November/December 2020 **Print**

Photography by Russell Johnson

Janusz Poźniak has been blowing glass for 30 years. He embraces the frustrations inherent in working with glass and strives to produce pieces that are unique to him and impeccably made. He has also focused a large portion of his time assisting other artists with their work.

 

Photo Courtesy of the Glass Art® Society

Over the past year, the Glass Art® Society has been making intentional changes to improve the organization while also adapting to the impact of a global pandemic. Through strategic initiatives such as expanded virtual programming, reduced membership fees for students, and nonmember access to the annual conference, GAS is making the organization more accessible to people worldwide.

 

Some forms found in artwork have obvious function requirements, such as a bowl that holds liquid without tipping over, paperweights that have a flat bottom, or marbles that can’t have one. However, there are also other very important functions that artists need to consider that are not always quite as obvious, including things such as the way sales, shipping, assembly, and profit enter into the success of an artist’s studio.

 

Photography by Nick Letson and Maureen Henriques

The beads, small sculptures, and jewelry created by Maureen Henriques of Pumpkin Hill Beads tell a story of her subject matter as well as her rich creativity and passion for metalwork and glasswork. Her sense of humor and playful spirit shine through in her whimsical miniatures and her macabre jewelry components. Wildlife conservation, particularly of large African mammals, is a prominent theme in her work.

 

Photography by Gregory Williams, Linyu Mei, and James Capper

The Contemporary Glass Society, which produces its annual Graduate Review to celebrate excellence in glass art by current graduates, was unable to produce the 2020 Review due to COVID-19 restrictions. Instead, CGS has launched Glass Graduates of 2020, the Lockdown Exhibition. The work of the graduates, who have produced a dazzling and wide-ranging demonstration of their abilities and creative approaches to contemporary glass, can be viewed on the CGS website.

 

David Patchen and fellow artist Jon Moreno created a perfect combination of glassblowing, design, engineering, and craftsmanship for eight sculptures titled Dewdrops, a commission for Norwegian Cruise Line. The work is comprised of elegant crescents of glass with crystal clear spheres of “dew” clinging to them. Like dew, the spheres act as lenses to refract light and offer interesting views of the surroundings.

 

Suzanne Head uses glass in a most pure form, but she also uses whatever material will communicate the narrative. Even in her high school years, she focused on art as a tool for communication. Her work, created in layered frit with the look of painting, continues to resonate themes of femininity, animal characteristics, and human purpose.

 

Recent advances in rendering images on glass borrow from traditional screen printing techniques to reproduce fine detail and halftone images of photographs, writing, and even the artist’s own drawings. ScreenEasy, a new product developed by glass artists Becky Wills and Markina Filer, provides a very simple process that uses frameless screens to transfer enamel paint designs onto glass.

 

Photography by Dreamwalls Glass, Jonathan P. Ellgen, and Courtesy of Lakewood Cemetery Shared by Permission of the Society of American Mosaic Artists

The Society of American Mosaic Artists (SAMA) takes a look at the J&R Lamb Studios, America’s oldest continuously run decorative arts company. Lamb Studios was the creative force behind the stunning mosaic art that decorates the Lakewood Memorial Chapel, the architectural centerpiece of the Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and by many accounts contains the most perfect examples of Byzantine-style mosaic art in the United States.