30 at Bally's Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas, with over 300 vendor booths representing between 500 to 600 independent glass artists as well as leading wholesale vendors. The show provides attending retailers with the opportunity to buy quality glass and also to experience live music and painting, live flameworking demos by an all-star roster, the Millie Meet Up, the Boro Derby, and the World Series of Glass. After establishing the successful Glass Craft and Bead Expo 25 years ago, Lee Anne wanted to repeat her trade show success in the functional glass world by creating a trade show that would help artists solve current challenges. She says: "It was important to us from the beginning to support and promote independent artists who are taking a real hit from imported glass. Glass Vegas gives potential buyers an opportunity to see handmade functional glass first hand. We showcase the biggest names in glassblowing as well as the hottest up-and-coming artists. Retail buyers can get amazing deals while making connections with the artists face to face and growing their businesses." LeeAnne and Amy run Glass Vegas as a one-of-a-kind, industry only trade show for high-end functional art that feels more like a family reunion. In this conversation, they discuss the history of the show, last year's World Series of Glass and Retailer of the Year winners, and what to expect this January 2020 at Glass Vegas.

Glass Vegas 2020: Come Experience the Love Well-known and respected as an organized, professionally run trade show, Glass Vegas promotes functional glass artists and brings together buyers and sellers of everything from simple dry pipes to rigs and bubblers to headies created by the nation's finest artists. The success of Glass Vegas can be attributed to a lot of hard work by the Glass Vegas trade show team, including mother-daughter duo LeeAnne and Amy Short, who made the love and bonds formed in this community an important part of doing business. The 2020 Glass Vegas Expo will be held January 28 through 30 at Bally's Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas, with over 300 vendor booths representing between 500 to 600 independent glass artists as well as leading wholesale vendors. The show provides attending retailers with the opportunity to buy quality glass and also to experience live music and painting, live flameworking demos by an all-star roster, the Millie Meet Up, the Boro Derby, and the World Series of Glass. After establishing the successful Glass Craft and Bead Expo 25 years ago, Lee Anne wanted to repeat her trade show success in the functional glass world by creating a trade show that would help artists solve current challenges. She says: "It was important to us from the beginning to support and promote independent artists who are taking a real hit from imported glass. Glass Vegas gives potential buyers an opportunity to see handmade functional glass first hand. We showcase the biggest names in glassblowing as well as the hottest up-and-coming artists. Retail buyers can get amazing deals while making connections with the artists face to face and growing their businesses." LeeAnne and Amy run Glass Vegas as a one-of-a-kind, industry only trade show for high-end functional art that feels more like a family reunion. In this conversation, they discuss the history of the show, last year's World Series of Glass and Retailer of the Year winners, and what to expect this January 2020 at Glass Vegas.

David Patchen: Satisfying the Artist and Craftsman Within Like a beautiful sea creature, David Patchen's sculpture makes one marvel at how such detail, color, and complexity could be possible within its graceful form. Influenced by textiles, ethnically distinct colors and shapes, and the marine environment, the artist creates multi-layered cane and murrine, then contrasts complimentary tertiary tones in complex woven patterns. The resulting work reflects the artist's desire to explore a variety of ideas simultaneously and challenges the role of glass in the art world at large. Patchen says: "I find glass as seductive as it is challenging. As a particularly unforgiving medium, an artist has endless creative opportunities to design for its unique properties — the only limitations are their imagination and skill in working with the material. I've always been captivated by how one can use this enigmatic material to achieve virtually any form, hold elements in suspension, and achieve great detail or soft abstraction. Its flexibility as a medium is matched by the difficulty it presents in using it to execute precise work." Patchen's process begins with meticulously planning and designing colors and patterns. After cane and murrine is pulled, the artist carefully composes these elements to design the final work, sometimes days prior to blowing it. This process of thoughtful creativity contrasts with the immediacy of executing work in the hotshop, where the limited window to shape molten glass demands precision and urgency. Primarily self-taught, Patchen grew his skills through experimentation informed by observing talented local artists and a few visits with Afro Celotto, maestro and former assistant to Lino Tagliapietra from Murano, Italy. He has served as guest artist at the Corning Museum of Glass, studied at the Pilchuck Glass School, and in 2010 was selected as Artist in Residence in Seto City, Japan, spending a month lecturing and demonstrating his work through an award from the Seto City Art and Cultural Foundation. His book David Patchen, Glass is in the permanent collection of the Rakow Library at the Corning Museum of Glass and the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Centro Studi del Vetro (Glass Study Center Library) in Venice, Italy. Actively involved in the glass arts community, Patchen serves as Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Directors at Public Glass, San Francisco's center for glass art, where he maintains a private studio. He is also a member of the Pilchuck Leadership Council and former member of the Board of Directors of the Glass Alliance of Northern California (GLANC). Patchen recently installed his latest sculpture, Dewdrops, on a ship off the coast of Germany. Other notable projects include collaborations with James Deveraux, Rob Stern, and earlier with Toland Sand and Mark Leputa. From January 16 – 18, 2020, the artist will present a Visiting Artist demo and show at Benzaiten Center for the Arts, Lake Worth, Florida. From May 16 – 17, Kittrell Riffkind Art Glass, Dallas, Texas, will host Patchen's solo show and demo.

10 Moments … And Other Sculptural Works by Andrew Certo On September 23, 2019, Andrew Certo won the Bern Gallery's prestigious Pipe Classic. Twelve artists worked for 12 hours, and Certo emerged victorious with his representation of a marble falling into water represented 10 times chronologically. Visually striking, his piece titled 10 Moments includes a sherlock, rig, spoon, and chillum on a sheet glass base. Certo says: "For me this piece is about a small event creating something big and how quickly things escalate. Thanks to Pipe Classic for putting together a killer event, to GTT for their generosity, and to all of the other competitors for pushing me to work my ass off to try to bring this idea to life. I'm excited to share this sculpture-rich work and the next ideas." A thriving pipe maker based out of Denver, Colorado, Certo's interest in using glass as a medium began in 2007 at the Pittsburgh Glass Center and continued at Tyler School of Art, where he earned his BFA. The artist credits art school education with his more open and experimental approach. The result of doing what he loves and trusting the process, Certo's designs are inspired by motion, beginning in 2014 with his signature Spray Bottle rigs and evolving into his Butane Torch pipes. It took four years for the artist to develop and hone his unique patterning technique used in the creation of seamless bands of hexagonal or rectangular color. Though pipes are Certo's mainstay, in 2017 he created a groundbreaking sculpture, a wall piece featuring a bubble of water being shot by a bullet. Working with The Junkyard Co. in California to produce wooden components, the artist endeavors to further explore sculptural work. Currently in an incubation period of developing new ideas and forms, Certo will exhibit his work and collaborate with Chris Ahalt at Piece of Mind, in Newport Beach, California, on December 14, 2019. The show includes all new work, collabs, and a live demo. VIP 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., public 7 p.m. to midnight. VIP on sale now. Anticipation builds to see what these two prolific artists create in concert as well as their solo work. In March 2020, Certo Glass exhibits in a group show focused on pattern with 2stroke, Disk and Takao at Stoked Connecticut, Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Amber Cowan's Horror Vacui In Amber Cowan's cornucopia of magical flameworked objects, each individual ornament in concert with its neighbor creates a sculpture so lavish, so elaborate, it exudes the air of a precious Victorian relic. Her visual feast speaks its truth through an abundance of decoration. The fact that the work is made from repurposed glass is only considered after the viewer recovers from the enchantment of excess. On November 13, 2014, The Corning Museum of Glass (CMOG) awarded Cowan its 29th Rakow Commission, a program that provides $25,000 to encourage glass artists to explore new work without concern for financial limits. The award is presented to an artist not yet represented in the museum's collection and selected by the curator of modern glass, at that time Tina Oldknow. Cowan's Garden of the Forgotten and Extinct is now part of CMOG's permanent collection. Said Oldknow: "Amber takes this ubiquitous commercial glass and gives it a new, cool life, transforming it by destroying it and re-forming it into beautiful and evocatively retro sculptures. For me, Amber was a perfect candidate for the Rakow Commission. I have sometimes picked artists whose work is clearly contemporary, but who also help us understand different aspects of the history of glass. For this purpose, I am not looking for work that replicates earlier styles, but rather work that interprets or contextualizes them in new ways. Amber's work also addresses contemporary concerns about object making, and I appreciate her fresh take on the potential of what she describes as recycled, up- cycled, and second life glass." Cowan's work is made from found American pressed milk glass, also known as opaque glass, made between the 1940s and the 2000s. The artist collects long forgotten objects such as candy dishes, teacups, and plates from thrift shops, flea markets, and even eBay, and re-forms them into beautiful and evocative sculptures. The discarded glass, which she notes has been "abandoned to the dust bins of American design," is turned into tiny leaves, fruit, swans, roses, and abstract spirals, bits, and spikes. A Philadelphia, Pennsylvania–based artist, Cowan is also a faculty member of the glass department at Tyler School of Art and Architecture. In 2018, she was selected as Artist Honoree at The Urban Glass Gala, served as resident artist at The Chrysler Museum Glass Studio, and lectured at The Glass Art Society Conference, Murano, Italy. Represented by Heller Gallery, Cowan unveiled new work in a solo exhibition titled Salacia in May 2019. Currently, Cowan is converting an old deli into a new studio and living space while finishing a new piece to be exhibited with Heller Gallery at Art Miami, December 4 through 9, 2019. A Burke Prize finalist, two of her pieces are on view at The Museum of Arts and Design in NYC through April 2020.

Jeffrey Stenbom: Coping with PTSD, Connecting with Other Veterans through Kilnformed Glass In the aftermath of 9/11, Jeffrey Stenbom felt compelled to act and joined the U.S. Army. Stationed in Germany, he was deployed to Kosovo and sent to Iraq for the second year of the war. As a cavalry scout, forward reconnaissance or "finding the bad guys" became his daily routine for the next three and a half years during the height of the conflict. There were crises on the home front as well. While serving in Iraq, Stenbom missed both the birth of his first son and the death of his sister and only sibling. A combination of deployment and emotional upheaval triggered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and Stenbom was discharged from the Army and returned stateside in January 2004. Back home, Stenbom tried to make a new life for himself as he struggled with anger issues caused by his PTSD. By chance, he discovered kilnforming glass in a class offered at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota, where he was pursuing the last class required for his associate of arts degree. The passion, drive and focus inspired by fusing helped Stenbom manage his PTSD. It also helped him recognize that he wanted to build a future incorporating both art and teaching. The artist earned his BFA in glass and sculpture and a complementary BS in art education from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. A desire to teach at all levels inspired Stenbom to apply to graduate school at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. Stenbom's thesis show at Tulane, entitled Thank You, included four large installation pieces that came together as an exhibit. The show included large, clear, cast glass dog tags suspended from an acrylic chain with a blown glass clasp. Kiln cast glass combat boots were reflected in a cube of one-way mirrors atop a ground of discarded brass rifle shells. There was also an interactive glass ground with imprints of army boots over which visitors could fit their own steps and a flag woven of U.S. military uniforms. "The concept behind the exhibit developed from a research fellowship on symbolism and iconology. My goal was to be more effective in how I communicate symbolically with my own art. I then considered symbols that are iconic within the culture of the military and decided to use those things to draw the viewer in to consider the piece overall." The largest piece Stenbom has created to date includes 7,300 cast glass dog tags and was installed on a wall of the Bellevue Museum, Bellevue, Washington. Titled Every Year, the piece is a startling representation of the number of veterans who commit suicide each year. Powerful symbolism and iconology define Stenbom's current work in glass. Residencies at The Studio at The Corning Museum of Glass, Pilchuck Glass School and the University of Wisconsin-River Falls have provided fertile ground to advance his ideas. Now instructing, in 2020 the artist will teach kilncasting at Urban Glass, Brooklyn, New York, and 3D design as well as fused glass at Normandale Community College. His work will be exhibited in A New State of Matter: Contemporary Glass, at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, MI, beginning on January 25, 2020. Watch "Jeffrey Stenbom, "Every Year" Installation Time-lapse" on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/219605414?ref=em-share

Carmen Lozar: The Art of the Story Spilling out from their bottles, bowls, cartons and cans, Carmen Lozar's flameworked characters tell a story about how messy life can be. These small narratives accentuate the movement and flow of glass but also speak volumes about our relationship to the world. "I have found myself drawn to glass for the innate sense of motion it can bring to a work of art. While the intrinsic motion of most materials becomes paralyzed at the touch of the human hand, glass, as an amorphous solid, never relinquishes its visual motility. I have chosen to pursue a career in glass sculpture not only for my love of the material, but also because there is so much left to be explored within the field of flameworking and the medium itself." Art has always played an essential role in Lozar's life, growing up with a mother who performed puppet shows and a father who created scale ship models and watercolor renditions of the ramshackle barns on the outskirts of town. During undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Lozar interned at the Bullseye Glass Factory in Portland, Oregon, and attended Pilchuck Glass School as a Saxe award recipient and staff member. Upon completion of her BFA, the young artist travelled to China, Indonesia, Thailand, and India to explore eastern traditional art. Back in the US, she moved to the Southwest and opened a casting and flameworking facility in Tucson, Arizona. Work from this period was exhibited in numerous shows, including SOFA, Chicago. In 2003 Lozar completed her post-graduate degree at Alfred University, New York. Born in 1975, Lozar lives in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois where she maintains a studio and is a member of the art faculty at Illinois Wesleyan University. She has taught at Pilchuck Glass School, Penland School of Craft, Pittsburgh Glass School, Appalachian Center for Crafts, The Chrysler Museum, and the Glass Furnace in Istanbul, Turkey. She has had residencies at the Corning Museum of Glass and Penland School of Craft. Although she travels abroad to teach and share her love for glass – most recently to Turkey, Italy, and New Zealand – she always returns to her Midwestern roots. "The sculpture I create with glass is meant to inspire and provoke imagination. Telling stories has always been my primary objective. Some narratives are sad, funny, or thoughtful but my pieces are always about celebrating life. My most current body of work deals with spills." In summer 2019, Lozar taught her Small Scale, Large Impact Masterclass at the Seventh International Festival of Glass, Stourbridge UK, as well as flameworking classes at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Penland School of Crafts, and UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, New York. In 2020, Lozar will teach flameworking at SW Art Glass, in Phoenix, AZ, January 4-5 and Pilchuck Summer Session 3. Lozar is represented by the Ken Saunders Gallery in Chicago, and her work is included in the permanent collection at Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass, Neenah, Wisconsin.

