GASnews Fall 2019

GASnews

FALL 2019 VOLUME 30 ISSUE 3

INSIDE

3 Letter from the Editor 4 Au Naturel: Interview with David Willis 7 More Rainbows... More Stress 9 If the Lorax was a Chainsaw Artist...

Would He Still Speak for the Trees?

12 Hot Air: Blown Away has Come and Gone

and Everything is Totally Fine

14 GAS Resource Links Cover: David Willis, Family, glass on canvas on panel, 72” w x 96” h x 2” d, 2019

GAS news

GASnews is published four times per year as a benefit to members.

Glass Art Society Board of Directors 2018-2019

Contributing Writers: Rebecca Chernow, David Fox, David Schnuckel

President: Natali Rodrigues Vice President: Nadania Idriss Vice President: Jessica Jane Julius Treasurer: Heather McElwee Secretary: Caitlin Vitalo

Editor: Michael Hernandez Graphic Design: Ted Cotrotsos* Staff Brandi Clark, Executive Director Lauren Bayer, Communications Manager Kristen W. Ferguson, Development & Membership Manager Jenna Green, Operations & Program Manager Mae Quach, Administrative Assistant Cathy Noble-Jackson, Part-time Bookkeeper *part time/contract

Ben Cobb Kelly Conway Matt Durran Glen Hardymon Mike Hernandez Nadania Idriss Karen Mahardy Lynn Read Debra Ruzinsky Mike Saroka Masahiro Nick Sasaki Demetra Theofanous Lisa Zerkowitz Paige Morris (Student Representative)

2208 NW Market St., #200, Seattle, WA 98107 USA Phone: 206.382.1305 Fax: 206.382.2630 E-mail: info@glassart.org

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©2018 The Glass Art Society, a non-profit organization. All rights reserved. Publication of articles in this newsletter prohibited without permission from the Glass Art Society Inc. The Glass Art Society reserves the right to deny applications for Tech Display, advertising participation, GAS membership or conference participation to anyone for any reason.

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EDITOR’S LETTER It’s easy to consider representation as an artistic form that lends itself to a direct read; one that deals in observation and a straightforward approach to re-envision the subject. The viewer can revel in the technical abilities of the artist to translate the unadulterated visual world translated through a medium.

A representational artwork might even inspire a sense of connection to the joy of the maker or an idyllic point in time.

Some of the more renowned makers from the various facets of glass art are most well-known for their acute ability to sculpt glass into representational forms. Kimiake and Shin-ichi Higuchi sculpt and color their pate´de verre objects and vessels to harness the natural shifts in color and moldable potential of powered glass. Martin Janecky has developed the hot-sculpting, more specifically inside sculpting, to what can only be described as a technical pinnacle for the ability to capture expression through portraiture.

And, Paul Stankard displays his ability to recreate, with great detail and complexity, microcosms of floral and entomological reverie.

The ability to harness control over a material in such an exacting way as to perfectly emulate its subject is an awe-inspiring feat of artistic skill. Throughout history, representational perfection has been paramount to the prowess of the individual maker and the development of the making culture. To train the hand in such a way that the maker can take a subject from observation to replication takes not only a keen eye and a precise hand, but involves a great investment of time and familiarity with their medium. In a way, it is a form of seeing through physical motions of the body and a deep understanding of how a material yields to flux and force.

While there is an ever-growing community of extremely skilled makers in the glass art field with uncanny abilities to replicate from plant and animal life, execute the human figure to proportional and gestural realism, and reproduce both the atmospheric and microscopic nature of the landscape, it is rare that artists in our field address the grotesque nature of the human body or the decline of the natural world they observe. In this issue, Rebecca Chernow’s piece “If the Lorax Was a Chainsaw Artist, …” speaks to the objectification of the natural world widespread in the glass art community and the ecological debt she believes is owed in reparation the consumptive processes that are used to produce these works.

