Audrey Wilson SOLO Opens at WGS Gallery Jan 11

The Aberrant Collection of the Spurious Calamus”, by glass artist Audrey Wilson opens at the Washington Glass School on January 11th thru 31st, 2014 with a reception on January 11th from 6-8pm.

“Generator” by Audrey Wilson, 2014, 16″ x 10″ x 9″ mixed media, blown and pate de verre glass. photo: Pete Duvall
Audrey Wilson

AudreyWilson‘s sculptures are a blend of created and altered elements that reflect evolving science and machinery and explore the relationship between man and technology. Technology is merely an extension and reflection of mankind. In fact, no objects contain more human essence than do tools.

Audrey’s sculptural projects and multi-media works are metaphors evoking our endless manipulation of environment, our need for control, and our longing for a meaningful union with nature and the other, in a supreme balance of power and delicacy. People are becoming increasingly alienated from the objects which surround and sustain them, as they have lost the emotional link to technology.

“Ibn Firnas’ First Glider”, Audrey Wilson, 2013, 26″x 9″ x 6″,
mixed media, pate de verre glass. photo: Pete Duvall

“The Aberrant Collection of the Spurious Calamus” captures our complicated relationship with technology, mirroring it back with poetic glances.

“The Aberrant Collection of the Spurious Calamus” by Audrey Wilson
Washington Glass School Gallery
3700 Otis Street, Mount Rainier, MD 20712
Opening Reception – Saturday, January 11, 6-8 pm
On View January 11 – 31, 2014 and is free and open to the public.

Glass Sheds Light On the New Year!


In honor of the regulations that phase out incandescent light bulbs starting in 2014, photographer Pete & Alison Duvall had a cast glass light fixture for their home in Silver Spring, MD. 
In 2007, President George W. Bush signed into law an energy bill that placed stringent efficiency requirements on ordinary incandescent bulbs in an attempt to have them completely eliminated by 2014. The law phased out 100-watt and 75-watt incandescent bulbs in 2013.

As artists that depend on light and its transmission, the photographers worked with artist Erwin Timmers to get every kind of light bulb they could referenced in their ceiling mounted glass artwork. 

Cast glass lightbulbs

 

Inspired by a commissioned ceiling mounted artwork that Michael Janis did in 2007 for a Washington, DC collector. The couple that commissioned the work had limited space in their apartment, and felt that the creating an artwork piece mounted on the that diffused light would be a crossover of art and function. In the earlier suspended artwork panel, faces look down from a textured surface. 
Pete Duvall noted that the light source for the new artwork piece is from energy efficient LED bulbs.

Original cast glass panel by Michael Janis – Photo by Pete Duvall.

Chihuly’s "Red Reeds" Acquired by VMFA

“Red Reeds” by Chihuly. The work is the first site-specific outdoor installation by the artist to be acquired by an art museum.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) board of trustees has voted to acquire the work Red Reeds, by Dale Chihuly which was created for the museum’s Anne Cobb Gottwald reflecting pool. The artist created more than 100 red glass reeds as part of the Chihuly at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts exhibition, October 20, 2012- February 10, 2013. Since that time, Red Reeds has been on loan to VMFA.
This dynamic, site-specific work by Dale Chihuly was an instant success at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,” said Alex Nyerges, director.”It is beautiful in every season, and is a wonderful addition to the Lora Robins Sculpture Garden. I am especially pleased that this is the first site-specific outdoor installation by Chihuly to be acquired by an art museum.”
Red Reeds was purchased with private funds from the Arthur and Margaret Glasgow fund. Private funds are always used for art acquisition, but upon purchase the work becomes the property of the Commonwealth of Virginia for its ongoing care.
The reeds were blown by team Chihuly at the Nuutäjarvi Glass Factory in Nuutäjarvi, Finland because of the excellent clarity of glass there and to take advantage of their annealing ovens, the largest in the world. The annealing process facilitates the curing of these large-scaled elements, which are as much as 10 feet in height. Also, the red glass in Finland has a particularly brilliant quality, due to the ruby red pigment and the added chemical element neodymium.

