Thank you Bonnie and Crew! What an inventive way to have a convention! Dan and I enjoyed the sessions and being able to chat with friends old and new.

In reply-

1). Dan and I were wowed by the Shades presentation. A fantastic collection, thoughtfully presented. How amazing that they were both able to weigh in in real time in spite being half a world apart!

Dan also really enjoyed the Rakow presentation. As a retired product designer, and having attended the year we got to sort Carder drawings, he was thrilled again.

2) We were able to negotiate the Zoom links well enough. It helped that we were paranoid and never logged off so getting back in wasn’t an issue.

3) While attending in person is always preferable, it would be nice to have the option of virtually participating. Many live far away and can’t always get time off to travel to Corning. It might also appeal to younger participants.

4) other topics escape my wee brain at present.

🙂 Lisa Ackerman Baldwin

Art of Fire: Frederick Carder and Steuben Glass

Ongoing Exhibit at Wichita Museum of Art

F. Price Cossman Memorial Trust Gallery

About This Exhibition

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Completely reimagined, the museum presents a compelling arrangement of the distinguished and growing glass art collection. For the new display, the museum consulted with the Seattle-based independent curator and craft scholar Vicki Halper.

Notably, Halper curated WAM’s popular 2014 summer exhibition Australian Glass Art, American Links for the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington.

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Revealing WAM’s rich holdings, the variety, quality, and artistry of Steuben glass will be on view. In fascinating ways, the exquisite work of the Steuben Glass Works, the world-class glass manufacturer (1903-2011), continues to beguile and inspire artists. The new installation acknowledges and examines how contemporary glass artists explore the continuing allure and legacy of Steuben. Magnificent work by such living artists as Dante Marioni and Kiki Smith will be on view.

The new collection display will also feature a new commission,an elaborate, Steuben-inspired candelabrum,by glass artist Andy Paiko. This special work is effervescent! It incorporates an abundantly enthusiastic array of forms and techniques first developed by Steuben. Paiko’s tapering candle holders hang gracefully from the central form, each demonstrating the Steuben “air-twist” technique, perfected by designer George Thompson. The cinched, bell-shaped forms of the upper part of the large-scale candleholder are typical of Thompson’s designs. WAM’s collection includes original sketches by Thompson during his time working for Steuben, making Paiko’s reimagining of Thompson’s forms particularly relevant to the collection.

The late glass artist, Charles Lotton

Charles Lotton really did start from scratch as my Gran used to say. Not only did he build a studio and a furnace, taught himself to blow glass, but in his early years, Lillian Nassau of NYC had an exclusive to all of the glass he produced. She always had a “great eye” as they say, and she saw it in Charles’ work. He was a great person and very talented as well.

Regards,

David P. Donaldson, MFA

Mark Your Calendar

Next year’s symposium will be held at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY on September 8-10, 2022.