GASnews Fall 2017

GASnews

FALL 2017 VOLUME 28 ISSUE 3

INSIDE

3 Letter from the President 3 Letter from the Editor 4 Boyd Sugiki: Technology in Teaching 7 Interview: Justin Ginsberg 9 A New Vernacular: Young Glass 2017

Speaks to the Trajectory of Contemporary Glass

12 We Thought the Microwave Would Change How We Cook 15 Digital Visualization 17 The Shiny New Era of Education 20 The Original Approach to Rapid Production:

Fenton Glass Comany and the Potential of Pressed Glass

21 GAS Resource Links Cover: Global Cities, Norwood Viviano, Plainwell, MI, and Penland, NC, 2015.

Collection of Corning Museum of Glass. 2017.4.4. Photo: Corning Museum of Glass

GAS news

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

Glass Art Society Board of Directors 2016-2017

Contributing Writers: Jennifer Halvorson, Tyler Kimball, Grace Miels, Jon Rees, Ian Messenger Schmidt, David Schnuckel Editor: Michael Hernandez Graphic Design: Ted Cotrotsos*

President: Natali Rodrigues Vice President: Stephen Powell Vice President: Tracy Kirchmann Treasurer: John Kiley Secretary: Jessica Julius

Staff Pamela Figenshow Koss, Executive Director Kristin Solomon, Interim Communications Coordinator* Pamela Jaynes, Office & Volunteer Coordinator* Helen Cowart, Administrative Assistant*

Alex Bernstein Kelly Conway Matt Durran Michael Hernandez Ed Kirshner Jeff Lindsay

Lynn Read Masahiro Nick Sasaki Jan Smith Cassandra Straubing Cesare Toffolo David Willis

Student Rep: Ian Messenger Schmidt

*part time/contract

6512 23rd Avenue NW, Suite 329, Seattle, WA 98117 USA Phone: 206.382.1305 Fax: 206.382.2630 E-mail: info@glassart.org

Web: www.glassart.org

Š2017 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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PRESIDENT’S LETTER

EDITOR’S LETTER

Dear Fellow Members, I’m writing to you from North Lands Creative Glass in Lybster, Scotland where I’m participating in an International Student Symposium with students from all over North America and Hong Kong. We are about half way through the program. As the work comes off the torches and out of the kilns, our anticipation grows to see what the final outcomes will be!

First off, let me just say how excited I am in my new role as GAS President. Working as a GAS Board member has been challenging and incredibly gratifying. I’m a Canadian who has been working with glass since the mid 1990’s. I earned my undergraduate degree in 1999 from the Alberta College of Art & Design. I worked at Starfish Glassworks, a production studio and gallery, for two years before starting my Masters at the Australian National University, in Canberra, Australia.

After receiving my degree, I moved back to Canada where I continued to make work and began teaching at ACAD, where I am currently an Associate Professor. I became a member of GAS in 1995.

In January, the GAS Board had a retreat to revise our strategic plan. We identified some key points, such as growth, diversity, and internationalizing our society. Through this work, we determined the need to develop five GAS staff positions. Two positions are open right now: Operations & Program Manager and Development & Membership Specialist. You can find the job descriptions on our website. Please encourage anyone you know who is qualified and interested to apply.

We’ll have another call coming out shortly for the other positions. The goal of all of this planning and hiring is to make sure that we have an office set up with the staff and support that is needed to serve the needs of our community for years to come.

I’m excited to report that a few of us went to Murano, Italy in March for a planning meeting. It has been an incredible privilege to organize this conference. We’re all in awe of the generosity, openness, and excitement that we were greeted with on the island. This is truly a historic moment for our community. I encourage you all to think about coming to the conference. Keep in mind that there are only 1,500 tickets available, so if you are interested in attending please be sure to get your tickets early! Registration will open later this fall.

Lastly, for those suffering from the effects of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, our thoughts go out to you. Please remember that through your membership you have access to the GAS at CERF+ fund.

Visit this website for more details: https://cerfplus.org.

Technology has become an essential part of our vocabulary.

As artists and makers, design, fabrication, and even smart phone technologies offer a new language of expression and a broader range of tools.

Many artists and educators have begun to explore the possibilities of integrating tech tools into glass practice through research, visualization, and production. While this has a lot to do with their recent accessibility, artists are drawn to these tools for a wide range of reasons. For some, the appeal is in the potential for visualization and realization of very specific forms. While for others, there is a drive to explore the language of digital tools or the implications of living in a culture that is greatly mediated by technology.

This issue of GASnews is dedicated to exploring the ways that technology has impacted glass-based practices in art making and education. In an interview with the artist, Justin Ginsberg offers his approach in concept and context of utilizing various technologies. Grace Meils provides a look into Boyd Sugiki’s development of his TAG Grant, directed toward creating digital animations of technical glassblowing techniques. Jon Rees describes the practices and broad range of software used by some of the leading artists using technology for the design and production of glass. Finally, David Schnuckel gives an illustrative overview of the Young Glass 2017 exhibition at the Glasmuseet Ebeltoft in Denmark, describing the evolution of processes and techniques that have come to epitomize glass making throughout the world.

There is a trend our community toward utilizing and embracing technology and innovative problem solving through computer aided systems. These tools offer some exciting new avenues for research in the design and production of glass.

From the illustration of tradition glassblowing techniques to water jet cutting, it’s exciting to discover the ways that technology is aiding the visualization and fabrication of the glass art industry. While the artist’s approach to glassmaking will undoubtedly have a predominance of the hand as the most essential tool, digital technology provides a bridge to innovative approaches of making and progressive ideas that reflect our culture.

