Getting Off Your Glass for Earth Day

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Recycling Glass = Love

As a way to make every day Earth Day  – Erwin Timmers “Going Green” class works at reducing the amount of glass in the waste stream by upcycling  – using recycled glass to make sculptural pieces and architectural elements.

The class eagerly explored ways to give new life to old glass – from bottles to recycled tempered float glass.  Glass chemistry, coloration, and firing temperatures were reviewed for each particular application. The class’ final workshop is next week, when dryplaster – bas  relief – casting with float glass will be explored.

Recycled glass never looked so lovely!

Recycled glass never looked so lovely!

The eco students learn how to make hand built refractory molds for glass casting.

The eco students learn how to make hand built refractory molds for glass casting.

Tim Tate 2018 Penland Auction Featured Artist

Tim Tate, 8 Bats, 4 Seasons, wood, mirrors, cast objects, LEDs, 36" x 36" x 6"

Tim Tate, 8 Bats, 4 Seasons, wood, mirrors, cast objects, LEDs, 36″ x 36″ x 6″. Photo: Pete Duvall.

Glass artist and mixed-media sculptor Tim Tate has been part of the Penland School of Crafts community for decades, and for 2018, the education center will showcase his work at this year’s auction gala. The Penland School of Crafts Annual Benefit Auction is the premiere craft auction in the southeast, providing funds to support the operations of Penland School of Crafts while introducing new artists to collectors and expanding public understanding and awareness of craft.

Tim’s featured piece 8 Bats, 4 Seasons is a remarkable assemblage of materials, history, and imagination.

Detail of bats

Detail of bats

8 Bats, 4 Seasons may remind viewers of a classic wood-framed mirror, but Tim has added a rich composition of imagery to the mirror’s face and then transformed it further into a dimensional portal that stretches toward infinity. “The beauty of endless mirrors is in creating a space that exists nowhere else on Earth,” Tim explains in a recent interview for American Craft. The work feels familiar and inviting and utterly mysterious all at once.

But the story goes deeper than beauty. Tim has imagined his mirror as an artifact, “an undiscovered object from the 1860s commissioned by Cornelius Vanderbilt during the Golden Era. He had just returned from his grand tour of Asia…” While the four seasons are a nod to Currier and Ives, Keats and Thoreau, and Western decorative traditions, the piece’s eight bats are a nod to China, where bats have long served as a symbol of good luck.

The wife of Cornelius Vanderbilt, after returning from their grand tour in Asia. It is clear that by this time she had become obsessed

The wife of Cornelius Vanderbilt, after returning from their grand tour in Asia. It is clear that by this time she had become obsessed with bats.

 

American Craft’s interview with Tim describes him as “as much explorer as artist, seeking out the uncharted.” With 8 Bats, 4 Seasons, Tim beckons us into a parallel world of his creation full of questions and possibility. All are invited to look into Tim’s mirror—and the space beyond it—at this summer’s Penland Benefit Auction.

Penland’s 33rd Annual Benefit Auction is August 10-11, 2018, which means the spectacular weekend is only four months away! Register now to join this gala event and the great craft, great friends, and great memories it celebrates.

2018 Annual Benefit Auction

Friday, August 10 & Saturday, August 11

About Penland’s Annual Auction
Entering its 33rd year in 2018, the auction attracts over 800 collectors and volunteers to the Penland campus in the mountains of North Carolina each August. The weekend brings artists and patrons together and provides collectors with opportunities to meet established and emerging artists, learn about trends in contemporary craft, and see and purchase exceptional new work. If you are passionate about art and interested in investing in the health and the future of the arts, join us for this gala event.

Erwin Timmers Creates Sculpture for DC’s Sculpture Biennial

Erwin Timmers' sketch of his sculpture for Foggy Bottom exibit.

Erwin Timmers’ sketch of his sculpture for Foggy Bottom exibit.

Arts in Foggy Bottom‘s sixth Outdoor Sculpture Biennial, co-curated by renowned DC artists Helen Frederick and Peter Winant, gives you the opportunity to see this unique neighborhood through the eyes of 15 emerging and established artists. WGS’ Erwin Timmers is one of the artists invited to the Biennial – and we catch up with him as he creates a new work to be installed near the Watergate complex.