Representation, however direct it may be in subject matter, is anything but simple. What tends to come to light in the critical assessment of artwork that emulates, frames, or recreates from life is that the context of its maker, its provenance, and its viewer are determinate in the meaning of what is being represented.

Imagery of a well-intentioned beautiful landscape, for instance, in the awareness of widespread environmental degradation, can be difficult to read at face value. It might even seem naïve to avoid addressing something so integral to our understanding of landscape while portraying it. The GASnews Interview with David Willis sheds light on the artist’s ideas and approach in representing the fragility of nature. Willis has a keen ability to fluidly move between diverse technical processes, while maintaining a high level of realism. His work consistently balances beautifully rendered subjects with subtle metaphors that point to the delicate balances in our world.

Observation is not exclusive to those who create art that visually represents the seen world.

A valuable tool of any artistic practice is the critical evaluation and reflection of process, product, and residue. To investigate what can be “seen” through the actions of one’s energy, their successes, and their failures, the artist might discover some deeper meaning that goes beyond the physical product to illuminate something poetic imbedded in the making process. David Fox gives his personal reflection on the visualization of glass through polariscope filter, while leading readers through the anxieties of glass making in “More Rainbows…More Stress.”

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Michael Hernandez GASnews Editor

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AU NATUREL: INTERVIEW WITH DAVID WILLIS GASnews: Through a diverse repertoire of techniques, your work has consistently addressed representations, and, at times, trompe l’oeil depictions of nature.

How do the material and metaphorical qualities of glass influence the content of your work?

David Willis: The metaphor derived from glass and nature, in my mind, is in the balance between strength and fragility.

Both of these things can seem super durable and permanent, and both can be very delicate. The duality on both sides of this conversation has always interested me, bringing them together kind of squares the circle of my interests.

I hope the fragility represented in my glass speaks to my thoughts on the importance of treating nature more gently and the risk of damage and destruction if things are not handled with care.

I think the material qualities of glass, which are broad ranging, influence my work as well. Without seeing any material boundaries or limitations, I am free to consider form and content openly and easily. That being said, I appreciate you noticing I have stayed pretty consistently with nature. I think it’s a centrally important conversation today. Water is something that I think about a lot. It’s the most important thing we’ve got after air, in real time. I guess I can’t really rank elements, but I think you know what I mean. Without water we die in 3 days, without air in about 3 minutes. There’s a lot of important stuff to talk about surrounding this subject; the things that are so simple and beautiful and necessary. I could go on at length to bring up drought, and the politics of water, and what things will look like when it’s gone and where it once was becomes dry...and the beautiful branchy arterial networks water carves into landscapes and how these forms are mirrored in our bodies, and in plants.

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Daisies, blown and sculpted glass, assembled, installation view dimensions vary, 120” h, 2014. Photo courtesy of the artist.

GAS: The technically challenging nature of working with glass drives many artists to obsess over prowess and representational perfection. How has your own pursuit of technical mastery driven the development of your work?

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DW: I hesitate to discuss mastery as it is almost by definition a pretty small space and sparsely populated, but I greatly admire it. I think the curiosity to grow and broaden my relationship with glass drives the development of my work more than the pursuit of mastery.

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The thing is, any little area of technique can invite a whole fulfilling lifetime of practice and investigation. This is why there are masters of murrini, and goblets, and blown forms, and hot sculpture, and kilncasting, and so on. I find the diversity and the excellence some are able to attain to be beautiful and inspiring. And although I fully enjoy repetition and practice and the finetuning of process, I also enjoy problem solving, investigation, and experimentation.

I don’t feel limited by formal or physical structures, the boundaries of any particular studio or set of tools.

So, maybe I have a bit more of a nomadic approach rather than I’m going to set up right here and spend my whole life building a church to whatever.

Left: Conversation, glass on panel, 48” w x 84” h x 2” d, 2015. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Below: Get Closer, archival digital print and flameworked glass, 26.25” w x 18.25” h x 5” d, 2010. Photo courtesy of the artist.

GAS: What are you currently working on in your studio?

