S.O.F.A. Chicago Art Fair 2012 Features Studio Glass

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SOFA CHICAGO From Technique to Artistic Expression

The critically acclaimed international art fair SOFACHICAGO returns to historic Navy Pier Friday, Nov 2 through Sunday, Nov 4, 2012, with an Opening Night Preview on Thursday, Nov 1.  The exhibition features masterworks of contemporary and modern arts and design, sculpture, functional art, and visionary art, plus related special exhibitions and lecture series. SOFA CHICAGO promises to be the world hot spot for international studio glass art. The American Studio Glass Movement is celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year and the acclaimed art and design fair at Navy Pier will be center-stage. New this year, iPhone and iPad users can use the free SOFA FAIR App to browse the works on display at the show and identify works or contact galleries, simply by pointing their phone at artworks and adding them or instantly receiving information about that work. To download the SOFA FAIR App visit sofaexpo.com.

Harvey Littleton,
Yellow Crown II, 1984, glass

From the SOFA CHICAGO 2012 website: Art “dealer Maurine Littleton of Maurine LittletonGallery (Washington, D.C.), daughter of Harvey Littleton reports that half her booth space (#408) will feature “a selection of rarely seen (and first-time offered) pieces” by her father, including a “spectacular example” from his signature Arc series entitled Yellow Crown II (1984), direct from its exhibition at the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, Wis. Littleton says it is the only one of its type still available; similar works can be found at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery of the American Art Museum and in major national public and private art collections.”

Michael Janis, Eclipse, 2012, glass powder imagery

Works by Michael Janis and Allegra Marquart will be amongst the artists featured in the other half. 

Allegra Marquart, Monkey Girl, 2012, glass

Tim Tate will be featured in Habatat Galleries space (#1200) – which has expanded their SOFA booth to accommodate 18 solo exhibitions!

Tim Tate,

The Deconstruction Of George Melies,2012, Cast and Blown Glass, Video

Additionally, the Robert M. Minkoff Foundation will screen their new documentary, The Toledo Workshop Revisited, 1962-2012. In a March 2012 residency, three young artists at the Toledo Museum of Art rebuilt a small glass furnace modeled after the one Harvey Littleton and Dominick Labino designed 50 years earlier. 

The 1962 workshop launched the Studio Glass Movement, and made it possible for individual artists to work directly with glass. This new film documents the week-long residency that honors the past and celebrates the future of creative experimentation in glass. Screenings will be followed by Q&A with Robert Minkoff, Managing Trustee of the Robert M. Minkoff Foundation; Andrew Page, Director of the Robert M. Minkoff Foundation.

SOFA Chicago 2012
Nov 1 – 4, 2012
Festival Hall, Navy Pier

600 E. Grand Ave., Chicago, IL 60611

Georgetown Book Hill Gallery Walk features WGS artists

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On September 14 from 6-8pm, DC’s Georgetown will have an evening Gallery Walk that will showcase art galleries located on the upper Wisconsin Ave – near Book Hill Park.

Allegra Marquart “Peacock’s Compliant”

Maurine Littleton Gallery will feature artwork by local DC-area artists including Allegra Marquart, Michael Janis and Drew Storm Graham at the gallery for the September 14 Book Hill gallery walk event.

Drew Storm Graham “Dusk”
The artists on exhibit at the Maurine Littleton Gallery bring to life an otherwise cold and transparent medium in their glass art, which flaunts dimensions and depth of color unmatched by other art media. Contemporary glass art by local artists has been displayed at the gallery since its opening in 1984; each work reflecting new interpretations and uses of a range of traditional craft media.

Michael Janis “Eclipse”

September 14 from 6-8pm

Maurine Littleton Gallery

1667 Wisconsin Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20007

phone: 202-333-9307

Bringing Light To The Dark Side

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Novie Trump is a world renown ceramic artist, working from Flux Studios, located right next door to the Washington Glass School. Her poetic sculptural work often involves depictions of nature – presented in unexpected and captivating ways. 

Novie Trump Escape Installation of porcelain butterflies and ceramic book
Ceramic, Acrylic Rods, Steel 
60” x 60” x 24”(variable)

Novie is working on a commissioned artwork piece that came to her via Project 4 Gallery: to create large scale installation that will be located in the new Farmers & Fishers restaurant now being built at the Georgetown waterfront.