Alex Bernstein: Time, Creation and Transformation If we were to examine a cross-section of an ancient iceberg, no doubt the layers and various densities and opacities of color would be beautiful, but they would also signify something greater than ourselves. Such is the case with Alex Gabriel Bernstein's sculpture. The forms and the techniques he uses to create them, mirror processes in nature such as oxidation, erosion, growth and decay, inspiring in the viewer a profound contemplation of time, creation and transformation. In his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, Bernstein purchased what was a dark and dingy pool hall called Sharkey's and worked with a local architect to design a bright and open space for creativity. As the French Broad River flows by, the artist casts glass in layers of transparent color which intermingle with ambient light to evoke images of flowing water, ice crystals, mountain peaks and jagged canyons – all structures that seem solid and unyielding, but are actually in constant flux. Unwittingly, fortuitously, Bernstein discovered a method of applying metal to glass, and began using it as a jagged, impenetrable crust for his glass castings. Though others have openly copied these techniques - resulting in a new verb, "bernstein-ing" - none will achieve the depth or emotions unique to Bernstein's sculpture. As the child of two established glass artists, William and Katherine Bernstein, Alex grew up in a creative environment with access to many of the artists of the American Studio Glass movement. The beautiful surroundings of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Western North Carolina where they lived, played almost as much a part in his inspired upbringing as did the breadth of teachers around him. After studying psychology at the University of North Carolina in Asheville and working at a children's psychiatric hospital, Bernstein made the decision to pursue his artistic endeavors full time. He received an MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology's School for American Crafts and went on to teach at the Rochester Institute of Technology, the Cleveland Institute of Art, the Penland School of Crafts, and The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass. Twelve years ago, Bernstein was the Department Head of Glass at the Worcester Center for Crafts in Massachusetts, but made the decision to return to his hometown in 2007 to set up a studio and focus on creating his own work full-time. He is currently on the board of the Asheville Art Museum as well as the North Carolina Glass Center. Bernstein has recently mounted solo shows at George Billis Gallery, New York City; Hooks Epstein Gallery in Houston; Habatat Gallery in Royal Oak, MI; and the William Traver Gallery, Seattle. His work is included in numerous collections, including those of the Corning Museum of Glass, the Glasmuseum Frauenau in Germany, the Mellon Financial Corporation, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Palm Springs Art Museum. Upcoming Bernstein exhibitions and events include Habatat Prime Chicago, a pop-up gallery located three miles from Navy Pier and open during Sofa Chicago. The 7500-square-foot space offers an incredible collection of the finest in contemporary glass, including Bernstein's newest work. Winterowd Fine Art, a contemporary art gallery located on historic Canyon Road in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is gearing up for Bernstein's solo exhibition in 2020. In January 2020, Bernstein's work will be exhibited at a collectors weekend held at Lahaina Gallery in Maui, Hawaii.

Receive This Glass "Receive this glass it holds my memories crafted blossoms suspended in stillness to be pollinated by your sight anticipating your touch through time." - Paul J. Stankard There are few works of art in any medium that are so beautiful, so transcendent that the viewer is transported inside the piece and into the soul of its creator. Such is the case with the paperweights and botanicals created by internationally acclaimed artist and pioneer in the studio glass movement, Paul Stankard. By blending mysticism with magical realism, his work references the continuum of nature and allows us to celebrate on an intimate level her primal beauty. Considered a living master in the art of the paperweight, Stankard's work is represented in more than 75 museums around the world. Over his 40-year artistic journey, he has received two honorary doctorate degrees, an honorary associate's degree, and many awards within the glass community, most recently the Masters of the Medium Award from Smithsonian's The James Renwick Alliance and the Glass Art Society's Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a Fellow of the American Craft Council and a recipient of the UrbanGlass Award—Innovation in a Glassworking Technique. In 1961, Stankard enrolled in Salem County Vocational Technical Institute's Scientific Glassblowing program (now Salem Community College). During his subsequent 10-year scientific glassblowing career, fabricating complex instruments was his focus. As head of the glass department at Rohn & Haas in Philadelphia, the artist began experimenting with floral paperweights as a hobby. The work was eventually noticed by art dealer Reese Palley at a craft expo in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and in 1972, Stankard abandoned industry for art. Stankard says: "Every artist's transition from detail to delicacy will follow a different path. In my case, my techniques evolved from working as a scientific glassblowing technologist producing custom precision instruments used for medical and organic chemistry research. This gave me a platform from which to interpret nature in a personal way. From the get-go, I was able to employ a detail-oriented precision that was borrowed from my work in industry." He continues: "Art-making is as varied as there are artists working. You take advantage of the skill-set you know, and you make it personal. You go beyond the practical, and you go beyond making product. You learn from your process and build on your personal vocabulary, fusing your detail into the realm of delicacy." Stankard's role as educator includes establishing the flameworking studio at Penland School of Craft, Spruce Pine, North Carolina, and serving as a founding board member and President of The Creative Glass Center of America, Millville, New Jersey. The artist taught students in the US at Penland; the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York; Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington; and abroad at Kanaz Forest of Creation Japan with Hiroshi Yamano as well as at North Lands Creative, in the Scottish Highlands. He remains an Artist-in-Residence and Honorary Professor at Salem Community College, where he founded the International Flameworking Conference. Now dividing his time between flameworking and writing, Stankard is the author of three books; an autobiography No Green Berries or Leaves: The Creative Journey of an Artist in Glass, an educational resource Spark the Creative Flame: Making the Journey from Craft to Art; and most recently Studio Craft as Career: A Guide to Achieving Excellence in Art-making. His love of Walt Whitman poetry continues. Stankard's work will be exhibited at Habatat Prime Chicago, a pop-up gallery located three miles from Navy Pier, as part of Sofa Chicago, October 31 through November 3. The 7,500-square-foot space offers an incredible collection of the finest in contemporary glass, including Stankard's newest work. For more information, visit www.habatat.com. Also, the Wiener Museum of Decorative Arts in Dania Beach, South Florida, will exhibit the Wiener collection of Stankard's work in its The Art of the Flame exhibition. The exhibition preview weekend will be held November 9 and 10, and the show will run through April 30, 2020. Learn more at wmoda.com.

Mutant: Narcissus Quagliata's New Book of Poetry and Sketches "Divested of the illusion that art matters, divested of the illusion that it is meaningful and worthwhile to have a successful life as an artist, the irrational love for the creative process itself is all that I have left. It all boils down to my addiction to entering over and over in the magical moment and mysterious space when an idea forms inside of you and becomes itself by traveling from the dark cave of my soul to the outside reality, be it a huge glass dome or a small watercolor." Narcissus Quagliata, October 2019 marks the release of Narcissus Quagliata's fourth book, Mutant, a collection of poetry and sketches created from 1968 to 2018 and inspired by the life and times of this internationally acclaimed artist. The book intimately explores the relationship between dreams, words and images on 216 pages with 13 full-color photographs of Quagliata's glass and watercolor work. Born and raised in Rome, Quagliata later lived in San Francisco for 30 years where he began his journey of redefining stained glass as an artistic medium. He made a name for himself by addressing subjects and issues in his glass that were typically handled by painters. Reversely, his work in glass made him an outlier in the world of painting. Still, the artist managed to cultivate a successful career without ever definitively fitting in anywhere. With the introduction of new technologies in glass fusing, Quagliata set about reinventing the glass panel as a painting, spontaneous and free. He developed new attitudes and methods to rethink what could be done with glass using the kiln. Through his Painting with Light techniques, the artist pioneered a second area of the glass arts. In both stained and fused glass, Quagliata devoted 50 years to the exploration of the human figure as a gateway to the strangeness of life in an incomprehensible universe. His work has been exhibited in museum collections worldwide including the Metropolitan Museum, New York City; De Young Museum, San Francisco, California; Museum of Light, Mexico City, Mexico; Museum of Glass San Ildefonso, Segovia, Spain; and many more. Major public works by Quagliata include Wind, Fire and Time, a 6700- square-foot, public commissioned, fused and stained glass dome in the Central Station of Taiwan's metro system in Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2008); Divinity in Light, a dome of glass over the entry Rotunda of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome, Italy (1999); Return to the Cosmos, a 360-square-foot backlit glass mural in an office tower lobby at Reforma 115, Mexico City, Mexico, (2004); and most recently The Resurrection Window in Leawood Kansas, a 3440-square-foot fused glass window designed by Tim Carey and created in collaboration with Judson Studios (2017). Quagliata has twice received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts for his work in the U.S. At 76, Quagliata continues to be much in demand professionally, dividing time between his studio in Mexico City, Mexico, and an ongoing residency at Judson Studios, Los Angeles, California, in his role as Director of Innovation. At Judson, Quagliata works to further develop the studio's fusing capabilities while also helping to guide its artist development program, introducing artists in other mediums to stained and fused glass and successfully executing their concepts in glass. This fall, Quagliata will present lectures at Bullseye Glass Co. in the Bay Area on October 11, and Bullseye in Portland, Oregon, on November 1. Sponsored by D&L Art Glass Supply in Denver, Colorado, Quagliata will also lecture at the Lakewood Cultural Center, Lakewood, Colorado, on October 23, and present a workshop at D&L Art Glass Supply in Denver on October 24. LINKS TO UPCOMING QUAGLIATA LECTURES AND WORKSHOPS: Bullseye Glass Co. Bay Area, Lecture, October 11, 2019 http://www.bullseyeglass.com/kilnforming/artist-lecture-show-your-true-face-with-narcissus-quagliata-bay-area-1985.html Bullseye Glass Co., Portland, Oregon, Lecture, November 1, 2019 http://www.bullseyeglass.com/kilnforming/artist-lecture-show-your-true-face-with-narcissus-quagliata-portland-1986.html D&L Art Glass Supply, Lakewood, Colorado, Lecture, October 23, 2019 https://dlartglass.com/education/classes/1695 D&L Art Glass Supply, Lakewood, Colorado, Workshop, October 24, 2019 https://www.dlartglass.com/education/classes/1696 QUAGLIATA'S BOOKS Mutant, and Quagliata's previous book, Archetypes and Visions in Light & Glass, are available at dlartglass.com or order by phone (303) 449- 8737. Both titles will be available for purchase at the October 23 lecture in Lakewood, Colorado. Have your copy signed by the author!