About the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts VMFA’s permanent collection encompasses more than 33,000 works of art spanning 5,000 years of world history. Its collections of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, English silver, Fabergé, and the art of South Asia are among the finest in the nation. VMFA’s Statewide Partnership program includes traveling exhibitions, artist and teacher workshops, and lectures across the Commonwealth. VMFA is open 365 days a year and general admission is always free. For additional information, visit www.vmfa.museum.

Washington Glass School Winter Holiday Open House Dec 14th

It’s that time of year! The artists, elves and instructors of the Washington Glass School all gather around the warmth of the kilns and invite everyone to celebrate the season. Saturday December 14th, from Noon til 5, come on in to the studio and check out works by some of the hottest and most thoughtful artwork coming from the DC area.

Nancy Donnelly
Syl Mathis
Sean Hennessey

It’s a great time to socialize with the arts community and hang with some of these supastar artists.  

Also visit the adjacent studios – Alonzo Davis and Alec Simpson’s Blue Door studio, Ellyn Weiss’ studio – lots to see!

Next door Flux Studios will have their open studio and 1st Annual “Cups Invitational” – make a day of it!

Washington Glass School 
Holiday Open House
Saturday, December 14th
Noon til 5:00 pm
3700 Otis Street
Mount Rainier, MD 20712

Cup International at Flux Studios.

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Also – Save the Date! Our studio coordinator – Audrey Wilson – has been taking the art world by storm, with great response to her work from shows like Art Miami, the Glass Art Alliance’s “Contemporary Glass from the Heartland” show and the International Glass & Clay show here in DC. Audrey has a solo show here at the Gallery at the Glass School this coming January.

Audrey Wilson

Audrey Wilson Solo: “The Aberrant Collection of the Spuricus Calamus”

Opens January 11, 2014

The Gallery at Washington Glass School

3700 Otis Street, Mount Rainier, MD 20712

We Give Thanks….

So many things we find ourselves thankful for – our families, friends, students and instructors at the Glass School.

Many of the artists here will also be spending the holiday season working the art shows December 2 – 8, 2013.

If you are going to the art fairs at Art Basel / Art Miami – be sure to have a look at the new works by WGS artists!

Audrey Wilson will be showing via Alida Anderson Art Projects at Context Art Miami in Wynwood (booth E-82). 

Audrey Wilson


Tim Tate will be featured at Seager Gray Gallery at Context Art Miami. 

Tim Tate

Nancy Donnelly returns from a trip to Istanbul; her works on exhibit at Foundry Gallery are up til Dec 1st!

Nancy Donnelly

Erwin Timmers’ artwork is on exhibit in Baltimore’s Case[werx] Gallery in the show “Art & Function Delineated” thru Dec 21st. 

Michael Janis will be out to Chicago for set-up and the reception of the UIMA’s Ceramics/Glass exhibit. The show runs December 6 thru Feb 2, 2014.
And  let us all celebrate together!

The Washington Glass School’s Annual Holiday Open House and Sale will be soon – Saturday December 14th, from Noon til 5. Next door Flux Studios will have their open studio and 1st Annual “Cups Invitational” – make a day of it!

Happy Thanksgivukkah!

Nun, Gobble, Hay, Shin! On November 28, 2013, Thanksgiving and the first day of Hanukkah coincide for the first time ever – and for the last time for more than 70,000 years.

all that is Jewish and American

Image that celebrates all that is Jewish and American from moderntribe.com

Menurkey

Menurkey

Nun, Gobble, Hay, Shin! On November 28, 2013, Thanksgiving and the first day of Hanukkah coincide for the first time ever – and for the last time for more than 70,000 years. – See more at: http://www.moderntribe.com/judaica/cool_jewish_t_shirts/thankgivukkah_shirts#sthash.ByW039Ej.dpuf

Curate Maryland tour of Gateway Arts District

Erwin Timmers and Michael Janis talk process to the tour group. And laughter ensues.