Her artwork design calls for many porcelain bees to be clustered around illuminated hives are various locations. The design of the beehive has brought her to the glass studio – and it is a chance for the glass artists to bring Novie over to the dark – or rather – the glassy side.

Erwin Timmers offers some adventurous suggestions to Novie, but from the expressions on both her and Tim Tate’s face, they seem unlikely to be incorporated. 
A sample of Novie Trump’s porcelain bees

Novie chose to work with illuminated glass – creating a pattern of cellular hive divisions with frit powder fused to glass, and slumped over a tapered form. The WGS fritmaster – Michael Janis – offered Novie some pointers on how to manipulate the powder.

Novie Trump and Michael Janis share a laugh as they work
Novie sifts glass powder onto a sheet of glass
Manipulating frit powder is a delicate operation
Novie Trump and Michael Janis evaluate the glass’ progress prior to loading the layer in a kiln for firing

After fusing, the samples are compared by Novie Trump for her preferred selection of color and texture combination 

Novie made many studies of the color and textures and tested the samples with light source alternates.
The glass will later be slumped and a housing for the lighting made in the glass school’s welding shop. Novie will be making the rest of her porcelain swarms and fusing the glass in the next few months, and she promises to send us photos of the finished work.

Bullseye RCBA Gallery Opens Painterly Glass Exhibit

>Bullseye Glass had earlier this year opened their new facility in the California’s Bay area near the Silicon Valley/Berkely/San Francisco corridor of Emeryville, CA. The place is called Resource Center Bay Area (RCBA) and this facility (the third of BE owned centers) offers workshops, supplies and a gallery.

RCBA, Bullseye Glass’ new home in California. 4514 Hollis Street, Emeryville, CA

One of the upcoming exhibits at the RCBA Gallery opens this coming Saturday, Aug 4, 2012. Titled: Facture: Artists on the Forefront of Painterly Glass, a number of the works were shown at BE’s Portland gallery early this year in a show of the same name. The exhibit will showcase kilnformed glass paintings (mostly frit on sheet glass) from the artists Abi Spring, Kari Minnick, Martha Pfanschmidt, Ted Sawyer, Jeff Wallin, and WGS’ Michael Janis.

Jeff Wallin Residue of a Figure Study

kilnformed glass

from the BE website:

Facture: Artists at the Forefront of Painterly Glass is a group exhibition that explores many of the concerns of contemporary painting, but does this exploration with glass. Painting exists in a continuum with centuries of tradition while simultaneously embracing aspects of sculpture, installation and collage. Painting today goes beyond pigment on a surface; it is an approach to image making that encompasses the ways in which a material is used to construct a work, how an artist approaches a subject, and even how an image is conceived. The artists included in Facture are constructing paintings using glass.

Michael Janis Observation of Signals

kilnformed glass and steel 

Glass, unlike traditional painting materials, is both surface and solid. Value and intensity can be created on the suface as well as volumetrically. Paintings made from glass are image and object; illusion and reality, and these artists, at the forefront of this young method, are scratching at the boundaries of both.

Martha Pfanschmidt Last Year

kilnformed and coldworked glass

View the exhibition: Bullseye Resource Center Bay Area Gallery, August 4 – October 20, 2012.

Opening Reception: Saturday, August 4, 3–5pm. 4514 Hollis Street, Emeryville, CA 94608
Go to map & driving directions

Getting GAS’d Up – Glass Art Society Conference Opens in Toledo

>In recognition of the Toledo Museum of Art’s role as the cradle of the American Studio Glass Movement, GAS will be holding its 2012 conference in Toledo, Ohio, June 13 – 17, 2012. 
Toledo is welcoming again artists from around the world to celebrate the achievements of the past and to explore the seemingly endless possibilities of glass. Professor Tim Tate will be on a panel with Matthew Szosz, Alexander Rosenberg and moderated by Andrew Page. The discussion is titled: Post Studio Glass    and will discuss how:
The work in glass being shown in galleries and art fairs still focuses on formalist object on a plinth. A new generation of glass artists is breaking with the existing glass art field to apply new strategies. Panelists speak with GLASS Quarterly editor Andrew Page about this generational shift and its implications.

POST STUDIO GLASS PANEL A Look at the New Parameters 
for Work in Glass
Saturday,June 16 at 1:45-3:15pm in the Seagate rooms 202-208


Click HERE for the conference program pdf.

