Artists will take part in first Taos Glass Invitational
This art born of fire was once the secret of a few craftsmen. Glass makers guarded their techniques behind a wall of mystery. In Renaissance Italy, foundries divided up the process so that each craftsman knew only a single step. Revealing the secrets to this incendiary art form was considered an act of treason, punishable by death. Glass manufacturers from Lalique to Waterford kept their methods equally circumspect. It wasn’t until the 1970s that these artists started talking to one another, giving birth to the studio art glass movement.
This weekend, you’ll find plenty of artists displaying and demonstrating this molten medium at the First Annual Taos Glass Invitational. About 16 glass artists will migrate to the Henningsen Fine Art Gallery to display their passion for light and fire. Visitors can watch hand-blowing and lampwork demonstrations, see an architectural glass slide show and join a private studio tour.
Taos will play host to about a dozen glass artists, said Delinda VanneBrightyn, who helped organize the event with the New Mexico Glass Alliance.
In the ’70s, chemists discovered how to add chemi- cals to produce different colors without breaking the glass, said Betsy Ehrenberg, founder and president of the Glass Alliance-New Mexico. Ceramic artists began transferring their skills to glass.
“Before this, if you put a red and a blue together, they would crack because they melted at different temperatures,” she said. “In the ’70s, people built glass studios in their garages.”
Colleges and universities launched glass programs, fueling the flame.
With a flamboyance as grand as his artworks, Dale Chihuly jump-started the movement through his enormous installations and gift for publicity.
“He was important to the marketing of glass,” Ehrenberg said. “Prior to his involvement, people thought the art of glass was a little vase. He just said the bigger, the better.”
Henningsen Fine Art has been selling glass on and off for all 17 years of its existence, gallery director Monica Bouveret said. The medium appeals both to consumer practicality as well as a sense of fun, even during an economic downturn, she said.
“Painting and photography have taken a back seat to functional art,” she said. “We’ll sell a sculptured chair before we sell a photograph.”
Today, glass trends have moved toward architectural work, Ehrenberg said. Decorative glass panels double as tabletops and room dividers. And glass artists have begun adding social and political statements to their work.
Carol Savid moved from dinnerware and platters to one-of-a-kind stone and glass outdoor sculptures within her 38-year career in glass. A sculpture major in college, she learned glass-making from apprenticeships and classes. The invitational marks her first local show in about five years.
“It’s the light, for me,” she said from her Taos studio. “Light passes through it. It’s transparent, it’s translucent; it can be anything. It’s a liquid; it’s a solid.”
Savid taught herself the basics of bending and fusing. New York galleries, as well as major magazines, began picking up her glassware and dinnerware. Savid became known for using dichroid filters, developed by NASA to deflect sunlight, to create an iridescent quality.
“It was very big eye candy stuff,” she said.
But she longed to apply her fine arts training to glass. Soon she was mixing glass, metal and stone into monolithic outdoor sculptures. She calls some “light towers” and inlays them with thousands of pieces of glass into forms that make order from chaos.
“My work is very involved with light,” she said. “They’re interactive all day long. It’s constantly moving; the piece is alive.”
For Michael Miro,, who moved from Oakland, Calif., to Taos a year ago, the fascination lies in the process of working with what amounts to liquid fire.
“It’s as much of a process as you can get — from fire and ice,” he said. “It’s molten; it has interaction with light.”
Miro makes platters and plates for entertaining, leaning toward a ’50s and ’60s “Atomic age” design in a primary palette. He also incorporates an African or an Asian feel into his designs.
“I want it to be used rather than just put on a wall,” he said.
Ehrenberg, a glass collector, formed the alliance in 2006 to encourage the development of the art in New Mexico. The group also sponsors workshops and scholarships.
“In the past, artists were selling their pieces to Chicago because the galleries wouldn’t sell it here,” she said. “I’m a collector, and I don’t want to travel all over the country to see new work.”
NOTE: Many Santa Fe galleries are also participating in glass month. On March 28 at 5 p.m., Tammy Garcia and Preston Singletary will present their glass interpretations of pueblo pottery at Blue Rain Gallery, 130 Lincoln Ave., Santa Fe.
If You Go:
WHAT: First Annual Taos Glass Invitational
WHEN: March 24 - April 6
WHERE: Henningsen Fine Art Gallery, 235 Morada Lane, Toas
HOW MUCH: (575) 759-1434
