Symposium:
California Contributions: 50 Years of American Studio Glass
November 10 and 11
10-6pm

 Exhibition:
Reception and Awards Ceremony
November 10  6-9pm

The Crucible
1260 7th 
Oakland, CA 95607

The Crucible is hosting a symposium celebrating the 50th anniversary of the American Studio Glass movement: ‘California Contributions: 50 Years of American Studio Glass 1962-1212’ on November 10^th and 11^th..  Come and celebrate the evolution of the Studio Glass movement and the contributions of California artists. During the past fifty years, the studio glass movement has grown as artists have chosen glass as their medium and major universities have offered undergraduate and graduate degrees in the glass arts. This symposium offers attendees a unique opportunity to meet and learn from over 100 prominent glass artists who work and/or teach in California. The work of the conference’s presenting artists spans five decades and includes the some of the early founders and innovators of the studio glass movment and many new rising stars.  The two-day event includes glass demos, lectures, and over 50 pieces of original art in a two-day art exhibition. Check out our website for the full press packet and more information about the program: www.californiastudioglass.org.

50 Years of Studio Glass Press Event – October 17, 2012, 1:00-3pm

RSVP to Barbara Barnett: at glasscrucible@gmail.com for this special press event.  Or call Barbara at 510 835-5815.

As the San Francisco Bay Area begins its celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the American studio glass movement, the Crucible invites members of the press to a preview of the symposium. Come meet and interview prominent glass artists, see a glass blowing demonstration in the Crucible’s hot shop, and meet members of the Crucible glass comunnity.

Meet the Artists at the Special Press Event – October 17th

• Flameworker Janice Peacock, a contemporary beadmaker and teacher who creates small sculptures and beads using Italian soda-lime glass that incorporate glass powders and metal foils, giving each piece an ancient look. http://www.californiastudioglass.org/?p=432
• Gas plasma sculptor Ed Kirshner “Like Dr. Frankenstein in his lab, I hover over my glass and gas plasma work, spending many hours mixing, balancing and fine-tuning. Still, the plasma light behaves in a way that I can never completely control.” http://www.californiastudioglass.org/?p=134
• Bead-making flameworker and glass educator Harlan Simon. http://www.facebook.com/harlanglass
• Pamina Traylor is an artist and educator, currently Interim Chair of the Glass Program at the California College of the Arts where she has been a member of the faculty since 1995. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Benton Museum of Art, CT; The Museum of American Glass, NJ; The Speed Art Museum, KY; Tittot Glass Art Museum, Taiwan; and Cam Ocagi, Istanbul.  She was featured on KQED public television’s SPARK program, “By Hand”. http://www.californiastudioglass.org/?p=452
• Symposium keynote speaker Marvin Lipofsky, has been invited to attend the press event.  Marvin started the glass program a UC Berkeley in 1964.  http://www.californiastudioglass.org/?p=107
• Mary White and Michelle Knox, co-producers of the event, are prominent glass artists themselves and will demonstrate glass blowing in The Crucible hot shop.  Both Mary and Michelle have pieces in the upcoming exhibit, “Play with Fire” at the Oakland Museum of California.  See these artists at work during the special press event.
• Talk to young glass artist Henry Cardenas about his experiences as a member of The Crucible Youth Glass Program.  The Watts Mudtown youth glass blowing team is coming to the Bay Area to participate in the Symposium.  They will be blowing glass with youth Crucible youth at the workshop on Nov 11th.

Note:  A complete list of artists giving workshops at the Symposium is located on the event website including bios and images of their work  www.californiastudioglass.org.

The Symposium is part of a larger Bay Area Celebration!
There are three events in the Bay Area that celebrate the 50th anniversary of Studo Glass.  The Oakland Museum of California and the DeYoung Museum both have exhibits opening in October.  On November 9th, the California College of the Arts Glass Program is celebrating its’ Glass Jubilee and Alumni Exhibit with demo by alumnus Boyd Sugiki.  Many of the artists exhibiting works at these events, will be presenting workshops at the Symposium where they will be sharing their skills and demonstating the techiques that made them world class artists.  See links to these other events on our website: http://www.californiastudioglass.org/?page_id=805

Symposium Program
November 10 and 11^th
10am – 6pm

Keynotes-Suellen Fowler, Marvin Lipofsky, Richard Marquis, and Susan Stimsmuehlen-Amend

Demonstrations-in The Crucible’s six glass studios: Blowing, Cold Working, Fusing, Casting, Neon, Flame Working and Enameling.

Panels and Lectures-featuring glass artists who began working in glass in California from 1962 to present day.

Art Exhibition-The exhibit features California glass artists from the 1960’s to the current era.  The 50+ piece exhibition will be on display both Saturday and Sunday.

Living Glass Time Line-Add your information to the “Living Glass Timeline” that will be created during the event.  We encourage artists to bringing studio photos and bios to add to the timeline at the event.  In addition, we are creating a “Directory of California Glass Artists” on our website.  We welcome glass artists of all decades who have worked in California to fill out an information form with a bio and photos of your work to include in the Directory. The form is available on our website: www.californiastudioglass.org.

Glass Vendor & Organizations-Local glass and tool suppliers will be there to exhibit their wares.   Meet and talk to glass institutions as they showcase their programs.

Admission: $15 general admission per day, $10 for students and Crucible members.  Pre-registration is available on our website.

Reception and Awards Ceremony: Saturday November 10^th – 6pm-9pm.  This event will honor collectors, including collector Dorothy Saxe, and artists who have made special contributions to the California glass community.  Admission is free for the reception and awards ceremony.