If you are going to GAS, be sure to avail yourself of all the exhibitions that are part of the Studio Glass Movement’s 50th Anniversary. One of the shows (just outside of Toledo in the suburb of Perrysburg, OH) is a great mix of art work by artists that work with narrative imagery. Artwork by leading glass artists April Surgent, Therman Statom, Tim Tate, Marc Petrovic, Susan Taylor Glasgow, and Michael Janis.

Images

June 11- Sept 14, 2012

Walter E. Terhune Gallery

Blue Spiral 1 Gallery Looks to Studio Glass’ Future

>North Carolina’s Asheville was named one of AmericanStyle magazine’s “Top 25 Arts Destinations” . This week, another of its top galleries – this time Blue Spiral 1 – opens a show that looks to honor the 50th Anniversary of the American Studio Glass Movement.

WGS is well represented in the list of artists!

Blue Spiral has curated the show with an eye to the future of glass with “compelling sculpture [that] speaks to conceptual and narrative directions the medium takes in the 21st Century”.


Artists include a number from the Washington Glass School extended family – Tim Tate, Sean Hennessey, Michael Janis, Marc Petrovic, Christina Bothwell and Susan Taylor Glasgow.


With Erwin Timmers’ work showing at nearby Bender Gallery – its like a Washington Glass School summer camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains!


Glass Secessionism
June 7 – July 26, 2012
Opening Reception, June 7, 5-8 pm
Blue Spiral 1 Gallery
38 Biltmore Avenue
Asheville, NC 28801

Saturday – Meet the Artists @ Artomatic

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This Saturday is the “Meet the Artists” night at DC’s Artomatic Art Fair – from 7 – 9 pm.


The James Renwick Alliance will also host a reception at Artomatic on Saturday, June 2 from 5:00 to 7:00 PM in the JRA Education Room, #1106, on the 11th floor. Many of artists whose work was selected the JRA as recipients of the Award of Excellence will be at the reception – starting around  6 PM. At the Prince George’s County Parks and Recreation Room on the 3rd floor @ 7:30pm, they will announce the Department’s purchases of artwork by Prince George’s County artists for the Department’s permanent collection – for a bit of art excitement!

See you there!

Dave D’Orio / glass / Level 8

Michael Janis  / glass / Level 2
Sean Hennessey /glass / Level 9
Donna McCullough / metal / Level 1

Artomatic 

1851 S. Bell Street, Arlington, VA, 22202 

(one block from Yellow Line Metro – Crystal City stop)

Free 

James Renwick Alliance Selects its Artomatic Favs

>The James Renwick Alliance (JRA) is an independent national nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing scholarship and education on contemporary American craft, to supporting activities directed toward this purpose, and to encouraging connoisseurship and collecting. The JRAassists the Smithsonian American Art Museum in adding to its permanent collection of American craft. For over 25 years, the JRA has supported activities and programs involving hundreds of artists, art supporters, galleries, and partnering institutions from across the nation and around the world.
As part of their mission for the arts, the JRA are sponsors of a workshop/reception “Renwick Alliance Room” in the huge DC Arts Fair – Artomatic. Located on the 11th Floor of the festival, the JRA has planned workshops and talks throughout the month long run of the show (thru June 23). 


Members of the JRA has also went thru the 10 floors of artwork – selecting their Top 10 media-based artists for their 2012 Artomatic “Award of Excellence”. 

James Renwick Alliance 

Recognition of Excellence 

ARTOMATIC 2012

Artist 

Work 

Type 

Floor 

Location 

Brad Taylor 

Chaise 

Wood and Metal Furniture 

305 

David D’Orio 

Installation 

Mixed Media (Glass) 

147 

Donna McCullough

Body of Work 

Metal Sculpture 

152 

Helen Baribeau 

Body of Work 

Fiber Sculpture 

121 

Julia Bloom 

Installation 

Wood Sculpture 

208 

Matt MacIntire 

Body of Work 

Mixed Media 

160 

Michael Janis

Body of Work 

Glass                 

173 

Pierre Davis

Body of Work 

Wood Sculpture 

10 

152 

Sean Hennessey 

Body of Work 

Glass                 

141 

Zofie Lang 

Installation 

Mixed Media 

112 

Congrats to the WGS/DC Glass artists & all the artists involved in the huge event!
And a big hug to the James Renwick Alliance!