"An authentic art survives stylistic evolutions over time to become a benchmark of art history. In this regard, I believe historians will judge Scott Parsons' work as being authentic, original, and (most importantly) a contribution to the historical trajectory of stained glass in architecture." Kenneth von Roenn Scott Parsons: Sacramental Imagination Applying his graphic arts talent to the world of stained glass, Scott Parsons designed 26 stained glass windows created in three series for Our Lady of Loreto Parish in Foxfield, Colorado. Fabricated by Derix Glasstudio, Taunusstein, Gemany, these windows redefined the roles of both the artisans making the work as well as the new technologies and materials used in their creation. Through imagery not from stained glass tradition but rather a contemporary sensitivity and visual language common to our time, Parsons expresses what he calls sacramental imagination - a dimension beyond our perceived reality. "I am inspired by the idea of place, of defining a space with a sensitivity that can transform, celebrate, and engage the redemptive qualities of metaphor for the profoundly personal and communal in people's lives." An international award-winning artist, Parsons earned his MFA in Studio Art, magna cum laude, from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1990. In addition to teaching printmaking and drawing as a professor of art at Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, he has completed numerous public art commissions across the United States and Canada. His work, which has been reviewed in Architectural Record, Sculpture, Art in America, Stained Glass Quarterly, Public Art Review, and Faith & Form, includes Percent for Art and private commissions for churches, museums, research facilities, university buildings and transportation centers. Parsons has received five Faith & Form Awards for Liturgical Art and three CoD+A (Collaboration of Design and Art) Top 100 Projects Awards.In 2002, his terrazzo floor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, titled Algorithmic Tapestry, was recognized by Art in America as one of the most significant works of public art in the United States. In 2014, Parsons received two Honor Awards in Religious Arts: Visual Arts from the Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art, and Architecture (IFRAA) for his Our Lady of Loreto windows. The artist has also received multiple National Terrazzo and Mosaic Association Honor Awards for his designs in those mediums. After serving on the Faith & Form jury this summer in Charlotte, North Carolina, Parsons currently is at work on new windows for La Casa, in Paradise Valley, Arizona, which will be installed next month. His list of upcoming commissions includes 15 Stations of the Cross mosaic panels for Saint Michaels in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; glass designs for a church in Kentucky; mosaics for a church in Missouri; and terrazzo for the airports in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

At first glance, the work of Evelyn Gottschall Baker could have been unearthed in an archeological dig outside of Buena Vista, Colorado, where the artist lives and works from her studio, Glass Fractions. But a closer look will reveal these perfectly colored and shaped skeletal remains are actually pâte de verreglass castings. Using her unique mold-free process, Gottschall Baker is putting her work on the map at events such as Bullseye Glass Co.'s 2018 Emerge/Evolve competition and exhibition. On view now at the Belleview Art Museum, Belleview, Washington, Gottschall Baker's series of animal bone replicas garnered her an Honorable Mention in Emerge/ Evolve 2018. The artist spent over a year developing her own technique for sculpting glass paste into forms that can be fired without a mold. Her experience and discipline as a test engineer proved invaluable in the methodical, detailed testing required to create the complex firing schedules for this kilnworking method, which must account for shrinkage, varying thicknesses, and the way in which heat affects individual components. Beginning her career as a graphic artist and illustrator, Gottschall Baker eventually became an advertising manager and senior illustrator for the Department of the Army, for whom she created highly detailed, exacting paintings and drawings. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree, she became a test engineer for a large U.S. defense contractor. During this time, Gottschall Baker studied watercolor and oil painting, and took classes in stained glass, which allowed her to pursue a part-time career as a stained glass artist. Gottschall Baker enrolled in her first fused glass class in 2011, primarily to create components to incorporate into stained glass pieces. But her interest in fused glass grew into a passion, which was eagerly pursued through a number of classes, many of which were offered by D&L Art Glass in Denver. "Living in Colorado," says Gottschall Baker, "I find it natural to try to capture the beauty of our local landscape into works of art using glass. My initial desire to simplify my style was well suited for stained glass, but as soon as I discovered glass fusing, I began re-introducing detail and realism into my art. During the several past years, I have embraced this realistic style, and have begun to use both traditional and non-traditional casting and mold techniques to create sculptures that depict the beauty around me." In 2018, Gottschall Baker began teaching her techniques in workshops in various studios throughout the US, Canada, and Scotland. She'll be teaching at Bullseye in Portland at the end of March 2020 and at Bullseye in Santa Fe in November 2020.

Eusheen Goines: The Fillacello King Born in a small village known as Takima, Oregon, Eusheen Goines comes from a family of artists and musicians. At a young age, he learned to live off of creating art and travelling like a nomad. By the age of 18, this lifestyle took the artist on solo journey working for Renaissance Fairs throughout the country. In 2000 Goines discovered flameworking glass while working at a smoke shop and began spending the majority of his free time behind the torch. For years, he worked with the some of the best artists in functional glass including Mike Luna and Darby Holm. Now residing in Evergreen, Colorado, Goines is a part of the Everdream Studio. With a free-flowing style Goines creates functional art pieces that can be instantly recognized as his by their intricate, controlled detail and color. His aesthetic signature, the fillacello, is created much the same as reticello but is painstakingly laid out on tubing then filled with color before it is condensed. One would be hard pressed to find better examples of line work manipulation than that of Goines. In addition to flameworking glass, Goines spends his time "skateboarding, snowboarding, traveling, rocking shows, and relaxing with friends and family. Everything you see in my portfolio," he says, "is a direct influence from my Mom (Libby Goines) and Dad (Patrick Farley), my brother (Shen Goines),Warren and Wanda Goines (my grandparents), Gilbert Velasco, Darby Holm, Banjo Matt, Natey Biskind, Mike Luna, Chaz Pyle, Micah Blatt, Clinton Roman, Cowboy, Jarred Betty, The Dome School, and many many others." In 2006, Goines discovered the joy of teaching and began sharing his techniques in Japan and the U.S., including the Corning Museum of Glass, where he will teach a workshop in January 2020. The artist has now demonstrated worldwide in Australia, Japan, Germany, Costa Rica, and the U.S. This Saturday, September 14, 2019, Goines and his fellow Everdream artists will be exhibiting work at HEATERZ 90210, a private high-class soiree in the heart of Beverly Hillz, featuring all new artwork and experiences curated by the collective. For more information, stay tuned to the Everdream Instagram accounts: Everdream Studio AdamG @sweaterkingpin N8 Miers @nathan_miers WJC @wjcglass Eusheen @eusheen Elbo @elboglass JoeP @joepglass & #Lazercat ⛰www.heaterz90210.com

Geometry and the projection of light have always been key components of Debora Coombs' artwork. In 2013 she began exploring mathematical projections as a way to understand shifts between dimensions of space. Working from Penrose tiling (a two-dimensional shadowof a five-dimensional lattice), 3D sculptures in glass and paper were built using her classic design skills to explore various aspects of mathematics. A number of high-profile residencies have allowed Coombs to explore these new concepts. In the spring of 2016, she did a month-long collaborative residency with computer scientist Duane Bailey, and in October, a 2-week residency at Assets for Artists: The Studiosat MASS MoCAat the Massachusetts Museum for Contemporary Art, North Adams, Massachusetts. In 2017, a 3-week residency at Carroll College, Helena, Montana, allowed the artist to focus on the theological symbolism of geometry, which resulted in a commission for 85 square feet of hand painted geometric stained glass windows for All Saints, the new chapel on campus. That same year, Coombs spent a month at Jentel Artist Residencyin Banner, Wyoming, making a series of math-based drawings that led to the discovery of a new geometric figure. In February 2018, Coombs was invited by artist Lauren Bon of the Metabolic Studiosin Los Angeles, California, to spend two weeks collaborating and contributing to a landscape project for redirecting LA's river water for the irrigation of city parks. In April, she presented this and other recent work at the 13th Biennial Gathering for Gardnerin Atlanta, Georgia, an international conference for mathematicians and artists. Then in May 2018, longtime New Yorker staff-writer Lawrence Weschler invited Coombs to speak at the Tamarind Institutein Albuquerque, New Mexico, as part of his Wonder Cabinet, a gathering of artists who work in close association with scientists. Coombs' award-winning stained glass has been exhibited, commissioned and collected internationally for over 30 years. A Fellow of the British Society of Master Glass Painters, the artist studied stained glass at Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland; University of Wales, Swansea; and received her Master's degree from the Royal College of Art in London, England, 1985. An experienced educator, Coombs directed the glass department at Chelsea College of Art in London from 1994 to 1996. She has lectured and taught stained glass for professional associations and colleges including Pilchuck Glass School, Stained Glass Association of America, American Glass Guild, and the British Society of Master Glass Painters. Her religious commissions include two 25-foot-tall figurative windows for Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan, 20 stained glass windows for St. Mary's Cathedral in Portland, Oregon, and 4 windows for St. Henry's Catholic Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Rare in the stained glass world, Coombs has successfully extended her devotion to content and story-telling to her non-commissioned work. Her piece, "Ornithologist," from her 2009 Menfolk series, was included in New Glass Review 31, The Corning Museum of Glass publication dedicated to presenting cutting edge works of glass art. Her solo exhibition titled Menfolk, opened at the Jeanetta Cochrane Theater Gallery in London, England, before traveling to the Stained Glass Museum at Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire, England, in the spring of 2010. That same year, Coombs completed a collaborative work with artist Michael Oatman as part of his mixed-media installation "All Utopias Fell," which remains permanently on exhibit at MASS MoCA. In June 2018 Coombs ran a hands-on pilot project for children and community members at the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and contributed to a panel discussion chaired by Margaret Wertheim from the Institute For Figuring about the connections between art and mathematics. The focus of this one-day conference was STEM to STEAM; practical ways to bring the A for Art into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) programs in education. In November 2018, Coombs completed two stained glass windows with geometric themes for Carroll College, Helena, Montana. Work continues on three more windows, scheduled for completion in February 2021. The artist's sculptures are currently on exhibition at the Schow Science Library in Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts.

Jane Bruce is an independent artist and educator based in New York City. She teaches and exhibits internationally and her dual careers of artist and maker have taken her around the world, from Europe to the USA, to Australia and back again. Bruce works in a range of techniques to create objects and mini installations, primarily through the processes of kiln forming, blowing and coldworking glass. Born in England, Bruce received a Master of Arts from the Royal College of Art, London, and undertook further postgraduate study at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred. She has been the recipient of a range of fellowships, visiting artist awards and grants, including fellowships from the Creative Glass Center of America and the New York Foundation for the Arts; artist-in-residence at The Studio of The Corning Museum of Glass, visiting artist at Museum of Glass, Tacoma, and a New Work Grant from the Australia Council. Exhibiting internationally, her work can be found in many major museum collections worldwide, including those of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; European Museum of Modern Glass (Europaisches Museum fur Modernes Glas, Kunstsammlunger der Veste Coburg) Germany; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Corning Museum of Glass, New York; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio; and The Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia. As an educator, Bruce served as senior lecturer in the Glass Workshop of the Australian National University Canberra School of Art (1994 - 2001) and was Head of Workshop (2001-2003). She was artistic and technical director for Northlands Creative Glass, Caithness, Scotland (2003-2007) and continues to organize annual symposiums there for British and international artists and students. She has also taught workshops in the US at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, New York, Bullseye Glass Co., in Portland, Oregon, and Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington. Bruce's Vase, Bottle, Bowl series furthered the artist's exploration of the vessel, which is deeply rooted in the history of the decorative or applied arts. Interested in the essential object, she reduces the vessel to its central and fundamental parts and attributes. She says: "If I were to pick an adjective to describe this work, it might be formal. As well as abstracting the vessel and presenting its elemental nature, it is also important as to how composition, color, light, proportion, and the juxtaposition of positive and negative space work within the object, and how a group of objects form a resolved statement." On the other hand, Bruce's Houseseries explored a more personal concern related to landscape and loss in a particular place. In what became known as The Clearances, (1760-1830), the Highlands of Scotland were emptied and became a wilderness. Even today, with many ruined crofts still dotting the Caithness landscape, there continues to be a strong sense of loss and desolation in that place. "Inspired by this history and what remains, the current house forms seek to evoke thoughts of loss, the past and what might have been." Bruce is working on two related series currently categorized as Indefinite Objectsand Deep Space Panels, both addressing deep and never-ending space. As the viewer moves around the works they seem to change and reconfigure as the viewer's viewpoint changes. These new series will be on view in an exhibition titled Constructs: The Thing About Space Is That It Just Keeps Going, at River House Arts, Toledo, Ohio, from October 4 – November 16, 2019. Although these new works contain very little glass, and the Deep Space panels contain none at all, they are about space and light, which Bruce considers to be inherent qualities of glass. From November 5 through December 10, 2019, Bruce will teach her workshop, Color, Light, Glass: An Introduction to Kilnformed Glass at UrbanGlass. In June 2020, the artist will travel to North Lands Creative Glass for an international artist symposium that will look at issues of home and place and which she founded and has coordinated since 2010.

Whether a chameleon, a crested kingfisher or a Cristo Rhinoceros hornbill, Devin Somerville's high-end art pipes begin with custom millies that are stacked and assembled into mind-blowing and unforgettable creatures. Also known as Crunklestein, the artist's take on the ancient Italian technique of millefiore has become his aesthetic signature. Once a process amongst many used by Crunklestein, when friends, fans, and fellow artists came face to face with his colorful, ornate millie pipes, the artist was encouraged to make all of his work using the chip stack technique he developed. Somerville,aka Cap'n Crunk Glass, resides in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and produces a variety of dab rig styles, specializing in the mini or tiny tube design. His small dab rigs usually include mini encased millies throughout the neck and body of the piece, while his full sized incredibly detailed and realistic sculpted oil rigs showcase his unlimited range of talent and creativity. Blowing glass since before the year 2000, Crunklestein currently creates the largest work of his career for an exhibition and workshop to be presented at Level 42 Gallery in Asheville, North Carolina. On Friday, August 16, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Somerville will teach his millie making techniques, and on Saturday, August 18, his stacking and sculpting processes. Later Saturday evening, an exhibition of new Crunklestein functional glass and collabs opens at Level 42 Gallery. Amongst other career highlights, Somerville is the only two-time champion of The Bern Gallery's Pipe Classic, held in Burlington, Vermont, each of the last 14 years.The Pipe Classic is the world's first and longest running pipe-making competition, bringing together 12 of the world's most prolific pipe-makers for an annual event that forever changed competitive pipe-making as we know it. Names are made, heroes are born, and champions are crowned. This year's field features three past champions, and a who's-who of the medium's masters. Twelve artists, 12 hours, 12 pipes, one champion! Be there at Pipe Classic 14, held September 23 – 29, 2019.

