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USA Art Glass Industry Goes South

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uroboros

A few Uroboros workers will have the options of transferring to California to work for Oceanside. About 40 people work at Uroboros. photo April Baer

Oregon glass makers have gotten skewered in the news this past year. 2016 was the year one modest Forest Service research project turned the Northwest’s storied art glass industry upside down. Samples taken near two Portland art glass factories were shown to carry dangerously high concentrations of heavy metals. These companies make supplies for glass artists all over the world. 

After a tumultuous year of regulatory and public scrutiny, Uroboros Glass founder and owner Eric Lovell is spending this winter preparing to send his 44-year-old art glass business, Uroboros Glass, into new hands. Lovell made the decision this fall to retire and sell his business to a California-based company, Oceanside GlassTile.

Click on link HERE to read KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio’s (PSPR) April Baer interview with Eric Lovell as he prepares to hand off Uroboros to California’s Oceanside GlassTile. While the company has some Oregon connections, it means the loss of some 40 Portland-area jobs to Oceanside, whose production facilities are in Mexico.

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NEW GLASS REVIEW 38 CALL FOR ENTRIES

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cmog_NewLogoThe Corning Museum of Glass invites artists, craftspeople, designers, and architects worldwide to submit images of new works using glass. Published by The Corning Museum of Glass, The New Glass Review is an annual survey of glass in contemporary art, architecture, craft, and design created in the previous year by emerging and established artists, as well as students. The works are chosen by a changing jury of curators, artists, designers, art dealers, and critics – this year’s entries will be overseen by the new curator of modern and contemporary glass, Susie Silbert.

Submissions for the New Glass Review #38 are now being accepted. In late November or early December, a jury selects 100 images from the submissions. New Glass Review is published every spring by The Corning Museum of Glass and distributed with GLASS: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly, published by UrbanGlass, Brooklyn, New York.

Participants are requested to complete the entry form, submitting a total of one to three digital images illustrating one work per image. Digital photographs must be of actual objects designed and made between October 1, 2015, and October 1, 2016.

ENTRY DEADLINE

The deadline for submissions to New Glass Review is October 1, 2016.

Click HERE for more info.

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Spectrum Glass To Close

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spectrumWoodinville, Wash. – In a move that shocked many in the art glass world, Spectrum Glass has announced that they are going out of business. Spectrum, which makes System 96 fusing glass and numerous varieties of stained glass, intends to continue making glass for roughly two more months, then sell off its inventory and exit the art glass business.

Craig Barker, CEO of Spectrum Glass Company, shared this statement on the closure:
“After serving the art and specialty glass industry for 40 years, it is with very heavy hearts that we have decided to close Spectrum Glass Company.
“Our primary concern is to help ease this difficult transition for the fine employees, customers, retailers, and glass artists that we’ve been proud to work with and serve. We’re committed to doing everything we can to provide career assistance for our people, and are of course offering severance to our employees. For customers and end users, we are exploring opportunities to transfer our product lines to other manufacturers to help minimize disruptions in sourcing.
“The decision to close our doors has been extraordinarily difficult. We postponed it for as long as possible,and arrived at this conclusion only after immense consideration. However, due to several factors, it’s no longer financially feasible for Spectrum Glass to continue to operate.
“Market factors have played the most significant role. Our facility was built to support product demand at the height of art glass movement, but our sales never fully recovered following the Great Recession. We have watched our sales dwindle dramatically to only 40 percent of production capacity, while overhead expenses have continued to increase. Our consistently reduced levels of sales simply cannot cover the fixed costs required to operate a facility of our size.
“Additionally, the entire U.S. art glass industry is now being evaluated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with respect to potential new regulations. Long-standing interpretations of air quality regulations are being reevaluated, and if new regulations were applied to our facility, it would require substantial capital expenses. Spectrum Glass Company has operated well within existing environmental
guidelines and has been the only stained glass manufacturer to employ baghouse technology on furnace exhaust. Still, we have already accrued extraordinary, unanticipated expenses since the start of the EPA evaluation and cannot withstand additional investments of an unknown scale for an already faltering business.
“We would like to express our deepest gratitude to all of our partners, customers, artists and others who have supported Spectrum Glass over the past four decades, and who continue to support us now. We will continue manufacturing for the next 60—75 days, and will continue selling the product inventory we currently have on hand over the months ahead. We will communicate updates as we wind down our operations.”