Erwin Timmers casts with recycled glass

Erwin Timmers casts with recycled glass to create the sculpture inset portals.

The Foggy Bottom site is in the shadow of Watergate!

The Foggy Bottom site is in the shadow of Watergate!

All sculptures will be displayed in front of private homes during this free, six-month show.

Featured artists include:

           Adam Bradley
           David Brooks
           Brian Dailey
           Linda DePalma
           Nehemiah Dixon
           Emily Fussner
           Sean Hennessey
           Melissa Hill
           Jeremy Thomas Kunkel
           Richard Lew
           John Ruppert
           Nancy Sausser
           Lisa Scheer
           Valerie Theberge
           Erwin Timmers
Absence & Presence runs from April 28th through October 27, 2018. Visitors are invited to tour the exhibition at their convenience throughout the day. There is no admission fee.

The exhibition is presented on private properties between 24th-26th Streets NW and H-K Streets NW, and is accessible from the Foggy Bottom-George Washington University Metro stop.
 

VisArts’ Visability Art Lab Exhibit Features work by Max DeMulder

Max DeMulder

Max DeMulder, “Creatures of the Stormy Sea”; 2017, Acrylics on canvas, mixed media, 16″ x 20″. On exhibit at VisArts Concourse Gallery 4/6 – 4/29, 2018

A multimedia artist, Max DeMulder has started working at the Washington Glass School on several projects for the Washington Glass Studio. Max’s work in the studio has been focused on metal sculpture and he will be one of the WGS artists showing at the Open Studios this coming May 12th.

Max DeMulder

Max DeMulder

Max DeMulder is also an artist at Rockville’s VisAbility Art Lab, where several of his paintings will be on exhibit as part of the group exhibition featuring artists from the VisAbility Art Lab.

The VisAbility Art Lab show features works by: Corey Barbee, James Billian, Mara Clawson, Edward Chance, Max DeMulder, Carlin Jones, Shaun McDonald, Tyler Mumford, Stanley Roth, Lindsey Schaufelburger, D’Ante Whitlow, and Justin Valenti.

VisAbility Art Lab
April6-April29, 2018
Concourse Gallery of VisArts
155 Gibbs Street, Rockville, MD 20805

About the VisAbility Art Lab: VisAbility Art Lab is a supported art studio for emerging adult artists with disabilities who have a strong interest in making art part of their professional careers.  VisAbility Art Lab was founded as a partnership between VisArts and Madison House Autism Foundation with the goal to provide artists with a supported studio where they can explore and develop their artistic talents, participate in workforce development and life skills training, and forge a deeper and more meaningful relationship with the fully inclusive creative community.

Go Wild! NCAGG Juried Show “Wild Things” Opens April 7, 2018

Patricia De Poel Wilberg, "Roiling"; fused glass, 18" x 18"

Patricia De Poel Wilberg, “Roiling”; fused glass, 18″ x 18″

The National Capitol Art Glass Guild (NCAGG) will have their juried glass art exhibition at Glen Echo Park’s Popcorn Gallery March 31 through April 29, Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 6pm. The art is created by thirty one artists who use a variety of methods to create art to fascinate and entertain. 

Patricia Kent, "Crying ullets"; fused glass

Patricia Kent, “Crying Bullets”; fused glass

 

 

 

Works by Washington Glass School resident artists Trish Kent and Patricia De Poel Wilberg are featured in the show! ncagg

Washington Post on “Artists Against Gun Violence” Exhibit

Washington Post Art Critic Mark Jenkins reviewed the group show, “Artists Against Gun Violence” mounted to underscore the message of the March for Our Lives, curated by Molly Ruppert.

Detail of Tim Tate's "Endless Cycle".

Detail of Tim Tate’s “Endless Cycle”.

In the review (click HERE to jump to review online) Mark writes: “…the most elaborate entry is glass artist Tim Tate’s 3-D assemblage of concentric circles of guns, flowers and male nudes. It’s a frozen merry-go-round of beauty, peril and vulnerability, in which every translucent figure represents 1,000 people killed by guns last year.

Artists Against GunViolence Through April 9 at the Third Floor, 4200 Ninth St. NW; the Reading Room at Petworth Citizen, 829 Upshur St. NW; and Upshur Street Books, 827 Upshur St. NW.