The Permission of the Mind Howard Ben Tré Using methods learned in his metal-foundry class at Brooklyn Technical High School, Howard Ben Tré pioneered the art of casting molten glass long before YouTube tutorials and Facebook casting groups existed. His hands-on technical innovations changed what was possible in cast glass and allowed Ben Tré to create career defining monumental sculptures that could survive the rigors of outdoor installation. Among Ben Tré's public commissions are the award-winning installation of fountains and seating created for Post Office Square Park in Boston; the plaza and sculpture for BankBoston's headquarters in downtown Providence; an interactive fountain for the hall of the renovated Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston; the pedestrianization and street scheme redesign of Warrington Town Center in England; and plazas with sculpture/fountains and landscaping for Target Corporation Headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Whether casting glass for public spaces or personal series, Ben Tré found inspiration in the geometry of ancient ritual objects and historical architecture. His Wrapped Forms (1998 - 2000) evoke the relics and customs of Asian ritual while Lightness of Being (2008) juxtaposes fragility and strength, masculine and feminine. As light is transmitted, diffused, and refracted through the dense glass mass, Ben Tré's sculpture takes on a mysterious life of its own. Sections of the glass were treated with gold leaf either on the surface or by installing gold leaf covered lead bars within the glass matrix, adding to the magic. Public and personal work plays off one another, sparking new ideas and forms. In fact, they emanate from the same source— Ben Tré's desire to use art to bring people together in our collective humanity. Whether viewed in a public square or a private gallery, his cast glass returns us to the realm where utopian visions and social ideals don't seem so foolish. Ben Tréreminds us that if we give our minds permission, anything is possible. Ben Tré's work is included in numerous private collections in the US, Europe and Asiaand in more than 101 museum and public collections worldwide, among them the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Nice. He has been featured in 54 solo exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad, including a ten-year retrospective organized by the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, that traveled nationally, and a retrospective exhibition at the Glass Art Museum in Toyama, Japan. Other one-person exhibitions of sculptures and drawings include those organized by the Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain in Nice; the David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University; the Toledo Museum of Art; and the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art. Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1949, Ben Tré received a B.S.A. from Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, in 1978 and a M.F.A from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1980. He is a three-time recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a three-time recipient of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Fellowship. His achievements in the visual arts were recognized by the First Annual Pell Awards for Excellence in the Arts (1996), the Artist Award of Distinction by the National Council of Art Administrators (2005), and the Aileen Osborn Webb Award (2006). His public art has been recognized with awards by the Providence Preservation Society for Urban Design (1998), the British Council for Shopping Centres for Town Centre Environment (2002), and the Royal Town Planning Institute for Best Urban Design Project (2002). Currently 40 years of drawings, works on paper, lecture notes and a number of sculptures in the Ben Tre' collection dating back to 1977 are being assembled and archived for research purposes.

Viewing the hot sculpted work of Prague's Martin Janecký inspires a sensation akin to gazing upon precious and antique art treasures from around the globe. His glass busts in white or black glass remind us that the human form speaks volumes about beauty, history, hope and art in a way that no other object could. Born in the Czech Republic in 1980, Janecký began working with glass at the age of 13 at his father's factory. His secondary school training at Novy Bor concentrated on the creation of glass art and introduced him to artists and designers from around the world that hired him to execute their ideas. In 2003, the young artist made his first trip to the United States where he studied at the Pilchuck Glass School under Richard Royal and William Morris. Among Janecký's most recognized strengths was his mastering of blowing and sculpting "inside the bubble," the technique used in the creation of his startling original works. Before long, Janecký became a highly sought teacher in his field. He has taught, demonstrated and exhibited in Europe, America, Australia, Africa and Asia, to include the Corning Museum of Glass, Pilchuck Glass School, Chrysler Museum of Art, UrbanGlass, the Rietveld Academy in Holland, Bornholm Design School in Denmark, the Australian National University in Canberra, and the Toyama City Institute of Glass Art in Japan, among many. Following a 2013 visit to Mexico, Janecký embarked on an exploration of the human skull in a tribute to Dia de Muertos, an outgrowth of his passion for the culture and people of Mexico. He says: "The willingness of the Mexican people to share this occasion with an outsider like me, someone from a totally different environment, was a humbling experience that inspired me to want to create a body of work that honors and celebrates this amazing event. My plan was to recreate iconic examples of this culture in glass, which had never been done on this scale. I did so with humility and a huge respect for Mexico's history and culture." Janecký's homeland,The Czech Republic, is rightfully proud of its own globally recognized tradition of glassmaking. Writes Dr. Petr Nový, Head Curator, Museum of Glass Jablonec nad Nisou, Czech Republic: "Martin Janecký's expressive realism is somewhat alien to the Czech art scene, meaning it isn't always met with a clear sense of comprehension. It is as if non-abstract works should primarily be viewed as handicraft instead of art. But in Janecký's case, superb handicraft serves as a springboard for this unique artist to be able to capture emotions in his glass works. And such power is something we find only very rarely in the contemporary world of studio glass art. … "Janecký has earned a rightful place among the greatest not just Czech, but also global, stars of the glass art scene. His original works are generating great enthusiasm among galleries and collectors, including from global celebrities. His successes are not just the result of talent, creativity, and artistic boldness, but chiefly a considerable amount of hard work. Expertise in the field of glass art requires constant application and searching out new limits – and that is only possible with an all-encompassing day-to-day dedication. Although Janecký's confidence as an artist has undoubtedly grown, he nonetheless remains humble with regards to his chosen material, knowing there is still so much to discover. And this approach is evidently one of the key reasons why Martin Janecký's glass works are so remarkably distinct."

The Corning Museum of Glass is a proud collaborator on an exciting, new competition series, Blown Away—created by producers marblemediaand a co-production of Netflix andBlue Ant Media of Toronto. The 10-episode show, which will bring the art of glassblowing to a global audience through the Netflix streaming platform, will launch on July 12, 2019. The show follows a group of 10 highly skilled glassmakers from North America who have a limited time to fabricate beautiful works of art that are assessed by a panel of expert judges. One artist is eliminated in each 30-minute episode until a winner is announced in the 10th and final episode. YouTube star Nick Uhas, best known for his popular science show Nickipedia, hosts Blown Awayand renowned artist Katherine Gray serves as the "resident evaluator." The series was filmed in the largest glassblowing studio ever built in North America, designed specifically for the scope and scale of the competition. The space allows 10 artists to work simultaneously, using two large glass-melting furnaces, 10 reheating furnaces and 10 individual work stations. The Craft and Design Glass Studio at Sheridan College in Toronto consulted on the studio design and aided the competitors for the first nine episodes. The Corning Museum of Glass, which houses the world's most comprehensive collection of glass, the library of record on glass, and one of the top glassmaking schools in the world, served as a key consulting partner on the series. Eric Meek, Senior Manager of Hot Glass Programs at CMoG also served as a "guest evaluator" for the series finale, helping to select the winner of the competition. The winner of Blown Awayis awarded the title of "Best in Blow" and a prize package valued at $60,000, which includes a week-long Guest Artist appearance at CMoG. The winner will complete two working sessions this summer, July 17-18 and August 28-29, in preparation for the "Blown AwayResidency," October 14-18. During these times, the winner will participate in glassmaking demonstrations for the public in CMoG's Amphitheater Hot Shop. This summer, CMoG is displaying the exhibit Blown Away:Glassblowing Comes to Netflix, which tells the story of how the Museum found its way into the global spotlight. Visitors can see work created on the show by each competitor, and watch a behind-the-scenes documentary with interviews conducted on the set and footage captured of the Museum's Hot Glass Demo Team taking part in the finale. "The Corning Museum of Glass inspires people to see glass in a new light," said Eric Meek. "Blown Away is a global platform, and it's exciting to think about how this will broaden glassmaking's level of exposure." For a complete list of contestants and judges visiting talking our your glass.com, click on Season 4, click on Blown Away. Or visit www.cmog.organd search for Blown Away. Thanks to our sponsors His Glassworks, Inc, Sunshine Glassworks Ltd., Bullseye Glass company and the Corning Museum of Glass. I'll begin the show asking Donna Luke, Blue Marble's vice president of production, about the behind the scenes story of Blown Away. Then I visit with Eric Meek about the Corning Museum of Glass' role in the program, and finish up by interviewing one of the judges, Katherine Gray. Blown Away contestants include Deborah Czeresko – Veteran glass artist based in New York City Kevin Kiff – California-based glass artist Benjamin Kikkert – Vancouver-based glass artist Leah Kudel – Canadian glass artist Janusz Poźniak – British born, Seattle-based glass artist Patrick Proimeau – Canadian glass artist and glass studio operator Alexander Rosenberg – Philadelphia-based artist, educator, and writer Momoko "Momo" Schafer – Recent graduate of MassArt Annette Sheppard – Former CMoG glass artist and current management consultant Edgar Valentine – Tacoma-based glass artist Guest evaluators include Chris Taylor – Pilchuck Glass School Marc Lepine – Gastronomy chef Jay MacDonell – Lighting designer Jesse Hirsch – Futurist Emily Pearce-Bibona – International wine judge and sommelier Perry Tung – Bonhams Auction House Catherine Osborne – Architecture & design expert Janet Morrison – Sheridan College Greta Hodgkinson – National Ballet of Canada Eric Meek – The Corning Museum of Glass

The functional glass community is defined, in part, by the technical mastery and mind-blowing aesthetic of high-end art pipes. But in equal measure, philanthropy defines this growing segment of the glass art community. One key player in organizing charitable events within the pipe community is Allison Key, founder and director of the well-known Michigan Glass Project (MGP), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. The 2019 MGP will be held July 19 - 21 at the Russell Industrial Center, Detroit, Michigan. MGP's mission is to unite artists through charitable events that create and foster positive change in the community.Artwork created on site at the yearly happening is sold, auctioned, or raffled to raise money for a philanthropic cause. A large silent auction is held during MGP with artwork continually being added throughout the weekend. Profits generated above expenses to hold the event are donated to the yearly charity. Since its inception in 2012, MGP has donated $36,000 to The Belle Isle Aquarium in Detroit, the nation's oldest operating aquarium. In 2015, MGP began working with Art Road Nonprofit, an organization dedicated to returning art classes to Detroit area public schools, donating $40,000 to the cause. MGP's 2016 event double that donation to $80,000. Previously Art Road was only able to provide art to grades K-5 at Spain Elementary, but the increased funds allowed middle schoolers at that school to be added to the roster. MGP'S 2017 donation marked a milestone in giving as the organization hit its $100,000 goal. Art Road used the additional money to add art class to a fourth school. The following year's $125,000 resulted in the addition of art classes at two Ecorse schools. Thanks in part to MGP, Art Road now provides complete art class curriculum including instructors and supplies to over 2,200 Metro Detroit students at six schools. To document this unique and highly successful project, Dan Collins, filmmaker who worked on Marble Slinger's 2012 Degenerate Artmovie and his own documentary about Marcel Braun's Project 33, will produce a documentary film on Key and MGP. A Kickstarter to raise funds for Collins' film will be launched next week some time, around the first of July 2019. Key is co-owner of Urban Pheasant Glass Studio, the Crystal Dragon at the Michigan Renaissance Festival, a wholesale glass business called Key Glass Co. and a retail location in Detroit called Motown Shakedown. In 2018, Key also became co-owner of Glassroots Art Show, a fixture in the industry as a multi-faceted event bringing together suppliers, toolmakers, high-end artists, production blowers, distribution companies, galleries, and head shops. After celebrating a decade in Madison, Wisconsin, in 2019 Glassroots is moving to Asheville, North Carolina, where the trade show will be held October 7 through 9.

