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Issue 137 | Winter

Editor's Letter

by Andrew Page

As the new artistic director of North Lands Creative Glass in northeast Scotland, artist and designer Emma Woffenden has reengaged her complex relationship with glass, a material in which she is highly trained but which she uses judiciously in visceral multimedia works that plumb the subconscious. In a wide-ranging interview, Woffenden talks about the evolution of her relationship to glass, which began almost accidentally during her undergraduate studies and which deepened after she worked for glass artists Colin Reid and Clifford Rainey, and then went on to earn a master’s in ceramics and glass at the Royal College of Art in London.

Her extensive knowledge of the material has made her exacting about when and how to use it, and she is fond of employing contrast to heighten its effect. She freely pairs glass elements with found objects, rope, jesmonite, polystyrene, metal, resin, plastic pipe, and even bandages for objects and installations that plumb such topics as power dynamics, religious iconography, and the erotic. Among her influences has been 17th-century religious sculpture, which strove to make symbolic imagery immediate and real to worshippers by pairing lively materials such as glass with wood and plaster’s matte surfaces.

Hourglass

Ginny Ruffner's museum exhibition is no retrospective; a new museum in Venice celebrates glass art and design from an international perspective; New orleans nonprofit YAYA creative Glass set to move to a new home in 2015; Anna Mlasowsky wins inaugural Glass Art Society technology award; In Memoriam: Bennett McKnight (1971-2014); The Corning Museum of Glass taps Corning Inc. researcher for new chief scientist position; In Memoriam: Dawson Ralph Kellogg (1965-2014).

Reviews

Christina Bothwell at Heller Gallery, New York City; Peter Bremers at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, Indiana; Gregory Grenon at Echt Gallery, Chicago; Joanna Manousis at the Robert Lehman Gallery at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, New York; Tobias Mohl at Traver Gallery, Seattle.

UrbanGlass News

The gala "Celebrate!" on October 21st marked the one-year anniversary of operations in the organization's spectacular new home.

Reflection

by Hamish Jackson

The potent practice of the De la Torre brothers makes a case for artistic license and irreverence.

Features

Revelations

by Karen Donnellan

A conversation with Emma Woffenden—artist, designer, and current artistic director of North Lands Creative Glass—on the evolution of her use of glass as a key element in her mixed-media work.

Time Frame

by Victoria Josslin

An exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum charts the history of glass at the Pilchuck Glass School, and, in the process, starts a conversation about the material as a lens on the wider historical landscape.

Angst in Three Dimensions

by Robin L. Rice

The unsettling stained-glass panels of Judith Schaecther are joined by sculptural forms, signaling a new direction for an artist drawn to exacting process.

Transparent Masks

by Mark Gisbourne

Emodied personae in the glass sculptures of Ann Wolff

Light Fall

by Annie Buckley

Eric Fischl remakes his controversial bronze statue of a falling woman in a new material as part of the star painter's recent explorations of glass.

Glass: The UrbanGlass Quarterly, a glossy art magazine published four times a year by UrbanGlass has provided a critical context to the most important artwork being done in the medium of glass for more than 40 years.