We bid a fond farewell to our Studio Coordinator extraordinaire – Teri Swinhart – moves out West, to sunny Los Angeles. We will miss her skills, knowledge of glass and casting, and her unique charm!
Best of Luck to Teri and Derek Swinhart! Come back and visit often!
Saturday, May 1st, @ 1pm ET, Habatat Galleries will present a zoom presentation of works selected for “Viral Glass”. This on-line exhibition looks specifically at how glass artists around the world are responding to the Pandemic. While some have focused on the virus itself and the fear it instills, others have explored the depth and intensity of world-wide isolation. Other creative individuals have focused on how this disaster can bring communities together, or how it has torn us apart. In any case, artists in every field have contributed to keeping the world moving.
This show will mark the long anticipated return of David McFadden, who was Chief Curator of the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC for 16 years, to our field as guest curator for this show.
RSVP for a Habatat-Zoom presentation this Saturday, May 1st at 1:00 p.m. ET. for a Zoom with the attending artists. Click HERE for more info and to RSVP. Habatat and David preview the works in the Viral Glass 2021 exhibition and speak with each artist about their work and inspiration.
VIRTUAL CRAFT TRIP TO WASHINGTON, DC
APRIL 27 – 28, 2021 | 6:30 – 8PM
MEMBERS: $60 | NON-MEMBERS: $75
The James Renwick Alliance for Craft will host a unique virtual craft tour featuring some of the most important craft destinations in the DC region. One of the tour stops is – The Washington Glass School!! Join us as we visit our studio, Margaret Boozer’s Red Dirt Studio, The Renwick Museum, Howard University’s ceramics collection as well as some collector homes!
For more info and to jump to JRA site to register – click LINK: VIRTUAL CRAFT TRIP TO DC – JAMES RENWICK ALLIANCE (jra.org)
Michael Janis and Tony Porto glass/mixed media exhibit has dominated Michigan’s press as the news agencies and tv shows all feature works by the artists and their story.
Click here to read story in Detroit News.
Local Fox News – Fox 2 – sent reporters into the gallery to interview Director Aaron Schey and get the story on the Not Grandmas Glass (NGG) exhibit and competition as well as an eyeful of the artworks. Click here to jump to one of the three interviews by Fox.
Click Here to jump to article about the Janis/Porto exhibit in the Oakland Press.
Click HERE to jump to article on Not Grandmas Glass exhibit in the C & G newspaper.
WGS Co-Director Michael Janis has collaborated with Chicago-based artist Tony Porto on a new series of glass/mixed media sculptures – making their debut solo show debut in Habatat Galleries’ “Not Grandmas’ Glass” (NGG) exhibit/competition. NGG is new and groundbreaking competition, held over 12 months featuring 12 artists that the gallery feels are pushing the medium beyond the norm. The premise of the exhibit is to showcase works that are outside “traditional” studio art glass, where the artists were challenged to make works that would be in a contemporary museum.
Habatat director Aaron Schey said of the NGG show concept: “These artists are extremely innovative and I propose that they will all be important in the future of the glass medium. Creating work that is probably not in Grandma’s art collection…..yet.”
Paying homage to the underdogs of pop culture – the cartoons, action figures, and toys of childhood, Janis and Porto incorporate figures as diverse as Batman, Darth Vader, My Little Pony, Wonder Woman, Hulk Hogan in their evocative narratives that are at once whimsical and distressing, capturing their complexities and outlandishness.
In the works, they walk a really fun line between taking this stuff seriously and also being able to laugh at it all.
Michael Janis and Tony Porto delivered a fantastic online artist talk – hosted by Michigan’s Habatat Galleries (click HERE to jump to YouTube link.)
Mike and Tony outlined their collaborative works, their meanings, and how they managed to work together during the pandemic.
Click HERE to jump to their awesome website!
The Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC) has a special exhibit titled “Identity” featuring of the 60 artists exhibited in special show by Maryland State Arts Council. From the MSAC exhibit catalog:
“A person’s identity is constantly evolving and can include their cultural identity, social identity, gender identity, racial identity, and the intersection of multiple identities to form one’s whole self. The Maryland State Arts Council is reflecting self-reflective art that expresses and explores how the artist perceives themself through this online exhibition.”
The artwork is in online gallery in the by Kunstmatrix which allows one to “walk” thru a show). The show runs February 5th thru April 6th, 2021.
Click on link below to jump to virtual exhibit:
IDENTITY – 3D virtual exhibition by Maryland State Arts Council | art.spaces | KUNSTMATRIX
CALL FOR ENTRY
“VIRAL GLASS: Artists Responses to COVID-19”
The past year has been devastating for everyone around the world. While the medical and social impact of Covid-19 are undeniable, this pandemic has also deeply influenced the making of art in every area of creative initiative.
This on-line exhibition looks specifically at how glass artists around the world are responding to the Pandemic. While some have focused on the virus itself and the fear it instills, others have explored the depth and intensity of world-wide isolation. Other creative individuals have focused on how this disaster can bring communities together, or how it has torn us apart. In any case, artists in every field have contributed to keeping the world moving. What has your pandemic artwork centered on?