Tim Carey's mission is to bring glass to the forefront as an image-making medium through continued exploration of techniques that he and Narcissus Quagliata developed at Judson Studios. Tim Carey Studio, established in Compton, California, on July 1, 2018, is moving to south Pasadena, where the artist will continue creating projects and commissions in his hybrid fusing and glass painting process. Judson Studios' Resurrection Window, the largest single composition fused glass window in the world, was dedicated on Easter Sunday, April 16, 2017. Created for the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, the groundbreaking work measures a mammoth 37 feet tall by 94 feet wide. As Judson Studios' designer at that time, Carey worked in concert with Quagliata to create the first-ever notable liturgical window created entirely from fused glass. Carey States: "After designing the Resurrection window in 2014 and realizing it couldn't be done solely with traditional methods, I sought out glass master Narcissus Quagliata and his Painting with Light fusing technique. Together we designed a custom fabrication process that changed my goals as an artist and inspired me to open my studio to investigate further." Trained in traditional drawing and painting at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Carey spent the first five years of his career as a figurative oil painter and muralist. He discovered stained glass and specifically glass painting by chance on a tour of The Judson Studios in Los Angeles in 2003. The artist took a part-time job at the Studios as a glass painter, which evolved into a full-time passion and 14 years at Judson Studios. Lead artist on some monumental projects during his time at Judson, Carey honed the skill of working with communities, both religious and secular, to realize their dreams in glass. Since its inception, Tim Carey Studio has created groundbreaking residential commissions such at The Cowboy and has embarked upon an exciting partnership with Macie Art Glass in New Jersey, creating windows for a large Mausoleum in the Trenton area. Carey also continues work in collaboration with Judson Studios and will be teaching his techniques at Bullseye Glass Co. in Portland, Oregon, in October 2019.

Raised in Milford, Ohio, Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen and her naturalist father spent many a day on forays through the woods. As a landscaper, the elder Willenbrink taught his daughter about trees, birds, fossils, and native peoples. She says: "I'm constantly inspired, revitalized and awed by the power of nature." A self-described all-American girl, the artist grew up with her twin sister, older brother, younger brother, and parents who loved to camp and hike. In their childhood home, nature and happiness was celebrated, resulting in Willenbrink-Johnsen's palpable passion for life. Soon after receiving a BFA in sculpture from Ohio University, glass became a driving force in Willenbrink-Johnsen's life. The artist spent several years honing her skills in the Catskill Mountains region of New York. She subsequently embarked on a 16-year stint working with glass artist William Morris, who taught Willenbrink-Johnsen to follow her vision and let the enthusiasm of her spirit guide her ideas. Like Morris, Willenbrink-Johnsen creates sculpture not only by blowing, but by hot sculpting. Components are hot formed or lampworked ahead of time and held in a garage to keep them warm while a base is being formed. Once the base is ready, the painstaking process of joining the elements to the base begins. Stress is introduced each time a new component is added, and the weight of the piece increases. A delicate balance of time and temperature is required for a sculpture to reach successful completion. Willenbrink-Johnsen's team includes husband Jasen Johnsen, whom she met at Pilchuck and married in 2001. Jasen served as the head studio technician at Pilchuck Glass School for nearly 10 years and worked as teaching assistant for Pino Signoretto and Hank Murta Adams before beginning to co-teach classes with Karen. As bird watchers, the Willenbrink-Johnsens observe every feather, talon, and branch presented in their work and invite viewers to enjoy their sculpture with the same attention to detail. Combining unmatched technical mastery with a profound love for their medium, nature, and each other, the artists explore new territory through not only birds forms, but complex treatments of their environs. The Willenbrink Johnsens will teach advanced sculpting at the Pilchuck Glass School this July 6 – 23; at YAYA Arts Center, New Orleans, Louisiana, in December; at Public Glass, San Francisco, California, in early 2020; and at Penland School of Crafts, May 24- June 5, 2020.

Chris Ahalt sculpts in meticulous detail and bright colors his animal balloon series, depicting visually strong animals made fragile by delicately balancing them above on a wire. Hours of intensive work result in deceptively simple animal balloons featuring hollow glass sculptures of African and Asian elephants, black and white rhinos, giraffes, hippos, sharks, and whales, to name a few. Ahalt's sandblasted glass is strung up on copper wire embellished with hand-forged ridges that emulate real ribbon and tethered to small weights. The flexibility of the wire enhances the illusion as the glass balloon sways back and forth. Says Ahalt: "Balloons suggest celebration, children, and wonder. The iconic animals that I pick appeal to those child-like sensibilities. Most of us grow up with a favorite animal, and the idea of turning one's favorite animal into a balloon seems a fitting marriage that is hard to dislike. These animal balloons also metaphorically speak to their fragile lives, many of them endangered. Some of the balloons, such as the rhino, have their legs bound alluding to the precarious environments created for them by humans. I think of these animal balloons as a mixture of playfulness and harsh reality – homage to not only the iconic beauty of these majestic animals, but also as tribute to the many endangered species that may not survive." Ahalt graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design with a BFA in Sculpture/ Furniture Design,and currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he specializes in custom glassware, vases, sculpture, lighting, prototyping, and commissioned work. He has taught numerous glassblowing workshops nationally and has two coming up this summer- Taming the Beastat The Chrysler Museum's Perry Glass Studio, Norfolk, Virginia, July 6 – 11, and Pushing the Bubbleat the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, August 12 - 16. The artist's work was featured in the 2011 March/April issue of American Craft Magazine. Initially introduced to the world of flameworking by his good friend Repo in 1998, Ahalt's career in flameworking was cemented by a 2005 trip to Venice, Italy, where he apprenticed under renowned master flameworker, Cesare Toffolo. The young artist learned to use jacks and diamond shears in the flame, a unique flameworking approach pioneered by Toffolo. Working in Italy had a huge impact on Ahalt, who has dedicated his career to matching the perfection of form and thinness of Venetian glass.

Two Dimensional Biographies by Amir H. Fallah Los Angeles based painter Amir H. Fallah renders two-dimensional biographies of his subjects using alternative imagery to create a visual language that helps us understand who a person is. Though surrounded by intimate belongings, the faces and bodies of Fallah's subjects are covered in highly ornate fabric, turning everything we know about portraiture upside-down. Brainard Carey wrote, in Praxis Interviewmagazine: "Portraits of the artist's veiled subjects employ ambiguity to skillfully weave fact and fiction like the textiles that cover them. While the stories that surround his muses are deeply personal, as told through the intimate possessions the subjects are encompassed by, they universalize generational experiences of movement, trauma, and celebration. With their Pop Art hues and investment in domestic life, Fallah's paintings wryly incorporate contemporary American tropes into paintings more formally rooted in Islamic Art, including the organization and arabesque embellishment of Persian miniatures. In doing so, his work possesses a hybridity that reflects his own background as an Iranian- American immigrant straddling cultures." In 2017, Judson Studios translated two of Fallah's paintings into stained glass. Embracing the World, the artist's stained and fused glass self-portrait, alludes to Renaissance paintings of mother and child. An homage to his son, the piece was sold before the opening of Fallah's solo show at Shulamit Nazarian Gallery in LA. A second Judson collaboration, entitled Offering, features Fallah's portrait of an Iranian artist who came to America to pursue her art career the day after The Supreme Court upheld Trump's Muslim ban. Fallah received his BFA in Fine Art and Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2001 and his MFA in Painting at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2005. He has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and abroad, including solo presentations at the Schneider Museum, Ashland, Oregon (2017); the San Diego Art Institute (2017); the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland, Kansas, (2015); and The Third Line, Dubai (2017, 2013, 2009, 2007, 2005). The recipient of the 2017 California Community Foundation Grant and 2015 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant, the artist was chosen to participate in the 9th Sharjah Biennial. This event enriches the cultural landscape of the Gulf by commissioning, producing, and presenting innovative and challenging art experiences for the United Arab Emirates community while offering an internationally recognized platform for artists from the region. As his work attracts new collectors in painting and glass, Fallah will participate in three solo exhibitions in 2019-2020: the first in August 2019, at Dio Horia gallery in Greece; then in January 2020 at MOCA Tucson; followed by April 2020 at Shulamit Nazarian Gallery in Los Angeles. The artist is currently working with Judson Studios on a large public stained glass project for LA City to be unveiled in 2021.

Susie J. Silbert, curator of Modern and Contemporary Glass at The Corning Museum of Glass, is trained in glass working and design history. Prior to joining the Museum in 2016, Silbert was an independent curator and writer motivated by the complex and intertwined histories of material, making, and makers. Silbert earned her MA in Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture from the Bard Graduate Center and taught History of Glass at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her most recent exhibition New Glass Now, is a groundbreaking survey of the landscape of contemporary glass. The first exhibition of its kind organized by the Museum in 40 years, New Glass Now represents artists of 32 nationalities working in 25 countries ranging in ages from 23 to 84. On view from May 12, 2019, through January 5, 2020, the show includes large-scale installations and delicate miniatures, video and experiments in glass chemistry, all of which demonstrate the vitality and versatility of this dynamic material. New Glass Now is the third exhibition in a groundbreaking series organized by the Museum to survey contemporary glass on an international scale. Glass 1959 and New Glass: A Worldwide Survey, organized in 1959 and 1979, respectively, played an important role in creating and defining the field of contemporary glass. The 1959 exhibition helped lay the foundation for what became the Studio Glass Movement just a few years later in 1962, and the 1979 show spurred collecting by institutions and private individuals, new scholarly attention, and continued artistic innovation. The 1959 and 1979 exhibitions will be revisited in an exhibition, titled New Glass Now/ Context, in CMoG's Rakow Library, which complements the exhibition of contemporary glass simultaneously on view. Karol Wight, President and Executive Director of The Corning Museum of Glass, said: "New Glass Now continues a more than 60-year commitment to share the history of the medium over more than 35 centuries, including the contemporary development of art and design realized in glass. The exhibitions that CMoG curated in 1959 and 1979 defined the field of Studio Glass and brought critical attention to the work being done by glassmakers the world over. We hope that New Glass Now will continue this important tradition and reveal exciting new insights into work being made today across the globe." Coinciding with the opening of the exhibition, CMoG will publish the 40th anniversary issue of New Glass Review, its annual exhibition-in-print of contemporary glass. Published since 1979, New Glass Review has brought important critical and popular attention to the material and the artists and designers working with it. The 2019 edition will include the 100 artworks and design objects chosen for the contemporary survey New Glass Now as well as important contextual essays and information.

Founded in 2001 in Beltsville, Maryland, Vitrum Studio provided kilnforming education as well as a wide range of Bullseye fusible glass and supplies to thousands of students from all over the globe. The first exclusive Bullseye Fusing Compatible Glass retail studio and teaching facility in the country, Vitrum Studio grew rapidly into an internationally recognized teaching institution. Though the brick and mortar studio closed two years ago, owners Judith Finn Conway and Kevin O'Toole continue to share their kilnforming experience and expertise in a series of five available eBooks, with more on the horizon. A friendship that began when O'Toole took a class from Conway served as the cornerstone of Vitrum Studio. For the first many years, while teaching classes and retailing Bullseye glass and supplies, both artists somehow managed to design and fabricate their own individual artworks in kilnformed glass. Conway began her Chesapeake Waters series in the summer of 2004, marking a new direction in her work. The works depict abstracted images of the Chesapeake Bay's waters and shores. O'Toole began producing his fantasy series of optical instruments in the mid 2000s based on an appreciation of antique telescopes, microscopes, binoculars, and the like. Taking advantage of the optical properties of glass, the artist relies upon many different techniques such as slumping, fusing, and coldworking to create these complex sculptures. Working seven days a week at Vitrum became a strain that left Conway and O'Toole with no time to create or even think about their own art. Though the partners hated the idea of closing the doors and losing contact with their staff and students, at the end of 2016 the time had come. It didn't take long for Conway and O'Toole to realize that they could take everything they had developed over 15 years of teaching at Vitrum Studio and transform it into a collection of eBooks for the fusing community. A natural extension of Vitrum Studio's classes, these eBooks contain beautifully-crafted projects and richly illustrated step-by-step instructions that delve deeply into the process of each project, exploring how and why each technique works. Currently available titles include StripCut Reimagined: Books 1, 2 and 3, and Finding Place: Light and Landscape Books 1 and 2. Conway and O'Toole have begun work on their sixth eBook, Optic Topics, with instruction on creating intricate patterns with stringers, and are in the research phase for their seventh eBook, to be titled either Powder Imagery or Botanical Portraits in Glass.