All the best,

Michael Hernandez

Natali Rodrigues President

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BOYD SUGIKI: TECHNOLOGY IN TEACHING

by Grace Meils The 2016 Glass Art Society Technology Advancing Glass (TAG) grant was awarded in December to Seattle artist Boyd Sugiki.

A highly respected teacher in the glass community, Sugiki will use the $5,000 grant to transform his two-dimensional teaching diagrams into complete glassblowing tutorials overlaid with threedimensional animations.

Sugiki’s project is the next step in the evolution of the teaching materials he uses for classes and workshops throughout the world. He recalls a class he taught at Ezra Glass Studio in Fukui, Japan in 2002 as the beginning of the process. While in Japan, he noticed that he was using a lot of chalk drawings and directional gestures to work around the communication barrier. The following year, while teaching at Pittsburgh Glass Center, he created a series of simple linear drawings to indicate the position of the jacks and direction of force, which were helpful even without the challenge of a language barrier. The drawings showed pieces from various perspectives and highlighted what he thought were

Early stage of illustration process for bowl tutorial

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Example of Boyd Sugiki’s linear teaching illustrations for bowls

Further progress on 3-D animation for bowl tutorial.

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the most important things to focus on in the glassblowing process. He began to distribute the drawings as handouts in all his classes. Throughout the years, he also added written instructions for many of these highlighted areas of focus.

Alongside handouts, Sugiki has a series of sketches he uses as the basis for classroom discussions. He found himself recreating these sketches in each new studio and decided to create a permanent set of drawings on newsprint that he could just pin up in each school. In 2012, these materials were transformed when he received a hand-me-down iPad from his father and discovered a program called Graphic by Autodesk, which he used to create a series of clean, simple posters illustrating important considerations when making bowls, tumblers, bottles, or hour glass forms, as well as special editions for punties and straightening.

Sugiki had a vision of experiencing these instructional line drawings in motion and mentioned the idea of animating his drawings to his friend Bill Malatesta.

Several years ago, Sugiki met Malatesta, who is an engineer as well as a part time glassblower, at Pratt Fine Arts Center. It was Malatesta who suggested that Sugiki use 3-D instead of flash animation. After receiving the Glass Art Society TAG grant in December, Sugiki recruited Malatesta to create the 3-D animations.

With funds from the TAG grant, Sugiki purchased the equipment and programs necessary to undertake the project and began to build the framework for each lesson. As they have developed, the tutorials have become much more than just their 3-D animation aspect. Still in progress, the most fully developed editions are 10 to 15 minute montages of drawings, personal photos, charts and graphs, verbal instruction, and slow motion and real time video demonstrations with animations and other visual cues. Sugiki’s students will be happy to know that his unique teaching

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Example of directional indicators laid onto video in bowl tutorial

Still of 3-D animation of glass falling back on punty with gravity.

Second still of 3-D animation of glass falling back on punty with gravity.

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style and quiet sense of humor are very much part of the presentations.

Developing the rest of the content and the context in which the animations are presented has been a big project, and many of the animations are still being created. The process involves an ongoing dialogue between Sugiki and Malatesta, who now lives in the Washington DC area.

Sugiki creates video clips and a storyboard indicating where animations are needed and sends them to Malatesta, who uses a program called Blender. He begins by adding in a rough sketch of the 3-D animations and then refines them based on feedback from Sugiki. Sugiki, who describes himself as “not being especially tech savvy,” says, “There has been a steep learning curve involved with the project, which has been a crash course in all aspects of video production using iMovie, Fusion 360, and Keynote, as well as long distance collaboration with large files.”

The completed animations show that complicated technology can serve a very simple teaching purpose. Most glass classes begin with demonstrations, but as a beginner or even an intermediate student, it is not always clear what we are seeing in real time. The 3-D animations slow down and magnify the process enough to emphasize the important parts of what is happening. They not only illustrate key points in shaping various forms, but

Example of directional indicators laid onto video in punty tutorial

also show indicators of heat, directional pressure, and the intensity of pressure being applied to the glass form.

The end product will be a series of tutorials focused on content similar to Sugiki’s standard class curriculum: tumblers, bowls, punties, and “building up heat.”

The presentations resulting from this grant will be free for everyone and available to download. Some will be linked to The Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass website.

The TAG Grant was established in 2014 with the purpose of providing financial support for projects that employ a technological approach to solving a problem or researching an idea related to the field of glass art. The 2016 grant was generously sponsored by glass enthusiasts Ted and Melissa Lagried.

Grace Meils is an arts administrator and glass enthusiast in Indianapolis, Indiana.

A delegation from the Toyama Glass Art Museum was recently in Seattle and met with the Glass Art Society to announce the Toyama International Glass Exhibition 2018, a triennial international opensubmission glass art exhibition.

The deadline for submission is March 20, 2018. Look for more information to come in GASNews. Application can be found at http://www.toyama-glass.jp/en/

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INTERVIEW: JUSTIN GINSBERG GASnews: Please discuss your current project.

Justin Ginsberg: My current project has involved an ongoing two-year research and development of custom computer algorithms, CNC, and 3-D printing technologies as a means to interpret data, information, and statistics into physical objects and vice versa. I was inherently a bit resistant to utilize digital technologies and in particular digital fabrication.

Now I understand it as a tool. I am a maker. I learn by working with my hands.

I have begun to recognize that the digital tools are simply a small part of a process.

The ability to handwork things before, during, and after has really opened up possibilities that would never have been possible.

Pursuit of Happiness (Performed at the Chrysler Museum of Art), 2016. Photo: Echard Wheeler

GAS: Technology has created a significant evolution in the way that artists approach thinking, designing, and making. What opportunities and pitfalls lie in creating art mediated through technology?