The James Renwick Alliance welcomes the public to join them in a pre meet-the-artists-night reception. Mingle with other craft lovers! 
The JRA will be distributing maps they have created to help you find the media-based artists of Artomatic.
Saturday June 2
5:00pm-7:00pm
The Renwick Alliance Room, 11th floor


Dinner with the Board of University of Sunderland and More Workshops!

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UK based glass artist Jeffrey Sarmiento shows Michael Janis his artwork. I’m sure he has not yet noticed the panel I’m holding is missing yet.

Artist Jeffrey Sarmiento popped into the University of Sunderland’s Architectural Glass studio where our Fulbright workshop classes were being held with an invitation to show how he uses the National Glass Center’s waterjet to cut intricate and delicate glass elements for his artwork. Naturally, I was excited to see 1.) how the waterjet works and 2.) Jeffrey at work.


Jeffrey Sarmiento and Michael Janis


Jeffrey offered to make one of the component layers for the demo piece I was using to show how the sgraffito process can be achieved in glass, and he explained the process. We looked thru some of his images that were in the computer to save time, and selected one of his images of the nearby Tyne bridge that was part of his series “Invisible Cities“.


Using a CADD program, Jeffrey cleans up the cut-off sections and outlines areas that will be positive or negative.


Jeffrey checks on the initialization of the process.

The pressurized water cuts through the glass and wood support panel.

The grit overflow tub.

The compressor unit located beyond the waterjet machinery.

The verticals of the waterjet cut Bullseye glass panel section are 3mm (less than 1/8″) thick.

Jeffrey pulls apart and assembles the positive and negative.

The connector nibs are pulled off each element.

The panels section loaded and fused in the kiln.

The fired panel integrated into the demo piece.

Washington Glass Fulbright duo of Michael Janis & Tim Tate (plus Kay Janis as chaperone) soldiered on with dinner at the National Glass Centre, hosted by the University of Sunderland Board of Directors. The food at the dinner was a treat – my first Yorkshire Pudding. I was told that Yorkshire pudding and was told the story that the origins of the dish was to provide a cheap way to fill the diners – thus stretching a lesser amount of the more expensive ingredients as the Yorkshire pudding was traditionally served first. The dinner was nothing but elegant.


L-R Fulbright Scholar Tim Tate; Graeme Thompson, Dean of Faculty of Arts, Design and Media; Dr Kevin Petrie, Leader of Glass & Ceramics; (not shown in photo Shirley Atkinson, Deputy Vice-Chancellor; Peter Fidler CBE Vice Chancellor & Chief Executive and James Bustard, Director of the NGC).


The Yorkshire Pudding served.


L-R Cathy Barnes, Chair of the NGC Board; Kay Janis; Chris Jobe, Governor of the Board

For dessert, Tim Tate said he hoped it would be the traditional English (and to American sensibilities, questionably named) “spotted dick“. We were served a beautiful light custard filled confection that was dubbed “spotted hemorroid” as a way to keep in the spirit of the night.

Though not “lite” in the sense of calories, it was a delectable, light dessert that was served.

It was a lovely, fun evening that was filled with discussions on how we can create opportunities in both countries that would facilitate the exchange artists, ideas and ways we can strengthen the relationships we have developed.

We had time for one more workshop, held at Sunderland’s not-for-profit artist center, Creative Cohesion.
This was to be a much more casual workshop, more a conversation – about the differences in the perceived US and the UK approach towards art and education, the changes that social media had on the art world, how artists can survive in tough economic times, the advantages of creating artist covenants.


Anne Tye, the Creative Industries Development Manager at Sunderland City Council introduces Tim and Michael to a packed audience.



The talks were packed with artists from Sunderland, Newcastle – as far away as Edinburgh, Scotland.

Tim Tate tells all.


The evening talk was the last of our scheduled Fulbright Scholar events. Our short project length had us fly out of town the next morning, heading back to Washington very early.


UK Artist profiles Part 3:

Andrew Livingston


Andrew Livingston works as an artist and is also Leader of CARCuos Ceramic Arts Research Center and MA Ceramics Program Leader at the University of Sunderland, The National Glass Center, Sunderland, UK.

Andrew’s work uses a range of media which acknowledges the interface between both traditional practice and new media. His continued exploration aims to challenge and expand contemporary locations in respect of the traditional positioning of ceramics. The integration of digital media and new technologies has become central to his artwork where new media is often positioned and juxtaposed with more traditional elements.