With a spiritual outlook, Jen Fuller explores large-scale glass making and multi component site-specific installations. As her career evolves, the artist views glass as a material capable of capturing ephemeral fleeting moments and outlining emotion. She says, "I'm in a relationship with glass as a mutual collaborator. It does what it wants and is more than merely a tool. It is a living entity." In 2009, Fuller attended the Glass Art Society conference in her hometown of Portland and later that year met Warren Carther of Winnipeg's Carther Studios. Both events inspired her to explore glass as a medium. As Carther's apprentice for three months in 2010, Fuller assisted the artist in building his Aperturecommission for the Winnipeg airport. This introduction to site specific, large-scale work provided the young artist with the emotional fortitude necessary to pursue her own visions in large-scale glass. Upon return to Portland from Carther's studio, Fuller was awarded an Emerging Artist grant from the William T. Colville foundation to build a glass kiln, a process that introduced her to Portland metal artist, Steve Tilden. A new arts residency with Recology, the trash purveyors for the city of Portland, resulted in the artist's first series made from recycled glass and reclaimed materials, setting the tone for future work. Fuller approached Tilden about making metal frames for her Recology project, but he suggested she learn to weld. The two artists formed a friendship and began collaborating on a series of life-size mythical creatures. After eight years of collaboration, Fuller's glass studio is now located in Tilden's metal shop. In 2018, working with the horticulture team of Lan Su Chinese Garden Glass, Fuller spent one year harvesting plant specimens from the garden and rendering them in pate de verre. Her 36 specimens were exhibited for two months in the Scholar's Pavilion of the garden. Other notable projects include Fuller's River Memoir for the Milwaukie Courthouse, a site responsive sculpture memorializing the local role of the Willamette River. In February 2019, Fuller completed a temporary installation titledF(Light)for Portland's Winter Light festival, consisting of 150 glass paper planes that were digitally projected with imagery of the sky, different color washes, and sound, and installed underneath the 100-year-old Hawthorne Bridge. In March 2019, working with two art professors from Spokane Falls Community College, Fuller designed a glass and light exhibit called The Things I Could Not Sayto teach students how to make and install a body of work. The project made public Fuller's glass cremation series that she's been quietly working on for herself. Fuller continues her exploration of large-scale flight patterns in glass and light, installing a birds in flight sequence in the Thai Pagoda of Olbrich Garden for Gleam Light Festival 2019, held in Madison, Wisconsin. Other new work includes Piano Push Play, Fuller's glass and mirror piano that will be left in various locations in downtown Portland and on which the public is encouraged to play.

Aaron Golbert a.k.a. Marble Slinger, chronicled and in some ways changed the history of functional glass through the popularity and widespread distribution of his 2012 documentary film, Degenerate Art. In keeping with his goal to document the history of the glass pipe scene in America,Slinger will present an exhibition titled True OGs, which opens this Friday, April 19, 2019, at Fiore Gallery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The show presents the work of more than 65 artists who began their pipe making careers prior to 2000. On his Instagram, Slinger wrote: "Before social media, before the Internet, before digital cameras, before cell phones, and before legal and medical cannabis there were True OGs. My concept for this show was to highlight a group of folks who have endured 20 plus years of making glass pipes for a living. We've seen so much change since the '90s - the colored glass, the equipment, the online revolution, from Operation Pipe Dreams to legalized recreational weed. I remember not being able to use the word bongpublicly, when all pipes were for tobacco useonly. Now, thousands of people share pictures of themselves smoking weed without a care in the world." A few notes on Friday's True OGs opening: Only VIP ticket holders will be admitted to the gallery from 3 to 6 pm. The gallery opens at 6 pm for general admission, no ticket required. Space in the gallery is limited, therefore a second venue at 1714 N. Mascher has been rented to host a party that can accommodate everyone. The party space will be open to the general public from 4 to 11 pm, with plenty of music, food, and space to relax and connect with friends. The party venue is located only a few blocks from the gallery, and postcards with maps will be distributed. A shuttle will also be provided from 6 to 9 pm between the venues. Fiore gallery will be open this weekend from 2 to 10 p.m. on Saturday and 2 to 6 p.m. on Sunday.

Inspired by an abiding passion for functional glass, Nick Deviley founded Glassroots Art Show in 2009 as a way to legitimize glass pipes as an art form while adding to his ever-growing collection. Glassroots has become a fixture in the industry as a multi-faceted event bringing together suppliers, toolmakers, high-end artists, production blowers, distribution companies, galleries, and head shops. After celebrating a decade in Madison, Wisconsin, in 2019 Glassroots is moving to Asheville, North Carolina, where the trade show will be held October 7 through 9. An entrepreneur and self-made businessman since the age of 18, Deviley, now 37, began buying and selling glass pipes as a side hustle. His vast collection has recently found a home at his The Glassroots Gallery in Sister Bay, Wisconsin. From his farmstead, where he resides with his wife, five children, and flock of chickens, Deviley talks with Glass Artabout his abiding love of cannabis community and culture, his expanding glass collection, and Glassroots' new home.

The secret to success is different for every artist. By creating with the philosophy that one learns something new every day and allowing her endless passion for working with clients to inspire and inform her art, Kathy Barnard has achieved an enviable level of personal and professional accomplishment. The artist's work, which includes carved and etched glass, stained glass, and carved granite and tile murals, can be found in public spaces, churches, private homes, and galleries in the US, Hawaii, Alaska, Apia Samoa, England, Scotland, Germany, and Japan. Barnard's career is marked with groundbreaking commissions. One of her first stained glass projects, the Tree of Life, was designed in 1988 for the Jewish Community Center Campus and Offices of the National Jewish Federation in Overland Park, Kansas. This circular stained glass window measures 15' in diameter and features a tree in medium hues and shades of blue. Her largest carved and etched glass commission was completed in 2000 and took Barnard two and a half years to complete. Measuring 40 feet tall by 35 feet wide, this signature wall for the SNB Bank building in Tulsa features Oklahoma wildlife and landscape. In 2007-2008 Barnard combined both etching and stained glass in a tour de force titled Ode to Joy, Flight of Dovesfor Porter Adventist Hospital in South Denver, Colorado. The artist designed and fabricated a 25-foot-by-25-foot entryway, a 16-foot carved donor wall, two carved glass entry doors, and a 12-foot-by 9-foot stained glass chapel headwall. President of the Stained Glass Association of America (SGAA) from 2015-16, Barnard remains on the SGAA Board of Directors as well as being a regular attendee of the American Glass Guild (AGG) conferences. Cooperating on an inaugural joint conference, SGAA and AGG members will meet in San Antonio, Texas, June 3 through 5, 2019, with pre-conference classes held on June 1 and 2. "This historic conference will be a great opportunity for members of both organizations to network alongside their shared interest in stained glass." It is difficult to say if Barnard works primarily as a glass carver or a stained glass artist. It varies from year to year and according to which clients and commissions she works with in a given time period. Most recently the artist has completed seven stained glass panels for Presence Resurrection Hospital, Chicago, Illinois. Installed in custom steel frames, these etched and painted Lamberts glass windows represent Healing Stories of the Bible. A master at juggling large public commissions and smaller autonomous panels, Barnard has simultaneously been working on Fables & Other Muses, a series of exhibition pieces that includes her Raven collection and additional panels inspired by images from the natural world. "I love to tell stories with my works in glass by layering content. At first you see one aspect of the story or image but with more time viewing the piece, you may see something more." To commemorate a client's induction into the National Academy of Sciences, Barnard is currently producing a private commission that combines etching, carving, painting and firing, silver staining, fusing and slump casting, double glazing and lamination. The design, which represents the unique discoveries of Barnard's client in the field of genetics, contains laboratory animals, scientific symbols and notations in the borders, and various species in a fantasy wildlife scene. Amidst healing flowers of echineacia and floating atop a field of water lily leaves are playful mice with fruit fly wings. Not knowing the full story, Barnard's mice with wings could be viewed as a delightful design of playful images and color. But look again to discover deeper meaning. The more scientists discover about genetics, the more we understand why mice with wings can only exist in a fantasy world created by an artist.

It's not uncommon to read comparisons between Albert Einstein and Paul Marioni, artist and one of the founders of the Studio Glass movement, many based on their shared lifelong fascination with light. Known as an innovator in the glass world, Marioni has been pushing the limits of his medium for five decades, redefining what is possible not only in process but content. He says: "I work with glass for its distinct ability to capture and manipulate light. While my techniques are often inventive, they are only in service of the image." A surrealist whose work addresses issues of nature, identity, and emotion, Marioni relies upon dreams as well as political and social convictions to make statements, causing us to forget the unfair advantage that working with glass affords. Using material that is inherently beautiful, the artist inspires people to think rather than telling them what to think. Marioni's work can be found in collections including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York; and the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York. Marioni, who graduated in 1967 from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, is a Fellow of the American Crafts Council and Glass Art Society Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. He has received three fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts and has taught at schools worldwide including the Penland School of Crafts, Bakersville, North Carolina; Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington; the Glass Furnace, Istanbul, Turkey; and more recently at Soneva Art and Glass in the Maldives. At 77, Marioni remains passionate about the "road show," a grassroots effort started by artists like himself, Fritz Dreisbach, Dale Chihuly, and Richard Marquis, to spread knowledge and enthusiasm about glass to anyone who showed interest. "I've worked in glass all but three years of my life. What was I thinking to get into a field with no history, no books, no teaching? Obviously I wasn't thinking. But we built the Studio Glass movement on cooperation, not competition, because there was no past. There was nothing for us to get. And we've barely scratched the surface of what can be done." In addition to gallery work, Marioni has produced over 100 public and private commissions in both cast glass and terrazzo. From his studio in Mexico, the artist currently works on the biggest commission of his career for the $52 million Bellevue, Washington, light rail station. Its train serves business powerhouses of the Pacific Northwest including Microsoft and Boeing. Selected as lead artist for the project through a national competition, Marioni is designing 3000+ square feet of art glass for the platforms as well as the terrazzo floors.

Like quilts fashioned from various colors and textures of coral reef, Shayna Leib's Wind and Watersculptures reflect the two major passions in her life - music and the ocean. Trained as a classical pianist, the artist relies upon the same part-to-whole nature of music that brings together individual notes and melodic lines in the creation of a greater composition. Growing up on the Central Coast of California, Leib became a diver and underwater photographer, further informing the direction of her art. In a recent American Craftarticle, Fear & Fascination, Judy Arginteanu wrote:"A large wall sculpture (about 4.5 by 2 feet) might contain some 40,000 individual pieces of hand-pulled, custom-colored cane, which she then slumps, cuts, and meticulously arranges in intricate patterns, like those nature seems to create so effortlessly. It takes many weeks to produce one sculpture…With the help of one assistant, Leib does all the work in her 640-square-foot studio, a converted warehouse in the charmingly boho East Side of Madison, Wisconsin…She can spend hours on the coloring process alone, and each piece of cane has at least two colors to add shimmering depth. She can use up to six different versions of a color in a monotone landscape; for a multicolored piece, the number may be 25 or 30." Leib studied Russian literature, glassblowing, and classical piano while completing her Bachelors of Art degree in Philosophy at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California. Accepted into a PhD Philosophy program in New York, she chose instead to pursue a Masters of Fine Arts in glass and metal at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and graduated with her MFA in 2003. Working as a metal fabricator and forger at Pearson Design Studios in Maine, Leib reproduced the famous designs by the late Ronald Hayes Pearson for his wife, Carolyn Pearson. Upon her return to California in 2004, she taught sculpture and drawing at Cal Poly State University until her move in 2005 to teach glass at the University of Madison-Wisconsin. Currently Leib works in a variety of mediums including ceramic, stone, metal, photography and fabric, though glass remains her focus. She prefers to use glass not for its mimetic qualities to capture the look of other materials, but for its ability to express flow, freeze a moment in time, and manipulate optics. She states: "The things I find beautiful have always been fractal in nature. I am intrigued by multitudes of tiny little parts - blades of grass all bending in the wind to the same rhythm. As you pan out you have waves of form. Zoom in and you see each individual blade of grass moving to the flow of the wind." Leib's work, found in numerous private and public collections nationally, has been exhibited at SOFA Chicago and New York for the last decade. She is represented by Habatat Galleries Florida in West Palm Beach, showcased in museums, worldwide blogs, and magazines, and featured on the pages of Contemporary Lampworking, The Best of American Glass Artists Volume L-Z, and A História Do Vidro(A History of Glass).Leibwas recognized as a 2010 Wisconsin Arts Board Grant Recipient, nominated in 2011 for the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, and in2015 listed as one of the 30 Most Amazing Glass Artists Alive. For the last year Leib has been creating work for her new series, Pâtisserie, atherapeutic exercise in re-training her mind to look at dessert as form rather than food. To glass, the artist combined porcelain and nearly every possible technique in both mediums to include glassblowing, hot-sculpting, lampwork, fusing, casting, and grinding in glass and well as the ceramic techniques of hand-building, throwing, and using a good old fashioned pastry tube.