JG: In some ways, the digital revolution refutes comments such as, “Everything has already been made.” and “Everything is derivative.” Using new technology, new processes, and living with many possibilities for innovative progress will certainly mark this era – The 21st century, the Digital Age, as the next significant art movement. At least that’s what I like to think. In a recent project completed at S12 Galeri in Bergen, Norway, I translated an entire book using the Google Translate app on my phone. The book has never been translated into English or any other language. I used this translation (or rather the potential mistranslation) in order to create a hand bound limited edition book titled “Considerations and Ants.” Even

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the title was mistranslated by the app.

I utilized the pitfalls as a way to construct, extrude, or imagine potential meaning.

Another example of technology marking era and context of the work would be from Mark Zirpel and Amie McNeel’s exhibition at Madart in Seattle in 2016. Their collaborative process combined kinetic objects, installations, and utilized satellite data/ information as a means to drive and manipulate the work. This technology (or at least accessibility to this technology) is relatively new. Thus the work simply could not have been made during any other art period. The specialty residency program at the Corning Museum of Glass sponsored

by Corning Inc. has given artists like Anna Mlasowsky, materials to work with that have NEVER been accessible to artists before.

The opportunity to work with new materials and new technology will inherently produce new works – unlike anything that has been seen in the history of art.

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GAS: Your work explores physical boundaries of the material properties of glass. What experiences are you shaping for the viewer?

JG: You can’t easily get around the beauty of glass. Even a broken glass has a certain alluring aesthetic quality, which always seems to be amplified over any potential meaning. Artists like Maya Lin and Robert Smithson had some success at employing this in their work. In some ways, I accept this as a quality of the material. Of course artists have de-beautified glass with things like scavo, or just destroying the material.

My work utilizes beauty to lure viewers into seeing something that was unexpected, terrifying, unnerving, and uncomfortable. It takes the preciousness out and forces them to confront some other feeling besides beauty and awe. (I hope.) The work also reflects my own fascination with glass as a material.

Every couple of years, I try something, see something, or read something that gives me a shocking moment of realization that I know very little to nothing about glass. I like these reminders. I allow for these humbling experiences to drive my curiosity and push my work forward.

Light of Other Days (Installed at the Mary Moody Gallery, Canyon, TX), glass, digital video, projector, 50' x 10' x 15', 2015. Photo: Justin Ginsberg

Mechanical Compression of Time and Space, Video documentation of a performed action, C-Clamp, glass, polarized lenses, 2015.

Photo: Justin Ginsberg

GAS: Technology, from scientific equipment to smart phones, appears often in your work. What part does technology play in your studio practice?

JG: I am certainly interested in the overlaps and dialogue between the scientific and artistic practices. Particularly, as we begin to try understanding what a material is, how and why it operates, and what to expect. I like the unexpected. Even more extraordinary at times, science doesn’t seem to have immediate answers for why.

I find this as a means to engage viewers – to confront their own understanding of the world. Recently, this has been done by physically peeling away the surface of understood items of comfort, revealing a type of ugliness, rottenness, and uncomfortableness. Previously, light was a primary focus of my research. This goes beyond the obvious that light and glass work so well together aesthetically.

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I’m interested in the role light plays in understanding reality. As we are entering an era of trying to digest the quantum realm, it is even more interesting. I often reference the double-slit experiment, which was first used to prove that photons operate as both particles and waves (or more recent experiments suggesting that a single photon of light can interfere with itself.) Human awareness/consciousness might affect the result like opening Schrodinger’s box. These things suggest or bring up ideas that may suggest that our concept and understanding of the physical world is not complete. I think artists play a role in this realm of thinking. Other GASNEWS

recent works, such as the performance I conducted at the Chrysler Museum of Art in December 2016, specifically confronted how cell phones, immediate inter-connectedness, play a role in both connecting and disconnecting society.

While we may be able to immediately talk to (message, video chat, etc.) anyone at any time with this technology, we may be also disconnecting from our physical present self and surroundings. We are addicted to the digital light, our phones, TV, and bright flashy screens. It’s not necessarily a commentary that takes a side that it is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but rather something to think about.

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A NEW VERNACULAR: YOUNG GLASS 2017 SPEAKS TO THE TRAJECTORY OF CONTEMPORARY GLASS

by David Schnuckel One of the most exciting barometers within contemporary glass was presented this past June, providing a new measurement of which the field is expanding. Young Glass 2017 is the fourth installment of a competitive juried exhibition established, organized, and hosted by Glasmuseet Ebeltoft housed in Ebeltoft, Denmark.

The exhibition premise is unique in its vision on a couple of fronts. The first is the intent to seek innovative approaches of working with glass from practitioners specifically under the age of 35. The second is that this is a decennially occurring opportunity. It only comes around every ten years.

Due to these distinctive conditions, Young Glass functions in the short-term as an opportunity to highlight the diversity of approach and accomplishment of a budding generation of artists and designers who challenge and redefine conventional glass practice. In the long-term, the decade in between each Young Glass event noticeably documents the rate at which our field changes from decade to decade.

Not only from a technical standpoint in what is done with glass, but in the evolution of ideas and the creative impulse its application is in service to.

Following the opening of Glasmuseet Ebeltoft in 1986, founder Finn Lynggaard shared an interest with several colleagues to initiate a strategy to provide recognition and support for up-and-coming glassworkers. One that would also suggest the future of the field, as seen in the work of those who could potentially be paving the way. In turn, the first iteration of Young Glass was launched in 1987, putting forth a call for applications to be reviewed by a jury of established international glass artists.

The precedent to have a rotating selection committee was set to follow in 1997 and replicated again in 2007.