Viral Glass, a new web-based virtual exhibition will focus on the incredible work of international glass artists showcasing their creativity and resourcefulness during the Coronavirus pandemic. This show will mark the long anticipated return of David McFadden, who was Chief Curator of the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC for 16 years, to our field as guest curator for this show. In addition to being an international forum for artists to share their concerns and visions, cash prizes will also be offered.
Habatat Galleries in Royal Oak, MI will be managing the logistics for this project, scheduled to open on-line on May 1st, 2021. If you would like to be considered for inclusion in this show, please send up to 3 images, a CV, and a brief description of technique and what this piece means to you to ViralGlass2021@gmail.com. Deadline for images will be March 19th. All artists will be notified before April 15th.
Each artist will be invited to create their own virtual experience online that will be shared through the www.viralglass.org website.
Michigan’s Habatat Galleries takes their Glass Coast Weekend virtual for 2021. Habatat has invited 40 of the finest artists working with glass as their art material to participate in this innovative presentation. This exhibition will be online for the entire month of February.
Michigan’s Habatat Galleries takes their Glass Coast Weekend virtual for 2021. Habatat has invited 40 of the finest artists working with glass as their art material to participate in this innovative presentation. This exhibition will be online for the entire month of February.
View the exhibition virtually this Friday, February 5th, at 10:00 a.m. ET
Opening soon: www.GlassCoastWeekend.com
Each artist specializes in exploring color in glass. We encourage all attendees of this virtual experience to learn and explore each artist and share SPLASH 2021 with anyone who loves art.
Imagine Museum in St. Petersburg, FL and Habatat Galleries, Michigan are planning a glass art extravaganza weekend like no other. They are ramping up the fun and entertainment virtually to celebrate the creativity and imagination of our artists and what they provide for us during times like these.
See you at the (virtual) beach!
National Guard Soldiers stand guard at the John Adams Building, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. National Guard Soldiers and Airmen have traveled to the National Capital Region to provide support leading up to the 59th Presidential Inauguration. (photo: Tech. Sgt. Lucretia Cunningham)
15,000 National Guard troops are now in DC for the scheduled Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. But with so many troops in a city that has become a maze of black fencing, cement barriers and dozens of checkpoints, there is an eerie calm in Washington DC, ahead of a feared storm of supporters of President Donald Trump, who don’t believe their candidate lost and are willing to continue the violence.
Photos of the Guard protecting the Library of Congress Adams Building shows the soldiers in front of the cast glass panels made by Washington Glass Studio with Portland’s Fireart Studio. Click Here to jump to the 2012 American Craft interview and photos of the cast glass made and the process to make the architectural artwork.
We are happy that the military is taking no chances with who was coming to protect the inauguration.
On a normal day, it takes about an hour to walk the 2.5 miles down Pennsylvania Avenue to Capitol Hill.
But these are no normal days.
These precautions come a week after a mob of supporters of Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to overturn the results of the presidential election.
Monday, January 18 marks the 35th anniversary of the federal holiday in honor of Rev. Martin Luther King’s birthday. Signed into law in 1983 and first observed in 1986, the holiday is a deserving tribute to King for advancing civil rights and social justice through non-violent protest. His was only the second birthday designated as a federal holiday after the observance of George Washington’s birthday. The making of their respective holidays reveals the still unresolved tension between independence and freedom in the making of the United States.
Washington secured the nascent democracy as general and as its first president (1789-1799). As a Baptist pastor, King led a mass movement for freedom and human rights in the twentieth century. Washington accepted slavery even while he defended the revolution. In confronting white supremacy, King challenged a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the United States, one that denies equality for all. One was a slave owner. The other was descended from slaves.
At 39, Dr. King was a private citizen engaged in public protest when he was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis. As president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King was preparing to lead a march in support of striking Black sanitation workers as part of the Poor People’s Campaign. Shot in the face, King died in the company of movement associates.
Born in 1929, King’s existence as a Black man was always contingent and conditional. In insisting that America live up to its promise, Black men and women had no choice but to sacrifice their bodies and lives. King’s assassination was not the first, nor last. His 1963 protest in Birmingham, Alabama earned him worldwide attention. He brought together more than 200,000 people on the March on Washington in August 1963 where he delivered his famous “ I Have a Dream” speech. In 1964, at the age of 35, he was the youngest man and the third black man to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The country celebrated Washington in many ways, including readings of his farewell address and local parades. On January 31, 1879 Congress declared Washington’s birthday as a federal holiday. Even though Lincoln preserved the union during the Civil War, Washington’s birthday promoted sectional reconciliation. It focused attention on the country’s origins in revolution while ignoring slavery and the condition of Black Americans. Two years before Congress honored Washington, President Rutherford B. Hayes removed federal troops from former confederate states. This decision would facilitate the restoration of unchecked white supremacy for nearly one hundred years.
“We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.