Lucio Bubacco travels around Murano and frequently to Venice in his gondola, rowing a la valesanato power himself across the lagoon. A favorite pastime since childhood, journeying along the canals recharges his creativity and provides "vitamins" for his soul. Movement also defines his energetic flameworked sculpture, alive in terms of frozen action, but also anatomical perfection. Born on the Italian island of Murano in 1957, Bubacco has been flameworking glass since he was a boy, beginning with small animals and beads. A fascination with equine and human anatomy inspired him to push beyond the perceived technical limitations of his craft to combine the anatomic perfection of Greek sculpture with the Byzantine gothic architecture of Venice. "Seductive motifs such as metamorphosis and transformation echo themes from our mythological past when sexuality was spiritual, not political." Bubacco's large freestanding sculptures, worked hot and annealed during the process, are unique in lampworking. They are made from 104 COE Murano soda glass canes. The epitome of detailed elaboration and narrative content, his mini-installations can be seen in collections worldwide including Musee Atelier du Verre, Sars-Poteries, France; The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York; Museo del Vidrio, Monterrey, Mexico; and Museo del Vetro, Murano, Italy. Though formerly represented by Habatat Galleries, Michigan, in 2002 Bubacco stopped his gallery relationships to devote himself full time to teaching, primarily at his Scuola Bubacco onMurano. In 2019, he will teach three courses in March, May, and at summer's end.The artist will also exhibit new work at a Roman theater in Pamukkale, Turkey. New technically challenging, mythological chandelier commissions are underway. Recently the artist collaborated with Alessandro Cuccato (Vetroricerca Bolzano) on a bas-relief sculpture for a mega yacht that pays homage to Troy. To realize this work, Bubacco developed a hybrid technique combining flameworking with fusing. Last winter a skiing accident kept Bubacco from his studio, during which time he completed two books. Muranfeatures 170 original Bubacco watercolor paintings depicting the history of Muranese glass, and Lucio Bubacco: Eroticswith essays by Andrew Page, Klaus Weschenfelder, and Steffen John, was introduced at GAS Murano in May 2018. Also available is Lucio Bubacco, Eternal Temptation,a one-of-a-kind book that combines a minimalist layout with luxury materials and texts by Dan Klein and Cristina Gregorin.

Cheyenne Malcolm manages a delicate balancing act between blowing glass for his personal line of sculptural vessels and building hot shop furnaces, annealers, and glory holesfor other studios, which finances his artwork. By founding Canned Heat Glass Studios, Milwaukie, Oregon, the artist discovered that developing and fabricating state-of-the-art equipment for other glassblowers is an art unto itself. An accomplished glassblower with over two decades of experience, Malcolm's involvement with the molten medium runs the gamut from production blowing for Robert Held Art Glass in Vancouver to assisting Richard Jolley in Knoxville, Tennessee, with his massive figurative hot glass Subsequent studies with artists such as Karen Willenbrink Johnsen and Martin Janecký, plus work with Lynn Read at Vitreluxe, Portland, Oregon, helps to form Malcolm's informal but incomparable education in glass. "I am a process driven artist. My career in glass has always been studio based. Learning different techniques and styles from different artists as I worked for them throughout the years has helped me understand glass and its myriad possibilities. I am still very intrigued by this demanding and unforgiving medium." Throughout the career of a working artist, documentation and cataloging of work can take a back seat to other more pressing business, such as making and selling work. Such was the case with Malcolm, who, during his down time from Canned Heat, is creating for himself a personal retrospective collection of work he sold but failed to photograph. Career choices of glassblowers are often defined by the high cost of hot glass. In 2006 Malcolm sold his Vetro Vita glass studio in Portland, Oregon, and invested those earnings in Canned Heat, where he now spends 80 percent of his time. As the company builds one of the world's largest glass studios in Asia, Malcolm added a hot shop studio at Canned Heat, where he and his glass artist employees can continue their own research and development.

It's interesting to contemplate why Claire Kelly's colorful and expertly patterned toy-like animals are so appealing, but perhaps more curious to imagine is what theywould see in us. Much of her recent work centers on elephants because of their unique role as a beloved childhood toy, a popular decorative figure with a strong history in glassmaking, and a perilously threatened species. In work that examines the connections humanity has with animals and our larger relationship to the world, the artist has created a series of fantastic microcosms that bring a consciousness to their decorative status. As a story about the fragility and conservation of these small worlds is told, their role in a grander scheme is revealed. "We live in a time when our smallest decisions can affect our environment in unpredictable ways. As a conscientious inhabitant, I am constantly weighing my choices and attempting to choose the lesser evil. My works are a gentle mirror allowing us to examine our contradictory world." Graduating with a BFA from Alfred University in 1996, Kelly subsequently worked collaboratively with Anthony Schafermeyer from 2000 to 2008 as Schafermeyer/Kelly Glass. In 2008, she moved to Providence, Rhode Island, to assist glass artist Toots Zynsky with her work. During this time, Kelly developed her own sculptural series integrating traditional Venetian glassblowing and various cold working processes. Greatly influenced by the unconventional forms and patterning of mid-century Venetian Masters such as Napoleone Martinuzzi and Carlo Scarpa as well as contemporary masters Dick Marquis and Zynsky, Kelly works with cane and murrini techniques in a unique exploration of line, pattern, and color. In spring of 2017, Kelly worked as Artist in Residence at the Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York, where she created a new body of work using specialty 104 COE glass from Effetre, a glass company based in Murano, Italy. The artist has recently been awarded residencies at Salem Art Works Salem, New York,and at the Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington, to further her processes and designs. From October 12 through December 10 new work was exhibited, and Kelly presented a lecture and demonstration at Duncan McClellan Glass Gallery in St. Petersburg, Florida, in a show with friend and hot glass artist Jen Violette titled Vibrant Perspectives. Penland Gallery, Penland, North Carolina, Vetri gallery, Seattle, Washington, and Montague Gallery in San Francisco, California, also represent Kelly's work. A self described "unexpected instructor," Kelly has taught workshops at Penland School of Crafts, Pilchuck Glass School, the Pittsburgh Glass Center, The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and the Centro Fundacion del Vidrio in Spain. Her 2019 teaching schedule includes March 4 – 8 at Espace Verre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and March 18 – 22 at the Glass Spot in Richmond, Virginia.

The modern masterpieces of Lacey St. George, a.k.a LaceFace, exemplify the power and spirit of women while speaking volumes about the artist's determination to succeed in the male dominated functional glass world.From her studio in Ashland, Oregon, LaceFace pushes the limitations of glass while serving as a motivated community leader. "Most of the women in my work are looking towards heaven, reaching upwards in reverence and gratitude. The spiritualistic and ritualistic quality of pipes has always inspired me to create a higher form of functional art that can be portrayed as sacred, statuesque, or shamanic. The medium of glass, in combination with ancient sacraments, has given our society a way to reach a higher consciousness. Smoking provides communion with one another by bringing people together to perform a ritual as old as human history itself." The daughter of functional artists, LaceFace became involved in the expanding glass art pipe movement at an early age. As a flameworker, she put herself through Portland Community College, Portland, Oregon, where she earned an associates degree in art. LaceFacehas since been awarded some of the industry's highest honors, including First Place in C.H.A.M.P.S. female division national flame off competition, Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2010. Named Breakout Artist of the Year by the American Glass Expo (AGE), Las Vegas, Nevada, and by the International Glass Show, Los Angeles, California, in 2011, the artist also took home the People's Choice Award from the World's Greatest Flame Off, Trump Convention Center, Atlantic City, New Jersey, that same year. LaceFace has been named AGE's Best Female Glassblower in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015. Strong spiritual themes flow along the curvy lines of a LaceFace sculpture. Believing glass holds the energy of life with its unique relationship to fire and air, the artist has created a new series depicting the earth as a living thing. These large-scale elaborate sculptures will be unveiled in a solo exhibition opening November 2 at Walton Art House, Ashland, Oregon. The artist will also teach her progressive sculpting techniques at Glass Alchemy, Portland, Oregon, this spring 2019.

Shane Fero's legendary avian forms in hot glass have been sought after and cherished by collectors worldwide for nearly five decades. On the wings of his ever-inquisitive mind and an imagination fueled by nature, anthropology, astrology, and Surrealism, Fero's work soars above and beyond its natural form, relying upon humor and thought provoking elements to attract and hold the attention of viewers. If there has been criticism of Fero's work it's that bird imagery makes no statement, has no narrative. Not so to its creator. "Some beautiful and spiritual birds have always held a deeper connotation throughout history. This can only be understood by paying attention to them and contemplating both their place in the world and our affect on that." In fact, Fero's focus on bird imagery has sharpened in the last 16 years with his blown bird series based on German flameworking techniques. Though these processes were learned as a young apprentice, the artist brings them into contemporary context in his sculptures, vessel forms, and mixed media pieces. Born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1953, Fero has been a flameworker for nearly 50 years and maintains a studio next to Penland School of Crafts, Bakersfield, North Carolina. He is the Past-President of the Board of Directors of the Glass Art Society (GAS) and received the 2014 Lifetime Membership Award at GAS Chicago. Since 1992, Fero has participated in 400 group exhibitions and 33 solo shows including three retrospectives: a 30-year at the Berkowitz Gallery at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; a 40-year at the Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, Alabama; and at the Christian Brothers University, Memphis, Tennessee. His work can be found in over 20 museum collections worldwide including the Museum of Art & Design, New York, New York; The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York; Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, Ebeltoft, Denmark; the Museum fur Glaskunst, Lauscha, Germany; and the Nijiima Contemporary Glass Museum in Tokyo, Japan. A renowned educator, Fero has lectured and demonstrated in symposia and conferences all over the world and taught at institutions such as Penland School of Crafts; Urban Glass, Brooklyn, New York; and the Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington. His 2019 workshop schedule includes Glass Axis in Columbus, Ohio, June 24 through 27 and Appalachian Center for Craft, Smithville, Tennessee, July 14 through 19.

Richard La Londe's work reflects an undeniable harmony. He strives for balance between left and right brain, meaningful content and technical prowess, spontaneous creation and tight design. In 1983, this pioneer of the Northwest fusing movement was one of the first instructors for the Bullseye Glass Company, and his exploration and experimentation with the medium resulted in the introduction of multiple new techniques. Born in 1950, La Londe grew up in Vancouver, Washington, graduating in 1972 from the University of Washington with a degree in geology. Early on he held many different jobs including commercial fishing in Alaska, becoming a journeyman welder, building houses, creating stained glass windows, forging ornamental iron, blowing glass, and building kilns. His love affair with fusing began in 1981 when he started firing Bullseye glass in an electric kiln. "In the early 1980s Bullseye created the first complete color range of glass that was compatible and when fused together didn't crack apart." La Londe taught fusing classes for Bullseye in glass facilities around the United States and in Canada from 1983 to 1988, and in 1985 taught at the famed Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. As the work evolved, La Londe began translating his ideas into the pictorial murals and handkerchief vessels he is known for today. His fused glass Lotus Bowlwas purchased in 1983 by the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning New York for its permanent collection. One of his early public commissions, Into the Mythos, can be seen at the SeaTac airport, Seattle, Washington. He has completed 15 public works in total including his 2012 Washington State Arts Commission Percent for Arts Project entitled Enchanted Journey, for Spanaway Elementary School in Spanaway, Washington. With a deep desire to share what he's learned, the artist has authored two books, Richard La Londe: Fused Glass Art and Technique, and Richard La Londe and Friends: Fused Glass, Vitreous Enamels and Other Techniques. Heteaches workshops around the country and at his studio on Whidbey Island in Washington State. Withhis students, La Londe always shares his desire to make glass techniques more spontaneous and to create art that is truly unique. La Londe will teach two days of fusing Bullseye and two days of fusing float glass, from September 7 through 10 at La Londe Studio on Whidbey Island, Washington.

Kelly O'Dell's hot glass sculpture speaks to the devastating impact of the human race on species in the wild and embodies the Latin phrase "memento mori," meaning "remember death." Using the fragility and translucency of glass to create ghost-like animals in an homage to all that have been lost never to return, the artist endeavors to inspire environmentally-mindful changes in our daily routines while providing hope for a different future. From October 5, 2018 through January 22, 2019, the Pittsburgh Glass Center's Hodge Gallery presents All of a Suddens, an exhibition exploring existence and extinction, preservation and decay.The focal point of O'Dell's solo show, "Critical Masse" features 13 endangered species mounted on the wall in clusters. Her "Ghost Animals" mimic hunting trophies displayed in a game room and highlight the 100 to 1,000 species that are lost per million per year primarily due to human-caused habitat destruction and climate change. "My upbringing in the Hawaiian Islands inspired my love of oceans. Coming from a place so diverse in culture, climate, and teeming with flora and fauna, I feel a servitude or responsibility to honor what is lost or extinct. It's fascinating and devastating that our presence as one species has so much impact of the delicate balance of life." Born in Seattle in 1973, O'Dell was raised in Hawai'i, the daughter of artists who used stained glass, furnace glass, and pressed flowers in their artwork. As a student at the University of Hawai'i, O'Dell fell in love with glass herself. The program offered many opportunities to study at Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington, where she eventually relocated and became a member of the William Morris winter crew. From September 9 -14, 2018, O'Dell and husband Raven Skyriver will co-teach in Bornholm, Denmark, at the Royal Danish Academy of the Arts in an event open to the general public, followed by a demo at Glasmuseet Ebeltoft,Ebeltoft, Denmark.From October 4 – 7, Skyriver will demo at the International Glass Symposium in Novy Bor, Czech Republic, while O'Dell heads to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the opening of All of the Suddens. In 2019, O'Dell and Skyriver will be working hard to move into their new home and studio on Lopez Island, made possible by a recent successful Kickstarter campaign.