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Opening day of Young Glass 2017 at Glasmuseet Ebeltoft (Ebeltoft, Denmark).

educators, and writers in the field. Jurors for Young Glass 2017 included Susan Warner, Artistic Director at the Museum of Glass (USA), Maja Heuer, Museum Director of The Glass Factory (Sweden), Jeffrey Sarmiento, Artist and Program Leader of the University of Sunderland (United Kingdom), and Dan Mølgaard, Executive Director of Glasmuseet Ebeltoft (Denmark).

Young Glass 2017 includes 57 artists from 326 applicants. It’s a highly international show representing 18 countries. The work within the show is as equally diverse. No matter the approach of how each exhibition participant has engaged glass, terms like craftsmanship and tradition are as honored as they are challenged.

When it comes to object making, work within the show under this umbrella maintains a reverence and a highly acute sensibility towards excellence in glass working protocol. Whether oriented in a sculptural or design-based pursuit, work that culminates in the object applies a much more refined handle on a wide variety of glassworking processes than ever before. Approaches to glassblowing, coldworking, flameworking, kilnforming, and imaging withhold a highly refined VOLUME 28, ISSUE 3

approach to things like surface and form (O’Neill), life-like representations of the natural world (Skyriver), cultural referencing and iconographic commentary (Peterson), and sculptural narrative (Deleurme).

Even in the case where glass objects are being made, there are instances where glass is utilized as a supplementary material or a component instead of a primary focus within a time-based work (Weinberg). Glass is also being found or in some particular cases even repurposed.

One example is debris resurrected from pulverized uselessness along the bed of a lap wheel is transformed into highly purposeful in the formal structure of a work (Thebault).

More often than not, when objects are at play, it’s work that isn’t taking on the shape of identifiable forms or engaging the laborious glory of skill for its own sake.

Not because “it’s cheap” as famously noted by our Studio Movement forefather, but because the sophistication of the questions these young artists are asking by way of glass is collectively broader than ever before. Pursuits in beauty for the sake of beauty seem passé. Symbolism and intentional meaning seem dated.

Work geared towards the explicit or

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Opening reception of Young Glass 2017 at Glasmuseet Ebeltoft (Ebeltoft, Denmark).

straightforward nearly extinct. The legacies of the easy read and the one-liner have evolved into a level of thinking and making that demand more time and consideration of one’s general viewing.

One family of work within the show exemplifies advanced technical capability equally as it does the imaginative inquiry that perpetuates it. The other family of work maintains a similar thoughtfulness and complexity of intent, but puts reverence for material, process, skill, and the object in the backseat to chance the experimental and/or phenomenology. As the scale of artistic vision in Young Glass 2017 indicates new breakthroughs in what working with glass now means; it also showcases a broader vocabulary of ideas and resolve in using it.

The rising popularity between glass and performance, projection, and video are all accounted for. Non-object works that speak to live action art experience between artist and audience (Roux), multi-media installations projecting the beautifully redundant labors of physical activity (Houghton), and the blatantly tasteless merging of glass disaster and cinephilia (Skrott) are all wonderful examples of each respectively.

Even beyond these genres of artmaking are interesting glimpses into the young glass practitioner’s consideration of

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the body. One approach is in wearable work. Thinking of glass as fabric, the artist uses the transparent garment as an opportunity to speak towards ideas of exposure and vulnerability (Gonjo). Other works culminate in objects, performances, and documentation of the human body performing glass-related tasks (Feracci), engaging common day-to-day occurrences with glass-based extensions (Rikken), or visualizing the negative space of one’s body through glassblown impressions of face and torso (Kudel) also abound.

In thinking about the body in relation to glass from a material engineering angle, it’s interesting to see work that merges the poetic consideration of place, the raw ingredients within it, and how that culminates in fascinating work rooted in glass chemistry (Jahncke). Another work along the same spirit of merging art and science creates an opportunity to view chemical reactions as they come and go in an Arduino programmed temperature changing chamber hosting Sodium Acetate, a sophisticated glass display case of constant crystallization and thawing activity (Kubelková).

Speaking of digital tools, new technology is more readily integrated within the work of Young Glass 2017. Aside from what equipment video and projection requires to exhibit work of that nature, manufacturing GASNEWS

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Opening reception of Young Glass 2017 at Glasmuseet Ebeltoft. (L-R): Jean Thebault, Chimneys. Ida Wieth, Both Sides Now. Michie Kagajo, Seihitsu and Meguru. Kateriin Rikken, You Are What Your Grandmother Ate.

processes such as water jet cutting glass (Dickson) and 3-D scanning and printing processes (Arday) are tools that have been added to the young practitioner’s arsenal within a traditionally tactile field of making. Time-based sensors, motionactivated sensors, kinetics, sound, circuitry and lighting are also becoming standard accessories. This is not only a counter to the customarily static nature of exhibited glass, but an opportunity to heighten the sensory experience within a viewing of work to places beyond the visual.

To think about what in the past 10 years has potentially impacted or influenced the direction in which young practitioners are approaching glass in Young Glass 2017 is equally intriguing. The educational changes, economic tragedy, industrial shifts, environmental reconsiderations, cultural movements, and influential tremors from contemporary art are just a few potential provocateurs of regional and international impression. I’m sure there are many more.

There’s so much more to assess and speculate. Not only about what the GASNEWS

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participants in this show are revealing about the trajectory of the glass field, but what it could further suggest when compared against what has defined the essence of what is deemed new and fresh in previous generations of Young Glass exhibitions. Regardless, it is my recommendation that anyone in the community who is curious where the puck of contemporary glassworking is going should do what they can to purchase a catalog of the Young Glass 2017 exhibition.

Whether young ourselves, seasoned, or somewhere in between, we all could find opportunities to reexamine our place within its progressive course.

