Last Friday, the reception for the glass exhibition that StudioWorks is participating in had its reception at Louisville’s Weber Gallery. It was a warm and pleasant evening and our exhibition was among the first of many glass shows to open in town as a result of our participation in the celebration of Ingenious Possibilities, the 2010 Glass Art Society’s Conference in Louisville. Our exhibit is entitled “Shine” and the show dates are June 1 – July 23, 2010. The Weber Gallery is on 1151 South Fourth Street in wonderful old Louisville and so if you are in the area for the conference…please do stop by and check out the art. I think our StudioWorks artists are indeed shining brightly here!
The exhibit is in two galleries. The smaller front gallery is where you can find the display of our glass self-portraits and Carol Mueller from the Weber Gallery was nice enough to include short biographies to accompany our images. Here are some close-ups of the self-portraits along with a couple of our artists that were able to attend on a very busy night of social events. It was First Fridays Trolley Hop night and galleries and museums on Main and Market Streets were open late to the public.
This is Eric Huggins’ work which is delightful and engaging. Eric enjoyed his experiences with the new medium which is helping to stimulate his creativity in his other studio produced art.
Sally Hardman is standing in front of her work which was one of several portraits that were purchased during the reception. Way to go Sally!
Everybody loved this portrait that Terry Bishop made. It is so very Terry in being low-key and simple in a good way! This piece was so popular that it could have sold multiple times! StudioWorks will certainly make more glass pieces in the near future. This was so much fun to do!
Brad Bohannon is posed next to his self-portrait which was also purchased. The new owner works in a dental office and liked Brad’s piece because of the teeth! Brad had a really successful night with his work.
Nancy Anderson’s self-portrait is colorful and charming. Her earrings and necklace add just the right touches to set her portrait off. The earrings especially are like cherries hanging from her ears!
We certainly appreciated the support from the Zoom Group staff. Leave it to Dollie for being too animated to stand still for a photograph! Thanks Deb, Barb, and Judy for coming to “Shine”. Our StudioWorks staff members, Kevin, Vickey, and our ace volunteer Susie did a great job coordinating all the workshops with our artists.
Also on display are the vases that the StudioWorks artists made during the workshops. We have many nice examples and some of these have sold. To produce a vase, first a base sheet of glass is “fused” with other pieces of glass attached to the base sheet in a super hot kiln. This glass melts together. After cooling, the resulting fused sheet of glass is then “slumped” over a mold and refired in the kiln. The intense heat melts the glass and relaxes it over the form. Here are a couple other nice vases. These are like glass flower blossoms.
I would like to thank our partners in this endeavor for all their work and support. We certainly appreciate the Council on Developmental Disabilities and their Weber Gallery for the invitation to participate. Thanks also go out to Louisville’s Glassworks which provided the facility and equipment to produce these works. We created over fifty pieces there! I would also like to thank Bullseye Glass in Portland, Oregon for helping us with the materials. All the fused glass we used was manufactured by them. Of course all the encouragement that Zoom Group provided as well as the ongoing support of families and care givers is vital to our ongoing efforts. A few more images before closing for the moment.
Special thanks go to Jonathan Swanz for leading our workshop at Glassworks. Jonathan was a big supporter of this project and is a talented glass artist in his own right. In addition to the “Shine” exhibit, Jonathan is participating in several other gallery shows during the GAS conference in Louisville. Most of big exhibits will be opening next week and another Trolley Hop is scheduled to coincide with the Speed Museums showing of the Leight Collection. The Weber Gallery is expecting another round of visitors on that evening which will be June 10. The StudioWorks artists also produced some fine plates and I will show you those in our next post. To end, here is one of the Sun Catchers we produced during our first forays with this new medium. This one is by David Mahoney and is a stylized face complete with moustache!