Andrew’s Parallax View series works in creating a fresh perspective on Tullie House‘s porcelain collection and explores preconceived notions of ceramics.

Surfeit 621 621 cast ceramic components, looped video, and drawings made from clay & graphite.

Britannia. ceramic and glass vitrine.

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Roger Tye

Roger Tye graduated from Manchester Poly in 1975 with a BA(Hons) in 3D Design – Glass and Metal. Roger to concentrate his work on sculptural and installation pieces that integrated glass and other media. Roger is the guiding force of the new not-for-profit artist studio – Creative Cohesion, located in Sunderland. Though Roger often works in creating beautiful traditional blown glass forms, he also works with slate and cast glass.


glass and slate

cast glass sheep, slate and steel

Up next posting: One more workshop video link and final thoughts on the Fulbright program.
Click HERE to jump to first posting about the Sunderland trip.


Click HERE to jump to the start of the postings about some of the super-cool UK artists.

London Affordable Art Fair & Imagery In Glass

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2012 London Affordable Art Fair held at London’s Battersea Park.


The first big workshop, Bas-Relief dry plaster casting at the UK’s National Glass Center had gone well (phew!) The Sunderland arts organization, Creative Cohesion, was participating in the London Affordable Art Fair and had invited Tim Tate and I to exhibit our work in the contemporary art show. Which we readily agreed. Tim, my wife Kay & I jumped on a train down to London, and joined the exhibitors at the fair that had opened a couple of days earlier.


Kay Janis watches the North Sea whizz by on the train to London.

Crowd watching is part of the fun of an art fair and at London AAF it included celebrity-sightings of Johnny Depp and Joanna Lumley (Joanna looks loverly, BTW)


Tim Tate’s artwork was featured in the Creative Cohesion Booth.

L-R Dinner with the Creative Cohesion artists Kay Janis, Tim Tate, Robyn Townsend, Joanne Mitchell, Roger Tye, Anne Tye


Tim Tate tuckered out on return train trip.

Our time in London was too short, soon we were back on the train to Sunderland, and preparing for my multi-day class “Imagery in Glass” that was held in the Architectural Glass Studio of the National Glass Center.


Outlining the basics for getting detailed imagery into fused glass.

Showing the different glass powder tools and how an artist can manipulate imagery.

The master level class is tasked with creating a number of sample panels.

Students drew inspiration from the view over the river.

The first firing of glass powder imagery.

Reviewing fused glass samples with class.


Discussing options for creating effects within the layered imagery.

Jeffrey Sarmiento created a component layer for the class demo project – the artwork suggests creating bridges between the art communities.

University of Sunderland Artists Part 2:

Jeffrey Sarmiento

Jeffrey Sarmiento was recently appointed Reader in Glass at the National Glass Center at the University of Sunderland. A Filipino-American artist, he holds an MFA in Glass from the Rhode Island School of Design. His research has led him to work widely in the US and Europe, having been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship Denmark. He was also a finalist for the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award and the Bombay Sapphire Prize. His most recent project is a 600kg glass map, permanently housed in the new Museum of Liverpool.

Liverpool Map Jeffrey Sarmiento and Inge Panneels, 2010

Bombay Encyclopedia

Jeffery Sarmiento talks about his work “Ossify”

Ossify 2010 British Glass Biennale Award Runner up


Emotional Leak Jeffrey Sarmiento & Erin Dickson, 2011

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Cate Watkinson

Cate Watkinson trained in 3-D Design, Glass with Ceramics at Sunderland Polytechnic.After leaving college Cate worked in Cambridge and the Channel Islands before returning to the North East to set up her architectural glass studio. Cate continues to run her business, Watkinson Glass Associates, while teaching at the University of Sunderland.

Over the years Cate has built on her experience, optimizing developments in new technologies, including new developments and techniques in construction. She has successfully completed a varied range of commissioned projects from glass public seating in city centers to a 22’ high sculpture for a shopping mall. From a stained glass window for Newcastle Cathedral to a laminated glass screen for the Arrivals Hall at Newcastle International Airport in the UK.

Other research activities include exploring the use of text and light through the public art commission entitled `Total Policing’, a glass and stainless steel sculpture situated at the front of the new head quarters for Northumbria Police in North Tyneside.


Total Policing


Baltic Business Quarter Public art/seating made with recycled glass.


Lookout

Next Up – Creative Cohesion artist development talk, dinner with the Uni Board, and more great UK artists!