To read more about Young Glass 2017 and see works from the exhibition, visit the website: http://glasmuseet.dk/youngglass/?lang=en David Schnuckel is an artist and educator.

He currently serves as Lecturer within the Glass Program of the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York.

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WE THOUGHT THE MICROWAVE WOULD CHANGE HOW WE COOK

by Ian Messenger Schmidt

Video still utilizing movement analysis software to compare professor and student turning movements at the bench.

In her lecture at the 2015 Minkoff Symposium at UrbanGlass, Helen Lee outlined an approach to utilizing digital tools in a glass curriculum. Her lecture demonstrated the use of an application called Technique, which films a student blowing glass then analyzes the body movements to give a similar analytical approach to how one moves with the material, like how an athlete may take to swinging a bat or kicking a ball. Lee is the head glass professor at University Wisconsin Madison where she runs the school’s Glass Lab space. Collaborating further with professors at UWM, Lee has brought instructors from other departments who teach Kinesiology. They use more high-end tools that capture movement and analyze body motion in the hot shop.

With these tools they can develop some methods for measuring the movements that comprise the skill of glassblowing.

Now this research has become possible with the award of grant money towards the study of whether glassblowing might function as a therapeutic modality for individuals with movement disorders, such as ParkinsonĘźs Disease.

The program boasts a hot glassblowing facility along with neon shop and flameworking studio. A 24-inch Graphtec plotter

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plays a key role in many of the neon projects with a variety of iPads and monitors for displaying lectures and videos where students can see their motions in the glass studio. Professor Lee also has a variety of GoPros and various motion tools that full time students have access to. Throughout UWM students have access to a ShopBot (4' x 8' PRS Alpha), 3-D printers (4 Printrbot FDM printers), laser cutter (Epilog Zing), a PC computer lab outfitted with Rhino and Maya, a Mac lab, large format Epson printers, an Inventables 1000 mm CNC router, video equipment galore, and an Occulus Rift VR headset.

In the engineering department, students have the possibility of being trained on and working with an even wider variety of fabrication tools such as water jet cutting, CNC mills, 3-D printers, and machine lathes. The School of Human Ecology has digital tools for textiles, landscape architecture, etc. There is also the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery that has a machine shop for fabricating medical devices. The Glass Lab is also poised to expand the access of a variety of tools for students with a newly built 3-D printer now located in the graduate studio space.

As both professors and students become more versed in the world of digital

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Glass translation of sound waves by UW Madison graduate student Anna Lehner. (detail). Photo: Anna Lehner

fabrication, there are multiple questions of how to approach teaching the use of a variety of machine-based processes.

Collaboration and experimentation play a pivotal role in developing the language of the digital hand in many programs with a progressive approach in augmenting glass-forming processes with technology.

Professor Lee’s program has a historic place in the studio glass movement. It is an example of how glass programs are shifting the pedagogy of glass. Began by Harvey Littleton in 1962, the program is now known as the Glass Lab. A name carried over from Lee’s time at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lee says, “I like the name a lot, because I grew up in the MIT Glass Lab. My guess is that the nomenclature may simply have grown out of the fact that both shops are in research environments. I do think that one of the strengths our program has to offer is that it’s a glass facility in a highly interdisciplinary art department in a very large tier 1 research university. There is probably an expert in any discipline a student might be interested here. Almost everyone I’ve reached out to in that context has opened their doors and been very generous with their time and expertise.”

Programs such as UWM now consider the institutions they are located in as a vast resource for students to expand their practices. The idea of a glass program being considered a laboratory creates new avenues for students to take their research.

It both promotes the idea of a crossdisciplinary approach and fulfills a more GASNEWS

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traditional learning concept that is based on technical and creative problem-solving.

Digital fabrication is only one component of the curriculum in the glass program at UWM. Professor Lee states, “I have not yet charged myself with prioritizing digital fabrication in the glass studio, because it is far more important to me to make sure the students coming out of my program can confidently walk into a shop elsewhere and make their own work, assist someone, or just efficiently take advantage of the time to think through the material and process.” Lee continues, “I also feel a little protective of that undistracted space where students have to leave everything at the door (including their phones) and just be present with the material. I think part of ‘interdisciplinary’ doesn’t mean that any given curriculum is necessarily a hybrid of old school vs. new school tools, but that there’s enough breathing room in the coursework to allow students to move freely between these disciplines and make the connections on their own.”

For the UWM Glass Lab program, the individual touch of a maker can only be discovered when the rigors of the practice of glassworking is emphasized.

Tools such as CNC routers, laser cutters, and 3-D printers are all finding a place within the practices of students and professional artists. This new language of craft has great potential to expand the vocabulary of makers into a digital space.

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individuals both fluent in technology and somewhat unknowledgeable, it is vital to identify the digital hand’s capabilities as well as its limitations. There is hope that in time, as the general level of digital fluency increases, for more balanced and productive conversations. Great wisdom regarding digital fabrication comes from Dr. Kenny Cheung, an alumnus of the MIT Media Lab Center for Bits and Atoms, who now works at NASA. Dr. Cheung stated, “The thing with technology is that people thought the microwave oven was going to revolutionize how we cook.” This statement speaks volumes about getting real about both the advantages and limitations of new technology. We should not downplay the potential for digital fabrication, but try to wrap our heads around where we are in its evolution.

Ian Messenger Schmidt is a graduate student at Tyler School of Art, who holds a BFA from Rochester Institute of Technology.

He has been involved in the glass arts community since he was 16.

