North Lands Creative Glass, located on the rugged Northeast coast of Scotland, has filled its newly-created position of chief executive, hiring the executive director of RUA RED, a multi-faceted contemporary arts center in Dublin, Ireland. Karen Phillips will leave behind the Irish nonprofit that provided artist studios, art galleries, performance spaces and workshop facilities, to take the helm at North Lands on August 24th, 2016. In partnership with the artistic director, Phillips will be charged with building "upon North Lands reputation as an international centre for creative glass as well as a vital community facility for the people of Lybster and Caithness," according to a statement from Eleanor Hargrave, North Lands marketing officer, issued in response to a query from the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet. "This should build on existing activities and relationships and integrate and develop new ones," according to the statement. Phillips will have a new artistic director to work with this fall, as Emma Woffenden's three-year term in that role will end, and artist and educator Jeffrey Sarmiento will take over starting on October 1st, 2016.
Sarmiento, who earned his PhD in glass from the University of Sunderland in 2011, also holds an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (2000), and a BFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He currently holds the title of reader in glass at the University of Sunderland. Sarmiento's resume includes winning the 2012 International Glass Prize at Glazenhuis, Belgium and a 2013 solo exhibition at the National Glass Centre in Sunderland (Disclosure: Hot Sheet editor Andrew Page contributed an essay to the "Constructions" exhibition publication). Sarmiento's collaborative work was also included in Glasstress Gotika collaterial exhibition at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015.
Sarmiento’s vision for his upcoming three-year term as artistic director is to incorporate the "natural, cultural and historical qualities of the locale into a dynamic programme at North Lands Creative Glass," according to the official announcement of his appointment.