DW: Well, I feel good because I have a number of new projects I am interested in: new frit painting subjects, sculptural botanical flameworking, and kind of mixed process 2+ dimensional works. Where I’m the most active at the moment is trying to build alluvial forms. The dry creek bed, the beach at low tide, looking down a watershed from a plane, all very similar, representations of water flowing. Not the water itself but how it impacts the things it comes in contact with, in large and small scales.

I’m not sure I’ll be successful in building these forms to the level I’d like to, and maybe that gets into the previous question because when I render I like to do it with some level of accuracy. And, if I am able to build these forms I am not yet convinced they will be interesting enough to me. But I’ve thought about it enough to get into trying and I’m having fun with it. Working with the relationship between glass and sand (in composition and form), and my interest in nature and the elements, I fight my tendency to be too literal while valuing clear statements and a sense of wonder

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and not knowing. I guess is the place I like to work the most is creating work honoring how important our relationship to nature is without overtly talking about it.

More practically, I’m still setting up and dialing in my studio space, since I recently moved from Portland to Seattle. So, I’m doing a lot of work there.

David Willis has been working with glass for 25 years. He currently operates his studio and resides with his family outside Seattle, WA. For more information, visit his website davidwillisglass.com.

Memorial (a heavy heart but full), flameworked glass, 9” w x 7.5” h x 4.5” d, 2018.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

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MORE RAINBOWS... MORE STRESS

by David Fox

A dewar seal with a re-entrant tube and a vacuum tip off seen through a polariscope filter. Photo: David Fox

If you have the right tools... the right angle... the right way to look, this tool, a light box with two polarizing films, you allow space between in order to fill that space with a transparent thing. You view, investigate, discover, and realize where stress is within a glass thing. It’s a good tool…useful, and has great potential beyond its intended function.

If you stick a piece of clear glass under a polariscope you may see something, you may not.

More rainbows... more stress.

Over the years I’ve had to use this device to check if my glass has been annealed out, stress relieved, made well to completion. I’ve even looked over a polariscope and had the stress crawl up to my shoulders just by accepting what I’ve seen through the lens. (echoes) “That looks pretty bad… that’s not going to last long…

I need to redo this.” My orders are to check

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A borosilicate scrap viewed through a polariscope. Photo: David Fox

if the stress within a glass that I make is relieved, gone, annealed out. I have to check to make sure it is stable. Otherwise, disaster could happen later on…the glass could break, check, fail.

More rainbows... more stress.

Any scientific glassblower knows what this device is and does, and perhaps has the understanding of how to use it. “Here, you can see how you over worked it here, but didn’t even this part out…”

So, what happens when one doesn’t? The scientific glassblower who knows how to prevent strain and stress in glass may never need to use a polariscope… but the artist, the artist may need to use it just to remember how far there is to go, how much more there is to see beyond the answer you’d expect, you’d hope for, you didn’t want.

More rainbows... more stress.

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Where goes stress, goes strain. The hiddenness that needs relieved… plenty to look at. The light box and color of film enhance things as much as they expose.

Why not use it as a plinth, as a disco ball or night light? Oh yes, because that’s not what it was made for. So much energy and time and thought put into to something that loses its intention with a swipe, a french fry, a careless time thought that should really be a feeling…

More rainbows... more stress.

What happens when an intended device is used with a different intention?

One just as effective, one just as revealing, enlightening, exposing. You try to control what is being viewed under there. Can you control what strain is put into glass? How much...enough to write a word that is a direct correlation of what it is I’m doing to a glass thing? It’s much like what people do to themselves, others, other’s others

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and such. Or, one day you look through something and actually look at the thing you’re looking through while also looking through it. Focus in and out…through and back. What more can you see when you adjust your mind’s eye, and your optical capacity opens to metaphorical interpretation...your imagination. If you place something under a polariscope, what will you see… place a piece of glass under there… place anything. move it around… put tension on it. Break it. Just know what that feeeeeeelsss like. It’s not really about the glass sometimes.