MCA‘s Emerging Arts Advocates held the second “CURATE MARYLAND” event this past weekend, with a tour of artist studios in the Gateway Arts District in Prince George’s County. Some pics in this posting from the tour as they arrived at the Glass School, surrounding Red Dirt Studio and Flux Studio.

Margaret Boozer talks to the group as they tour Red Dirt Studios.

The tour group gets an insight to what compels the artist and their vision.

Curate Maryland visitors chat with the glass school artists.
The happy campers continue on the tour of arts organizations. Y’all come back sometime!

  

DC Center for the Creative Economy Tables The Fulbright Experience

 

The Center for the Creative Economy is organizing a series of discussions via a new project called “The Communal Table at Eatonville“. ReSourceArts and Artomatic are partners in this effort. 

Join Washington Glass School Co-Director Michael Janis and Flux Studio founder Novie Trump in a table discussion ‘Fulbright Experience” at Eatonville restaurant in. Michael was named a Fulbright Scholar in 2012, and Novie was recently approved as a Fulbright candidate. 

Wednesday, November 13th, noon to 2 pm.

Eatonville Restaurant in the Zora Room

2121 14th St. NW
Washington, DC 20009
(corner of 14th and V Streets)

 

The Center for the Creative Economy is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to promoting communication between the creative economic clusters in the city of Washington, DC (as defined by the Creative Capital report published by the WDCEP and DC Planning Dept.) Through this effort to unify the creative economic clusters, this organization will form a stronger voice for artists in the city, create strong bonds between the varying artistic groups in the city, and produce a reformed and more powerful asset to the economy of the city.
 

The mission of the Center for the Creative Economy is to promote community and interaction between the various creative economic clusters in the District of Columbia, thereby offering the city a more vibrant art scene. Although Washington, DC, has numerous participants in the fields of museums and heritage, building arts, culinary arts, performing arts, media and communications, and arts/crafts and design projects, these differing clusters have only a vague sense of community, both in their respective fields and outside of them. It is therefore the goal of the Center for the Creative Economy to foster a sense of community between the creative clusters in the District in the effort of creating a more cohesive, better funded, and more profitable creative economy. 

Houston Fine Art Showcases @ Tim Tate at Habatat Galleries

Habatat Galleries sends some photos of their gallery space at Houston Fine Art Fair – now open thru Sept 22.

View of Habatat Galleries Space 504. Tim Tate’s new cast glass and video works are on the right.
Tim Tate’s “Moving Paintings” are quite the hit of the show!
Tim described his “Moving Paintings” as akin to Victorian paintings that move – a la Hogwarts.

Houston Fine Art
George R. Brown Convention Center
Houston, TX 77010

Sept 19 – 22, 2013

US/UK Sister Cities: Keeping Calm & Carrying On

The UK delegation again stopped into the Washington Glass School to plot plan what could be done next to further interaction between Sister Cities Washington, DC and Sunderland, England. 

Washington Glass School Co-Director Michael Janis outlines bold plans to the Sunderland representatives. Clockwise from left: Erwin Timmers, Tim Tate, Michael Janis, Oliver “Skip” Dulle, Tom Hurst, Catherine Auld.

Some of the topics included artwork exhibitions – including Artomatic- of US/UK glass and ceramics in London, residencies in Washington, DC and in Sunderland, and some new ways to get the work of the media-based artists seen. 
The delegation also visited Flux Studios, where UK ceramic artist Philippa Whiteside is currently working on her artist residency – and was featured in the British Council USA blog today.

UK artist Philippa Whiteside working at Flux Studio.

Click HERE to jump to the British Council post. We will advise on US/UK art interactions when they develop!