Marcel Braun and Project 33 West Coast glassblowing legend Marcel Braun and his team, "The Starship," have been working hard to blur the line between furnace worked and flame worked borosilicate glass. Currently, Braun specializes in producing glass coins also referred to as "Art Units," which are used as a trading currency in the functional glass world in an artistic and social experiment he calls Project 33. The artist's goal is to return the benefits of his work to the pipe community. Braun states: "There needs to be a catalyst for change in order to move forward, and we must wholeheartedly accept this as our mission and duty. The world has become a place of corporate greed and fabrication. Quality of craftsmanship has diminished steadily over the last 40 years as planned obsolescence has become a main factor in product design. People are accepting the accumulation of money alone as a good enough reason to expend community resources." To properly broadcast Project 33's message, Braun and his crew designed a mobile glassblowing unit referred to as "S.E.C.X.C." (Sacred Economic Currency X-Change). Once the old International Metro Mite van was transformed into a moving artistic experience, glass gallery, and currency exchange kiosk, the Starship was ready to travel to events around the world. On August 3, a showcase of the live hot glass coin pull was held in Philadelphia to highlight Braun's millefiori pulls using the SECXC. The newly released documentary, "Project 33 - An Alternative Is Possible," directed by Dan Collins (Editor of Degenerate Art), was also screened. On August 8, Ruckus Gallery will hold a second event in the art gallery district of Old City, Philadelphia, to release the glass coins to VIP collectors. An educational exhibit that will focus on the processes of The Starship team and the Philadelphia project will be on display at Ruckus from August 8 through September 5. Approximately 500 people are expected to attend both separate events. There will be a personal Ruckus Gallery episode of this live hot glass demo filmed by Collins, a feature in the Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as tons of hot glass photography and video on Ruckus gallery's website and social media. Talking Out Your Glass was able to catch up with Braun during his busy Philadelphia schedule to talk about Project 33 in the context of his successful career in functional glass.

An artist with 33 years of experience working in stained glass, NancyNicholson combines fine art sensibility with seasoned craftsmanship. Using Boston and New York City architecture as a backdrop of inspiration, in 1989 the artist introduced a successful series of autonomous panels that explored the layering of light, color, and dynamic forms of the urban environment. Eventually, the cityscape imagery and techniques Nicholson had mastered felt less compelling, signaling a need for change. But before those cues could be acted upon, routine knee surgery followed by back issues left the artist unable to walk for several months, much less work in the glass studio. During recuperation, life sized drawings of her body suspended in space replaced the physical work of glass. Upon full recovery, when Nicholson returned to the glass studio, she found her psychic landscape altered. The meditation on her body and its aging process, instigated by her injury, retained its urgency. Simultaneously, the cityscapes felt increasingly remote and impersonal, as the drawings made during her convalescence took on more gravitas. In contrast to our youth-centric culture, which tries to deny or disguise the effects of aging, Nicholson began to bravely explore existential questions about the topic, fueling a new body of work. Focused studies of her body capture energy and movement. Figures are handcarved, sandblasted, painted, and stained on glass to exploit the fragility and transparency of the material while enhancing the elusive qualities of gesture and emotion. Navigating this artistic metamorphosis for five years now, Nicholson says: "While the impetus for that transition was a physical disability that brought my glass production to a dead stop, the need to change directions was already building. Now, with the figure drawings informing my glasswork, I am working in a way that is far more personal and important to me."

From the island of Murano, Italy, Davide Penso attempts to capture the look of water in motion through his anemone beads and more recently his flowing and elegant Seaweed sculptures. Surrounded by breathtaking lagoons inspiration surrounds him, and conversations with glass seem as infinite as the surrounding bayou. "Glass follows its own time. Sometimes we fight a little bit. I have the sense of color and design, and the glass uses me to be more beautiful." Born in 1965 in Venice, Penso grew up and established his studio onMurano, renowned for its long tradition of glassmaking. Beginning his career as a still life photographer, the artist turned to glass in 1992 and opened his atelier known for glass jewelry reflecting a contemporary and innovative style. The success of Penso's work is reflected in numerous international group and solo exhibitions at prestigious venues such as Saint Mark's Civic Museums Correr, Fortuny, and the Guggenheim, in Venice, Italy; the Corning Museum of Glass (CMOG), Corning, New York; St .Petersburg Glass Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida; and the Glass Art Museum of Okabe, Japan. The artist has collaborated on jewelry projects with illustrious names such as Venini, Giorgio Vigna, Nason & Moretti, and Pelikan, and made a name for himself in high fashion designing collections for major brands. In 2001, Penso began teaching lampworking and jewelry design, collaborating with Abate Zanetti School of Glass in Murano. An invitation in 2007 to lecture at Boston University School of Visual Art led to subsequent teaching stints at CMOG; the Glass Furnace in Istanbul, Turkey; and Nuutajärvi Glass Village, Nuutajärvi, Finland. Special guest appearances include the 2017 Gathering, sponsored by the International Society of Glass Beadmakers (ISGB), and the upcoming 2019 Festival of Glass, Drysdale Australia. His 2018 teaching schedule includes Master the Art of Blown Glass Beads at Blue Moon Glassworks, Austin, Texas, October 4 – 5 and at Patty Lakinsmith, San Jose, California, October 13 – 14. Although bead making and jewelry continue as mainstays of Penso's creative production, his current Seaweed sculptures challenge the artist to work larger on the torch. A recent outdoor sculpture measured over 3 meters and included more than 70 blown pieces. Visitors from around the world stop to take photos and marvel at the work, inspiring Penso to move in a more sculptural direction with his ideas.

Sally, a humanoid ragdoll created by Dr. Finkelstein in Tim Burton's 1993 stop-motion film The Nightmare Before Christmas, provided the primary inspiration for Peter Muller's groundbreaking functional glass. The furnace worker turned flameworker modeled his trademark glass "quilting" technique after the patchwork and stitching of Sally's dress. Instantly embraced by the pipe community, this aesthetic along with the artist's development and mastery of related techniques, led to the most successful work of his multifarious career. Muller's voodoo doll bubblers and button-eyed patchwork puppet pipes push the boundaries of functional glass and are easily recognizable in top-notch glass collections. "Pipes travel all around and get shared with different users. From a collector's perspective, I can imagine it's wonderful to have anyone using or viewing a piece know who made it based entirely on the strength of its aesthetic." In the hills of beautiful Southern Vermont where he resides with his wife and daughter, Muller takes pipe making to new heights. In 1999, he began exploring glass as an apprentice at a small glass facility based at Lunt Silversmith's in Western Massachusetts. Working in this high volume production setting for more than a year provided the skills to gain further employment with various studio glass artists in Western Mass and Southern Vermont. The work he created ranged from Italian goblets to large scale blown sculpture. Over a decade at the furnace he learned how molten glass moves and used his technical prowess to design and execute his own unique body of work. In 2001, Muller established Afternoon Glass Designs with a vision to create glass that captures the whimsical and fanciful essence of the animations, illustrations, and books that inspired his passion for the arts as a child. The artist hoped that through his designs, adults and children alike could effortlessly engage with the arts and be inspired by the limitless possibilities of the imagination. This vision and aesthetic, while established for his soft glass, continues to serve as Muller's north star for functional work. In recent years he has participated in various solo and group exhibitions, live demos, and regular drops of work all over the US and Canada. In June 2017, Ruckus Gallery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, presented Seamless, the most comprehensive exhibition of the artist's full body of work including functionals, collabs, early soft glass vessels, and wall mount displays. There, Muller debuted his newest "Portraits and Dwellings" series. A few of those pieces are now on view at Habatat Gallery in West Palm Beach, Florida, and may tour other areas in the future. No stranger to awards, Muller received the 2011 and 2012 Niche Award for Furnace and Flame collaborative works with Joe Peters. The American Glass Expo presented Muller with the Atlantic Region Glass Artist of the Year, People's Choice Award in 2016 and 2017. From June 26 – 28, the artist will teach a class with Zii (Kim Thomas) at Glass Alchemy, Portland, Oregon. Muller's live demos include August 11 at Piece of Mind Smoke Shop in Newport Beach, California, and September with Ryno at Witch Dr., Salem, Massachusetts. In October he will teach at Legacy Glass, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

"Today I opened the window to let the spring come in, and I discovered to my surprise that the forest is in my house and the landscape is within me." Miriam Di Fiore's journey through life and glass reads much like Laura Esquivel's popular 1989 novel, Like Water for Chocolate. With a similar magical realism, the kiln worker discovered both her artistic medium and voice beginning in the small seaside town where she grew up in Argentina. Though it was a forbidden love, a lifelong relationship with fused glass triumphed in the face of political adversity and family objection. As a child Di Fiore lived in Miramar, a little city near the Atlantic Ocean protected from wind and sand by a vast pine forest. Because important moments of childhood passed among those trees, the forest continues to contain deep and symbolic meaning inspiring the drawing, painting, and photography vital to the artist's work. "What I try to do with my art is not an interpretation of the woods, but rather a simple respectful translation in glass of a little part of our wonderful world where I have been in the company of trees. I want to speak about that place and how I felt there. In that way I can share at least a part of the magic and beautiful moments that made me feel happy to be alive. My works are an illusion of eternity, virtual places that try to preserve what's constantly changing and what my eyes see in fragments of time." Di Fiore received her art degree in ceramics and drawing in 1977 from the Escuela Nacional de Ceramica y Dibujo, Mar del Plata, Argentina. In 1991, she studied pate de verre with Linda Ethier at Creative Glass, Zurich, Switzerland, which inspired and informed a new direction in Di Fiore's fused glass. Additional training took place in 1994 at Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington, from instructors Lino Tagliapietra and Rudy Gritsch. Her professional experience includes working as Narcissus Quagliata's teaching assistant at the Museum of the Royal School of Glass, Segovia, Spain, and for his Florence, Italy, seminars in the 1990s. Represented by Habatat Gallery, Mostly Glass Gallery, and SOFA throughout the 2000s, Di Fiore's work can be found in the permanent museum collections of the Corning Museum of Glass (CMOG), Corning, New York; the Newark Fine Art Museum, Newark, New Jersey; Cafsejian Museum of Contemporary Art, Armenia; Museo Nazional del Vidrio, Segovia, Spain; in the Coleccion Estable de la Revista del Vidrio, Barcelona, Spain; in the Museo delle Arti Decorative, Castello Sforzesco, Milan, Italy and in the Municipal Glass Art Museum of Alcorcon, Madrid, Spain.

Toots Zynsky's heat-formed filet-de-verre vessels, acclaimed for their remarkable exploration of color and form, interweave the traditions of painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts. By co-inventing a thread-pulling machine that uses electronic software to create glass thread, Zynsky made possible her rhythmic, gracefully spiraling shapes that defy their own fragility. Her signature work reflects a similar strong and beautiful image to that of its maker. Mary Ann "Toots" Zynsky, born in 1951 and raised in Massachusetts, received her BFA in 1973 at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence. There, as one of a group of pioneering artists studying with Dale Chihuly, she helped make studio glass a worldwide phenomenon and assisted in founding Pilchuck Glass School. From 1980 to 1983, Zynsky was key in the rebuilding and development of the second New York Experimental Glass Workshop (NYEGW), now UrbanGlass. While living in Europe in the late '80s and '90s, Zynsky collaborated with Mathijs Teunissen Van Manen to create a glass thread-pulling machine. It was during these years that she developed her filet-de-verre technique and took the art world by storm with her uniquely stunning sculptures. Among numerous awards, Zynsky has been the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts grants and the Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2006. With work represented in more than 70 museum collections around the world, the artist was presented with the 2015 Visionary Award by the Smithsonian Institution.Making the announcement, co-chair of the event Susan Labovich, said: "Toots Zynsky's work epitomizes greatness in her field. Her glass sculptural pieces, which are found in major museums around the world, demonstrate creativity, vision, and innovation, which are the founding criteria for the Visionary Award. Her work is the finest of American studio glass." Zynsky was also characterized as "one of the few women of her generation to break the glass ceiling."

Degenerate Art, the 2012 documentarydirected by pipemaker Aaron Golbert a.k.a. Marble Slinger, chronicled and in some ways changed the history of functional glass through its popularity and widespread distribution. The film, whose title references a German expression used by the Nazi regime to criticize non-conformist art, inspired multitudes of artists to take up pipemaking as their passion and profession. Living and working in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, home to one of the nation's most vibrant glass pipemaking scenes, Slinger developed a body of work that communicatescomplex themes through the utilization of graal techniques.He's known for his visages of pop culture icons such as Audrey Hepburn and Sherlock Holmes, sandblasted onto matte-finish, color-blended pipes and tubes. On the Board of Glass Alchemy's Makers Alliance, Slinger works with the company to determine the future direction of its color palette. Independently, his aesthetic signature includes myriad patterning techniques such as honeycombs, inside out, fuming, disc flips, reticellos, bowties, spirals, stuff and puffs, and traditional shaping styles. Bronze casting, painting, and mixed media are also employed to convey concepts influenced by pop and graffiti art.