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New Studio Artist – Kyle David Crosby

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Everyone meet and welcome our newest studio artist – Kyle David Crosby.kyledavidcrosby

Kyle is also a musician and a film producer, with his company Pictureshow Productions. 

Kyle David Crosby is a young, up-and-coming producer from Washington, DC. After launching his film career in 2006, Crosby has worked on feature films, television series, commercial campaigns, still photography shoots, and documentaries. He most recently finished Production Supervising HBO’s “VEEP – Season 5″ DC Unit. He is at much at home in the office as he is on set. 

Pictureshow is a boutique, full-service production company that specializes in feature films and commercial production. Based in Maryland, they have produced movies and commercials for a diverse clientele including BBC Scotland, Marriott, Haxan Films, and the DC Board of Tourism.

The_Purge_Election_Year

Pictureshow was formed in 2012 as a banner under which for Kyle David Crosby to produce a short film for Eduardo Sanchez, creator and co-director of the Blair Witch Project, and his directing partner, Gregg Hale. The short was included in the cult-favorite horror anthology, “V/H/S:2″. That film enjoyed an exciting Sundance acquisition and has gone on to be the most celebrated film in the “V/H/S” franchise.


Most recently, Pictureshow produced the short “The Confidential Informant” directed by Stephen Kinigopoulos and written by acclaimed writer and producer, George Pelecanos. The project was filmed entirely in DC and is currently in its festival run, garnering acclaim nationwide.

Currently, Kyle is working on the movie “The Purge: Election Year” which opens in July.

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Artomatic Returns -Get Going !

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Artomatic 2015 is a six-week long art festival in Prince George’s County, MD – right by the New Carrollton Metro Station – that is “by artists, for everyone.” It is absolutely free to the public. This year’s event features more than 700 artists: Visual art, music, performance, film, and more. Workshops, tours, seminars and other events will be held throughout the duration of the show October 30 thru Dec 12, 2015. Location: 8100 Corporate Dr., Hyattsville, MD 20785

Want to Participate as an Artist? or Volunteer? or Host?

Click HERE to jump to Artomatic 15‘s participation website page.

 

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Nikki O’Neill @ Waverly Street Gallery

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synthesis11.nikkioneill

Nikki O’Neill, “Synthesis 11″, 11″x 15″ x 2″, glass

Nikki O’Neill has been working with glass for more than 25 years, and currently uses kiln-forming techniques to create sculpture and vessels from recycled glass. Nikki has a great show at Waverly Street Gallery open thru August 1st.

BENTHOS

DISCOVERIES AND MARINE HABITATS IN GLASS

by Nikki O’Neill

JULY 7 – AUGUST 1, 2015

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 12-6 P.M.

Two exciting evolutionary themes inspire Nikki O’Neill’s visual diaries in kiln formed glass: the watery, primordial origins of life, and the delightfully intricate and richly colored primitive creatures that live there. Glass is the perfect medium to explore these mysteries, often revealing exciting visual discoveries as she manipulates heat, gravity, gasses, and time to melt and combines glass with natural raw mineral compounds, metals, salts, and oxides. These basic elements are also those of life’s origins, and perhaps provide a glimpse into our own organic beginnings.

After initial ideas are developed, glass is cut, heated, shaped, and cold-worked. She is often delighted to discover visages of primordial beginnings and early life emerging from the bubbling cauldrons of inhospitable environments. It is art and science; exploration and discovery; glass and nature that fuels her heart and imagination each day.

Along with formal studies in the studio arts, Nikki O’Neill earned a PhD degree and worked as a research scientist and educator in the biological sciences for 30 years. She has exhibited her art extensively in the Mid-Atlantic region in juried shows, receiving honors including “Best in Show” by the Creative Crafts Council in 2013. She regularly teaches workshops in kiln formed glass.

For more information about the artist please visit www.nikkioneillglass.com

For more information about the show, contact curator Elizabeth Wolf at liz.wolf@verizon.net or 301-263-0381

Waverly Street Gallery

4600 East West HWY
Bethesda, Maryland 20814

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