A hand outline strain drawing on a slumped borosilicate tube made into a sheet viewed through a polariscope.

Photo: David Fox

More rainbows... more stress

Will it offer you more to use or just give you an answer? Or maybe, how you let down your shades, sneak past your glasses, turn off the lights, stand upside down, sideways, cross your eyes, cover one eye and read the smallest row of letters.

Can you control it? Sure. Can you draw with it? Sure. How long until it breaks, until it shatters, until it screams at you to stop?

It’s really about the effect something has on something, isn’t it? Ah, but what is hidden beneath the surface… or disguised, or camouflaged, or covered up… tucked away, layered over to push down and out, let go, to remove the visual stain of a deep wound.

You most often need the right light, lens, and device to see it, to read the invisible that many do not see. When you view things in a polariscope you can somehow empathize, identify, relate, or perhaps…

A polariscope view of a solid borosilicate rod with spheres on the ends.

Photo: David Fox

More rainbows... more stress.

David Fox is an artist currently working as a scientific glassblower in Indiana.

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IF THE LORAX WAS A CHAINSAW ARTIST …WOULD HE STILL SPEAK FOR THE TREES?

by Rebecca Chernow The argument could be made that it’s impossible to find an artwork that isn’t a form of appropriation of some kind, and while not all appropriation is damaging to its parent culture, there is a fine line between crass commercialization and homage. Current discussions about cultural appropriation in the arts tend to be focused on the fact that it is usually dominator culture borrowing and commodifying the most attractive motifs from minority or historically disadvantaged cultures, consequently reinforcing colonial power structures. Much of the debate comes down to a form of ownership: Who has the right to represent a certain culture? It helps to examine the disparity between who has paid the price and who is receiving the credit. In that imbalance lies the injustice.

The collective awareness of subjugation and omission of repressed peoples from history is mirrored by the recognition of debatably the most historically mistreated subject of them all: Mother Nature. In terms of representation: Who speaks for the Earth? And how?

How something is done involves a choice, and any choice comes with implications and carries meaning.1 Perhaps most of all when it comes to making art, the medium and the message are intertwined.

As more information is divulged about the largely obscured industrial processes that deliver us our daily and luxury goods, the more we discover that many (if not most) things humans do, want, and make is negatively affecting the environment at a staggering scale. The end of the world is no longer some pseudo-futuristic event of Biblical proportions, but a daily global reality. Extinctions, irreversible climate change, sweeping damage to indispensable ecosystems, and islands of garbage engulfing the Earth’s oceans herald an epoch that some geologists are now calling the Anthropocene – a time when humans are the driving geological GASNEWS

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Tom Moore, Inverse Hooligan and Colossal Hooligan (2018), 38 x 32 x 16 cm, 34 x 27 x 14 cm, hot joined, blown and solid glass. Photo: Steve Wilson

force on the planet, whose indelible impact will remain visible in the strata of discarded plastics, metals, concrete, and glass for millennia.2 As we recondition ourselves to recognize and dismantle the coded systems of oppression rooted in our languages, histories, and arts in order to stop undergirding dubious institutions, so too should we reject ecological appropriation, where the concept of the preservation of Nature is relayed through a medium that accomplishes the exact opposite. As consumers of culture and material goods, we should disparage the product or individual that claims to deliver us a sharpened awareness of global collapse and respect for nature, but in reality adds to the catastrophe with one hand while posturing as activism with the other.

The objectification of the natural world by the creation of representative forms is very different than the objectification of environmentalism by posing as a representative for ecological reform. Many works of

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art are inspired by the beauty, complexity, and mystery of the natural world that has captivated humankind since the first Homo sapiens made a mark on a cave wall. It is not the imitation of Nature that is profiting from the suffering of its subject.

It is those works that critique the cycle of extraction, production, waste making, and profit as if they stood outside of it that are problematic.