Neon made by Ben Orozco, UW Madison undergraduate student. Photo: Ben Orozco

GLASHAUS The International Magazine of Studio Glass

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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DIGITAL VISUALIZATION AND PROCESS

by Jon Rees

Norwood Viviano, Global Cities (Detail), 2015, Blown Glass, Digital Drawings, Collection of Corning Museum of Glass. 2017.4.4. Photo: Corning Museum of Glass

The rise of digital visualization and production technology has created a new genre of tools for artists. Three-dimensional computer modeling programs have become an efficient tool for visually exploring ideas prior to production. In addition to allowing for the quick exploration and augmentation of ideas in three dimensions, these visualization tools allow for directly translated output of designs.

There is a myriad of visualization software available to artists, from costly high-end industrial software to free webbased applications. Some examples of extremely powerful higher end proprietary software include Rhino 3D, Autodesk Inventor, ZBrush, and Cinema 4D. Each has its own particular strengths and weaknesses in addition to a digital interface particular to that manufacturer.

However, once you have experience with one or two of these programs; it becomes GASNEWS

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very easy to learn the rest. For educators and students, most of these companies offer a deeply discounted “Educational Version.” For artists who may not be able to afford any of these possibilities, there are many versions of different “freeware” programs available. Blender is perhaps the most popular as well as most powerful freeware version of software available.

With similarities to many of the proprietary products in its interface and tools, it has the additional capability as “open source software” to be highly customized by knowledgeable users. Other less powerful and easier to learn freeware software includes Sketchup, FreeCAD, and TinkerCAD. TinkerCAD is unique as it is a web-based 3-D modeling program.

Although it lacks the power and features of many of the higher end software, it provides an easy and free way for individuals to begin learning about 3-D digital design.

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Some artists might wonder how 3-D digital design might add to their practice.

One advantage is the ability to create 3-D renderings efficiently once one becomes familiar with the software. It is also much faster to modify part or all of a project within the software than by hand.

This allows the artist to explore several iterations quickly before deciding which may be best. The renderings, while useful for our own visualization of a given project are even more effective in helping nonvisual thinkers to understand a project.

This is especially helpful when applying for public commissions or in proposals for exhibitions, when the work has not been completed yet. Another benefit is that the visualization can easily be converted into digital files that allow for output through a variety of processes.

Vanessa Cutler, in her book New Technologies in Glass, does an exceptional

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job of introducing many of these output options for the artist. Patterns and objects can be 3-D printed in a variety of materials, including glass. Wood and graphite patterns or molds can be machined via the reductive CNC (computer numerically controlled) process. Flat glass can be water jet cut into parts for assemblage into larger projects. The possibilities are vast and easily accessible. In today’s world, there is no longer a need for artists to purchase the equipment necessary for these processes. Local “maker-spaces” are popping up in many cities, where groups of individuals create a collective making environment and charge a membership fee to others who would like to use their equipment. Yet another choice for artists is to order patterns of their 3-D objects from companies like Shapeways, a NYC based company with factories across the country.

Shapeways offers the ability to produce a digital model in materials such as plastic, sandstone, wax, porcelain, and a large variety of metals.

While there are many artists today embracing these new technologies, there are still those who are hesitant to explore the possibilities of the digital. There is a concern of the loss of the hand-of-themaker in the work. Norwood Viviano’s Cities series is a good example of the coalescence of digital visualization and the handmade. In Departure and Deviation, the population growth or decline of 24 cities in the United States is portrayed through hanging glassblown objects.

Viviano begins by charting the statistical data for these cities in CAD software.

Through a 3-D rotation of the graph, generates drawings for the glassblown forms. These drawings are employed not only as working drawings for the creation of the glass objects, but also presented in the installation as blueprints, speaking to the marriage of the digital and the handmade. In Viviano’s Departures and Deviations and Global Cities series, traditional hot-glass techniques such as incalmo and reticello are used to delineate how population data can be expressed visually over time.

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Vanessa Cutler, Transformers, 2010 Water-jet cut glass, 4½” x 4½” x 13½”

One common argument is that there is less dialogue with the material when using digital visualization and output technologies in comparison to more traditional techniques. Cutler sees thehand-of-the-maker in her work through the direct input of the programming, which determines the quality and smoothness of a cut in water jet cutting. She describes an intimate relationship to the water jet machine and speaks about how her experience of the process of the machine informs the work that she designs digitally.

In a similar way, Viviano speaks to how the process of glassblowing leads to a re-interpretation of his digital drawings in Global Cities. This re-interpretation is not only a reaction to the realities of the glassblowing process, but also assists in making the complexity of the work more GASNEWS

easily understood. The hands-on engagement with glass processes augments the shape in the maker’s interpretation and is a good example of the crossover in interacting with something physically from a digital model.

As artists, 3-D digital design and production technologies can add a powerful tool to the repertoire of processes in our work without giving up a dialogue with the material or removing the artist hand from the work. It just requires a shift in how we think about making. These technologies provide a new language that artists can use to address the sketching, design, and production of their ideas.

Jon Rees is an artist/educator living and teaching in Salisbury, Maryland.

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THE SHINY NEW ERA OF EDUCATION

by Tyler Kimball A growing trend for educational glass programs is the outfitting of their facilities with package-order professionally made equipment. With sharply designed glass equipment coming from companies like Wet Dog Glass and Canned Heat, students are able to use the most refined industry technology to hone their abilities. A major concern that comes with these studios on pallets is a loss of student understanding of equipment building and functional knowledge. Without the work put into the studio and equipment, their respect and understanding of the technical knowledge may be diminished.

While no two are the same, many glass programs around the country function in similar ways to upgrade, update, and replace equipment as needed for the facility. Often, there is no full time technician and the glass program’s share of the department budget does not provide for the level of growth, development, and upkeep that the faculty insists upon. There are a couple of options: build it yourself or get funding to buy a manufactured piece of equipment.