This climactic moment in human history calls for a critical dialogue concerning what truly represents the fundamental values of environmental stewardship, in all media, in all things, versus what is capitalizing on the distress of “apex guilt” while perpetuating the problem.

Art and more specifically glass art – made by few, purchased by even less – is a relatively miniscule contributor to the glut of ecological appropriation in the global marketplace. Compared to “green” cleaning products, hybrid cars, and organic foods and textiles, glass sculpture’s role in the mainstream dream to buy a zero-

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Tom Moore, Installation shot of Agents of Incongruity exhibition. People wearing Bird Helmet and Ambiguous Animal Helmet, (2017, 2016), 39 x 58 x 34 cm, 37 x 52 x 40 cm, hot joined, blown and solid glass. Photo: Grant Hancock

emission existence is trivial. However, it serves as a tidy microcosm of a blind spot in the effort to remedy our current state of chronic planetary dysphoria.

There are few individuals who are both cognizant of the ecological cost of their studio practice and are responding with real action to counterbalance their creative activity (e.g. Tom Moore, pictured above) compared to artists who profess awareness but execute somewhat tone deaf exercises (see Catherine Rahn’s “Sea Stars” project pictured below) that end up contributing to the detritus, fuel consum-ption, and noise of erroneous activism to express their love for nature.

There is not enough space here for an exhaustive list of specific works in glass that give the impression of advocating for nature by explicitly or implicitly representing hot-button ecological issues. It’s not a difficult task to identify these self-serving objects for what they are: luxury crafts predestined for conspicuous consumption by the wealthy, that are manufactured in an intrinsically wasteful process, demand non-renewable, non-recyclable, often toxic materials, as well as a tremendous amount of fossil fuel, and are promoted as tokens

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of conscientious objection to ecological ruin and gratuitous resource extraction.

The theme of the fragility of nature (as opposed to simply showcasing its delicacy) is also a popular trope in glass works that pluck at the heartstrings of the would-be environmentalists in the room.

Traditional glass making in its myriad forms is a process so disconnected from any authentic act of conservation that to speak to the subject in a representative manner in that particular medium is absurd.

Additionally, these works impose a double standard where the viewer is prompted to feel shame or appreciation that might inspire a change in their every-day behavior that the artist is somehow exempt from in their high-impact studio practice.

Such objects can be appreciated for technical virtuosity or aesthetic appeal, but not for their content, which is naïve at best, and exploitative on a level that is no longer tolerated when it comes to the appropriation of human culture. Why should it be acceptable when applied to the more-than-human world?

Considering that there is slim to no chance of a moratorium being placed on the creation of such oxymoronic works, how GASNEWS

might the ecologically minded individual go about restoring equity with the planet that underwrites these resource-hungry goods? Should the artists pay some kind of carbon tax to offset the footprint they surely do not wish to leave? Or perhaps it should be the gallerists who take up the cause by donating a percentage of their portion of the exhibition sales to organizations that are improving the health of the planet like the National Wildlife Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, or Friends of the Earth? Should it be the responsibility of the collectors to be financial supporters of the causes they like to decorate their homes with images of? Most likely they already do, but a more useful avenue would be to put their money where their ideals are instead of into a sculpture of a polar bear clinging to a crystal ice shelf.

However earnest and fervent the appreciation for Nature might be felt by all of the parties involved, monetary indulgences don’t ultimately remove the cognitive dissonance and dishonesty embedded in the objects themselves.

There is such an abundance of accessible information and imagery depicting pressing environmental issues

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Catherine Rahn, Diver and installation of glass Sea Stars (1998), blown glass near Wakaya Island, Fiji. Photo: Cat Holloway, courtesy of William Warmus

Catherine Rahn, Glass Octopus (1998), glass assembled 50 feet underwater into a coral reef. Photo: Cat Holloway, courtesy of William Warmus

that we have reached a saturation point.

Additional souvenirs of peak awareness are unnecessary. Instead, we should demand more than symbolic gestures.

As the vanguard of human culture, art – and artists – should know and do better.