Building equipment in-house can be a great learning opportunity, but it may have many caveats. Materials are not cheap, especially when being bought in small orders and keeping materials around requires a significant investment in funds and valuable storage space. The dedication of time and space to build equipment can be taxing to the studio. Many programs must alter workflow during the semester or build during breaks from classes. Both of these options can be taxing on the faculty and the studio. These costs must be weighed against the educational value of students being involved in the process where a great deal can be understood about the hows and whys of equipment fabrication.

Buying new equipment from a manufacturer can be difficult given their high upfront cost, yet an institution gets a lot

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Hastings College’s recently opened Jackson Dinsdale Art Center Photo: TACK Architects

more than a new slick product. The most important concerns that are taken into consideration by glass equipment manufacturers are the safety of the equipment and energy efficiency. It is paramount for schools to have equipment that is safe to run and operate. This alone makes the case for many schools to purchase furnaces, glory holes, and annealers/ kilns commercially. Most manufacturers provide excellent technical support that make running the equipment relatively easy. Student users may never understand or even think to ask about the function and design of the manufactured equipment.

However, these can also be learning tools if understood by teachers. There is a great deal of consideration that goes into the design. The leading companies are constantly innovating for better function, safety, and efficiency.

Tom Kreager, head of the Art Department at Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska, believes there is a loss of understanding with the current trend of these state-of-theart pieces of equipment being shipped into glass programs. However, he believes the

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gains outweigh the losses. “When I’m not behind the hood repairing things, I can be on hand with the students, teaching and guiding,” Kreager said, “…and we can offer a great deal more in opportunities with the facilities we have now.”

The recently opened Jackson Dinsdale Art Center at Hastings College is a 26,000 sq ft center that is equipped with the latest technology for creating in all art forms. The 2,600 sq ft hot glass studio is a sight to be seen with five glory holes, four annealers, a pipe warmer, and garage; all outfitted by Wet Dog Glass. Kreager had been building the equipment with the students for the prior decade as part of the curriculum.

Though he does feel that there is some loss in education and professionalism by skimming over the building process; Kreager knows that he is moving his students in the right direction. “It doesn’t really change their abilities. The only thing that changes is that the equipment isn’t falling apart and the glass is refined and of a high quality.” He continued, “The creativity can come out with whatever equipment you’ve got. I don’t care if you’re

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Hastings College students at work in the glass studio at the recently opened Jackson Dinsdale Art Center.

Photo: TACK Architects

using spruce pine or pop-bottle glass.”

Emporia State University is also making some transition into more advanced manufactured equipment. ESU professor Patrick Martin has found he has to dig a little shallower into the realm of teaching equipment fabrication. “We show them about basic maintenance. All of my advanced students will learn how to make doors.” Martin stated. “Sometimes we’ll go into changing elements and minor equipment building, such as pipe warmers and dust booths; though the students might ask for more advanced things like the furnace.”

Martin says, “There’s a couple reasons I’ve always taught tech-ing…a lack of funding or donations coming in, and some of these students want to build their own studio in their own town someday. We’re going to lose that in this transition, but it’s our goal to have them leave with the knowledge and experience they’d need in order to help them achieve that.”

The technical knowledge of the average student is significantly less than that of the past generations. Students are less involved with the technical functions and upkeep of studio equipment. While there are still programs that provide the

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technical knowledge to build and maintain equipment; it is diminishing as any significant part of a curriculum. Just as any program can only offer so much, it will be up to the student to seek out opportunities to learn about the technical aspects of equipment.

There is no shortage of these opportunities around the country. A number of internships exist to provide glass studio technician experience. The Chrysler Museum’s internship program offers both a technician and hot glass educational work environment in a state-of-the-art facility. There are similar seasonal and long-term internships at UrbanGlass, Corning Museum of Glass, Pilchuck, and STARworks, among others. While they are more sporadically offered, another avenue is to take classes in equipment building.

Eddie Bernard, co-owner of Wet Dog Glass, has been manufacturing hot glass equipment for over 20 years. He believes that opportunities such as the summer internship at Wet Dog, which focuses on the technical aspects of equipment building, are the best way to supplement a college program’s curriculum. Bernard does his part to keep the principles of tech work growing within emerging glassmakers

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Wet Dog Glass uses 3D modeling software to design and aid in fabrication of much of their equipment.

Photo: Eddie Bernard

by offering intensive workshops at glass institutions. Earlier this year he ran a furnace building class at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina and then again at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, New York.

In respect to the workshops he offers, Bernard says, “The students definitely have a higher appreciation for the equipment after the experience of making it. There is so much information now with the safety mechanisms in place; it really might be the best thing to learn from a seasoned professional.�

The educational environment has changed significantly over the past 20 years. Many schools once built and maintained their own equipment as a

significant part of the learning experience.

The culture of educational glass facilities is quickly moving toward the shinier, the safer, and the more efficient manufactured glass studio equipment. While there is inevitably a loss in technical studio know-how, a host of benefits are gained by owning a professionally built furnace, glory hole, etc.

Given this new model, it is hard to say what technical equipment knowledge the next generation will take with them as artists and educators.

Tyler Kimball is the owner and operator of Monarch Glass Studio in Kansas City, Missouri.

Completed glory holes ready for shipping at Wet Dog Glass. Photo: Eddie Bernard

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THE ORIGINAL APPROACH TO RAPID PRODUCTION: FENTON GLASS COMPANY AND THE POTENTIAL OF PRESSED GLASS

by Jennifer Halvorson American inventor John P. Bakewell first patented pressed glass, also referred to as pattern glass, in 1825. The process allowed for intricate patterns to be formed out of glass by using a plunger to press the molten material into a mold. Taking the hand skills and time of blowing and carving out of the equation, pressed glass became the most inexpensive produced glassware available by the mid-nineteenth century.