For more information about the Sea Stars project, as told by William Warmus in his essay Deep Glass, published in the January 1999 issue of Glass Art magazine, visit: http://www.warmus.org/rahn.htm

Rebecca Chernow holds a BFA degree with a focus in glass from Alfred University and an MFA degree from the University of Washington’s 3D4M program. She is an artist and educator currently based in the Pacific Northwest.

Notes: 1. Janet Koplos, Reconsidering Glass (Glass Art Society Strattman Lecture, 2006), 43.

2. Robert MacFarlane, Underland, (W.W. Norton & Co, 2019), 76.

For more information on Tom Moore’s carbon-neutral certification, visit: http://www.environment.gov.au/ system/files/pages/9bda7c09-ff01-4713-a8eb926e0ee0aaaa/files/tom-moore-pds.pdf

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HOT AIR: BLOWN AWAY HAS COME AND GONE AND EVERYTHING IS TOTALLY FINE

by David Schnuckel The word came out around mid-Summer of 2018. A reality show called Blown Away was calling for applicants to participate in the first glass-related competitive television series. A production slated to air first on a Canadian specialty television channel in early 2019, then promised to live on the streaming service leviathan, Netflix.

From the 2018 announcement of Blown Away, many of us from the various facets of the glass art community were at our screens, almost simultaneously, experiencing double-takes on what we just read. In a widespread anticipatory response, our hands moved toward our heads, holding some mental space along a broad spectrum somewhere between deeply concerned and somewhat curious.

Some of us scratched our heads at it.

Some of us were suspicious. Some of us got up in arms about it. And, some of us shrugged our shoulders in a gesture of non-committal optimism.

At first, it seemed like a bizarre collision between two seemingly disconnected artistic worlds; the visual narrative of televised competition and the hand/ material creative experience of hot glass working. Yet, it felt like a surprisingly appropriate partnership between a genre of television that’s geared to pull forth spectacle from any circumstance and a process of media-specific making that’s inherently built on flair and dramatics.

Hmmm…

The palette of response from our community between the time of Blown Away’s call for applicants and its production was interesting. Anticipatory thoughts were being posted; speculative opinions being published. Mostly, there were unsupported theories vocalizing impending doom, calamity, and disaster, perhaps, for the contestants. Yet, definitely, the speculative worry was aimed at the reputation and a perceived sanctity to the field as a whole.

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It was inevitable: a genre of television built on spectacle and a process of media-specific making visually steeped in performative flair finally intersected.

Photo: David Leyes.

Courtesy of marblemedia.

Meanwhile, time passed. Contestants were discreetly chosen. The show went into production. The buzz built up. The series aired quietly in Canada (thanks, friends!), then loudly dropped on Netflix for the rest of us. The binge watching commenced.

Spoilers ran amok the next day. And in a very few short weeks after its July 12th, 2019 release, the Blown Away craze for the glass community had ultimately… vanished. As a cultural phenomenon, it dissipated as fast as it was consumed.

But not without lots of interesting conversational tidbits available to chew on and chew over if anybody wanted to after the fact.

And now there’s a few worth teasing out…

It is mid-September as I write this, in a glass world where the Blown Away dust has settled. And, honestly, it has kind of been forgotten about already. As I look around the various corners of our field in this post-Blown Away era – checking all our vital signs after surviving the prophetic near-death experience I was reading that Blown Away would be in the late Summer of 2018 – I’m sorry to report that everything seems…totally fine.

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Nothing disastrous has struck the honor of the glass community, the culture of the hot shop, or even the standing of the contestants in the show. So, I can’t help but think back on the essays/posts/blogs written prior to the show’s airing; the ones written with voices rich with pessimism and dread and assumed catastrophe... all neatly cloaked under a hyperactively virtuous (vitreous?) “state of concern”: …Oh my god, will a reality show format undermine how glass is understood by a non-glass viewing public? Oh my god, will it compromise the efforts of contemporary glass to be seen as a credible platform for serious art making? Oh my god, what will words like “winner” and “champion” in relation to a broader art conversation imply to a non-artist viewer? Oh my god, blah blah blah blah blah…

Yikes.