Today, many of the glass industries in the United States created from this innovation are now closed. The most recent is Fenton Art Glass, which stopped production in July 2011. Originally founded in 1905, Fenton Art Glass is well known for its numerous designs and color combinations. Two of its most successful series were Carnival Glass produced since 1908 and Hobnail Milk Glass, which began production in 1939.

At the height of Fenton’s production, the company employed over 700 workers as pressers, blowers, finishers, glassmixers, melters, mold maintenance, inspectors, decorators – along with those who worked in shipping, customer service, sales, and product development. The pieces created at Fenton involved hand press machines,

Fenton Hobnail Milk Glass. Ownership credit: Rakow 1000160051, Collection of the Rakow Research Library, The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY

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Fenton’s connection with the Studio Glass Movement and continuing Fenton’s legacy.

Hand Press Machine. Ownership credit: 69.7.75, Collection of the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY

free hand forming, and cold application painting. The press machines allowed for rapid production and the hand skills of the workers were used to correct errors and enhance design.

Alongside the skilled workers was the company’s archive of molds. For more than a century, Fenton purchased equipment from glass companies that were closing, accumulating close to 10,000 cast iron molds. These forms ranged from art glass vases to industrial bus lights. Many of these molds have remained on-site at the closed Fenton factory. This fall, the building will be torn down to construct a new elementary school in its place. Emptying the factory floor and storage has been a slow process with most sales of equipment and materials occurring during the summer of 2017 through three on-site auctions.

The company aims to sell a large portion of its remaining molds through an online service, with a final target date of September 8, 2017.

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In 1973 and 1974 the third and fourth Glass Art Society Conferences were hosted at the Fenton Art Glass Company. Approximately 120 artists were in attendance, which was a significant increase from the previous two years. In his article “The Roots of the Glass Art Society: The Frist Decade,” Fritz Dreisbach states, “This factory experience opened many creative avenues for us. And in 1974, we noticed some of the factory glassblowers had picked up fun ideas from watching us in 1973.” Along with gathering information on how to set up a studio, attendees also experienced Fenton’s large palette of compatible, colored glass.

With the closure of Fenton, 290 boxes of archives outlining the history of the company were recently delivered to the Corning Museum of Glass, giving the Rakow Library one of the most complete resources of the company’s history. According to the Museum blog of April 17, “This collection will not only support research about the company, but it will also meet the research needs of people exploring glass formulas and molds, marketing and design trends, and labor and industry records.”

Many studio artists are inspired by the process of pressed glass and have been researching ways to continue the practice. The process is fast, accurate, and can capture tremendous detail, which provides great potential for design, as well as sculpture and installation.

Highlighted below are some of the artisans, professionals and institutions making significant contributions to the field.

Greg Nangle – Greg Nangle of Outcast Studios in Philadelphia acquired four press machines during summer 2017, two of which were from Fenton. Greg has been pressing glass for 20 years with a

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Fenton Carnival Glass.

Ownership credit: Rakow 1000160054, Collection of the Rakow Research Library, The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY

GAS RESOURCE LINKS To access the Glass Art Society’s up-to-date resources, just click on the links below.

pneumatic press he built or with molds he designed to be pressed without a machine. Each avenue proved to have its own difficulty. Greg is pursuing a line of functional press glass objects focusing on clean geometric design. Having the opportunity to buy factory press machines will enable Greg to advance his business by providing accuracy and speed.

Ron Dick, a retired professional thirdgeneration glass presser of Fenton Art Glass. He is now a teacher and an advisor on the process of pressing glass, travelling to glass factories to consult.

His consultations range from working with factories on complicated molds to assisting individual artisans in their studios helping them to become glass pressers. He also proudly partners with academic institutions to create workshops for students and provides ongoing counsel.

Tyler School of Art will house a press machine starting this academic year.

Amber Cowan, an instructor at Tyler, purchased a press machine from Fenton Art Glass this past summer. Her sculptures and installations are highly inspired by Fenton’s history as she utilizes Fenton’s glass, sculpting original forms from broken cullet. Her sculptures have incorporated original Fenton components and now with a press machine, the work may evolve to include more of the original patterns.

Amber also hopes to slowly incorporate the press machine into the curriculum at Tyler School of Art, as there is great promise for student experimentation.

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Ball State University’s Marilyn K. Glick Center for Glass has housed two glass press machines, one purchased from Fenton Art Glass in 2013. Ball State University faculty has incorporated the use of pressed glass into the program’s academic curriculum by hosting a summer intensive workshop in 2014 and multiple small press sessions for students. The faculty also intends to create a course on the glass industry, which will be a semester-long session reviewing glass production from the mid-nineteenth century to the present.

When the press machine was introduced in the mid-nineteenth century, the technology unlocked unprecedented growth in the glass industry by enabling a cost efficient means of producing precise pre-designed glass forms. The engineered machine, in combination with its craftsmen and technicians, democratized access to ornamental glass objects. While other techniques and automated technologies have replaced the hand glass press, it remains one of the most transformative advancements in glass. Another resource for understanding the physics behind glass forming machines can be found in Glass Machines, Construction and Operation of Machines for the Forming of Hot Glass, edited by W. Giegerich and W. Trier and published in 1969.

Jennifer Halvorson is an artist, a practitioner of pressed glass techniques since 2014, and an Assistant Professor at Ball State University.

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CLASSES EXHIBITIONS AND WORKSHOPS CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS

JOB OPPORTUNITIES

FOR SALE

CALLS TO ARTISTS

OTHER OPPORTUNITIES

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