The show (and even the idea of it) might not have been our collective cup of tea, but it wasn’t remotely close to being the saboteur of taste and integrity to our field as was heavily prophesied so early on. In fact, I was (and am) less concerned about

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Host Nick Uhas (front left), Resident Evaluator Katherine Gray (front right), and the ten Blown Away contestants.

Photo: David Leyes. Courtesy of marblemedia.

being embarrassed by the show as I was (and am) at the heavy-handedness of its wildly unfounded criticisms prior to its airing. And, now that I think about it, even the ones posted and published here in the afterwards of its Netflix drop.

In turn, I’ve been going out of my way to build several cases for Blown Away.

My estimation is not based on what it is as a television series, but its function as a barometer of sorts. It is clearly an underestimated device to help identify and gauge various aspects of cultural phenomena within our field that have surfaced because of it. Talking points not directly involving the content of Blown Away, but ones revolving around its existence altogether are noteworthy. For instance, the approach in squawking “the sky is falling” in regard to the show tells me about us: Overdramatic reactions to Blown Away (before, during, and after…) reveal that we glass people love making noise, especially when strongly opposed to something that’s GASNEWS

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beyond anyone’s control. We not only love making noise, but we love doing so in the shape of a well-dressed, publicly delivered case, and probably because we’re small enough of a field to be heard… and probably because we’re rag-tag enough of a field to be easily impressed by anything that looks like it took a little bit of work to put together. In turn, the opportunity to be heard – let alone to be given credit as having something worth listening to – is currency in this small pond of ours because we love acknowledgement…especially when it comes to making a point.

In fact, I’m delightfully demonstrating that right now in writing this piece…and, by the way, loving every minute of it.

I’m sensing a bit of portraiture in the form of a two-sided coin that Blown Away is putting forth about us as a community, even if in a roundabout way. To be fair to all of us who have strong opinions about the series in one way or another, one of the best things about us Blown Away revealed to me was that despite conflicting points of

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view as a community, we universally hold strong to our glass-related convictions. As aggravating as it can be when our opinions collide, the saving grace is that, ultimately, it indicates that the common denominator is that we care (quite passionately so) about this discipline that we’ve committed our time, energy, and, quite possibly, a significant part of our lives to.

In turn, almost ironically, one of the worst things about us Blown Away revealed (both in our responses to it and even demonstrated in the show itself) is that we take ourselves, what we do, and what we’re a part of as glass people way, way too seriously at times.

The thought of representation in this “reality television series” paradigm is an interesting one. I was never concerned with whether or not Marblemedia or Netflix or Nick Uhas and the crew would misrepresent us, the value of our processes, or our artistic objectives as media-specific practitioners to a broader viewing public.

Mostly curious, instead, is how hot shop glass culture would read to a world who may have never known it to exist before.

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Show contestant Annette Sheppard, in a making moment in an episode within the Blown Away series.

Photo: David Leyes. Courtesy of marblemedia.

And even more interesting is how Blown Away could serve as source material for ethnographic research into just how incredibly absurd, impressive, pretentious, wonderful, and bizarre of a species we might actually be.

The International Magazine of Studio Glass

David Schnuckel had applied to the Blown Away television series, and was never worried about any misrepresentation of his likeness, any compromise to his creative property, any threat to the integrity of his studio practice, or that of the glass field at large. If chosen to participate in the show, he would have definitely been eliminated very early on.

GAS RESOURCE LINKS The Glass Art Society just launched a website and is working on building new resources for GAS members.

German/ English, 4 issues p.a. 49 Euros Dr. Wolfgang Schmölders Glashaus-Verlag, Stadtgarten 4 D-47798 Krefeld (Germany) Email: glashaus-verlag @ t-online.de Web: http://studioglas.jimdo.com

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Stay tuned for updates coming in 2020.

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