Background-The studio glass movement began in 1962, when the artist Harvey Littleton gathered a group of artists, craftspeople, scientists and scholars at the Toledo Museum of Art for a series of workshops that demonstrated how glass could be made into art in the artist’s studio rather than in an industrial setting.  These came to be known as the founding events of studio glass.

The symposium program follows the tradition of the California Glass Exchanges.  San Jose State glass instructor, Dr Fritz and his student George Jercich started the Glass Exchange with the goal of gathering the California glass community together to share skills and techniques.

This event is partially sponsored by-The Crucible, The Glass Alliance of Northern California, the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass, Denny Abrams, the Glass Art Society, the Clay and Glass Arts Foundation, Annieglass, and the Chalsty Family Foundation

About The Crucible-The Crucible is an educational facility that offers classes in the fire and industrial arts to people at all skill levels as well as original Bay Area corporate team building events. The Crucible is located at 1260 7th Street, Oakland, CA 95607.   For more information about the Crucible go to www.thecrucible.org

Meet the Watts Youth Glass Blowing Team

On November 10 and 11, there will be a workshop targeted to high school age youth called Future Generation: A Glass Student Workshop at The Crucible in Oakland, CA. The workshop is a partnership between The Crucible Youth Glass Program and Jaime Guerrero, the Director of the Mudtown Glass Department at Watts Labor Community Action Committee (http://wlcac.org). It is part of a larger symposium clebrating California’s Contributions: 50 Years Anniversary of Studio Glass.  The goal of the workshop is to bring together a group of at risk youth glass artists from Oakland and Watts who will have the opportunity to gain personal instruction from leading glass artists from throughout California.

Within the context of the larger conference, our goal is to create a forum for approximately 28 youth to participate in the weekend workshops, meet each other, and have the opportunity to learn and speak with active glass professionals. Most of the students will be from under-represented or under-served youth populations within the greater California glass community.   The Watts Mudtown youth glass blowing team will give a hot demo for the rest of the conference on Sunday afternoon, Nov. 11.

The Future Generation: A Glass Student Workshop is made possible by the generous support from the Clay and Glass Arts Foundation.

 Background 

As part of the national celebration of 50 years of studio glass, we honor the artists who were central to the development of new techniques, teaching art students about glass and creating a focus on the glass arts in California.   This article is the beginning of a living time-line of glass studio artists in California.

We encourage artists to bringing studio photos and bios to add to the timeline being created at the symposium.  In addition, we are creating a “Directory of California Glass Artists” on our website.  We welcome glass artists of all decades who have worked in California to fill out an information form with a bio and photos of your work to include in the Directory.  See the Studio Artists Menu on this website.

1962 Clayton Bailey
Clayton is part of the historic Toledo glass workshop as one of Harvey Littleton’s students (see William Warmus’s article Blue Jeans to Black Tie, 50 Years of Studio Glass). Clayton later becomes a well known California ceramic sculptor and educator. www.claytonbailey.com

1962 Edris Eckhardt
UC Berkeley hires sculptor Edris Eckhardt to teach a glass casting course, the first California glass class in a school of higher education.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edris_Eckhardt

Fall 1964 Marvin Lipofsky
Harvey Littleton’s student Marvin Lipofsky is hired to start a glass program at UC Berkeley.  www.marvinlipofsky.com

Fall 1964 Dr. Robert Fritz
Harvey Littleton’s student, Dr. Robert Fritz starts a glass program in at San Jose State University School of Art and Design.  Dr. Fritz was already teaching ceramics at SJSU but had been researching glass processes since 1960.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_C._Fritz

1965-69 Dick Marquis
Dick Marquis studies with Peter Voulkos, Jim Melchert, Ron Nagle, Robert Hudson, Ed Rossbach and Marvin Lipofsky to learn everything about everything.  He makes the Lord’s Prayer out of glass murrini and is the first American to work in a Murano glass factory. www.richardmarquis.com

1965-1967 Boyce Lundstrom
Boyce Lundstrom enrolled in glass program at SJSU with Dr. Robert Fritz. Boyce Lundstrom graduates from SJSU in1967, operates glass studio in southern California for two years and becomes co-founder of Bullseye Glass. www.boycelundstrom.com

Summer 1967 Marvin LipofskyMarvin started the California College of the Arts Glass program.

1968 California College of the Arts
LIpofsky, at CCA, starts a tradition of Great California Glass Symposiums. (The California Contributions: 50 Years of Studio Glass symposium is part of this tradition.)

1968 John Burton – Suellen Fowler
Pepperdine University initiates classes taught by glass pioneer John Burton.
Suellen Fowler is one of his first students and continued to pioneer coloration of borosilicate glass. www.FlameworkGlass.com

1968 Peter Mollica
Peter and his wife moved to California and set up his studio making commissioned and non-commission stained glass.  With the help of writer Norm Fogel and photographer Charles Frizzell he authored and published STAINED GLASS PRIMER: a handbook of stained glass technique in 1971. In 1972, they produced STAINED GLASS PRIMER, VOL.2: advanced techniques and annotated bibliography in 1977. In 1981 Peter published a Japanese language edition of STAINED GLASS PRIMER.  www.petermollica.com

1969 Dick Marquis
Dick receives his BA UC Berkeley.

1969 Ruth Tamura
Ruth is first person to receive MA in Glass from CCA. She teaches glass courses while Marvin Lipofsky is away.

1969   John Lewis
In the late 60’s, Professor Marvin Lipofsky introduces John, a graduate student in architecture at the University of California at Berkeley, to blown glass.  Lewis opens his art glass studio in 1969, the first private studio in the Bay Area. A little more than a decade later, a $15,000 National Endowment of the Arts grant allows him the freedom to begin exploring other methods of working with glass including cast glass.  He builds overhead glass casting facility. www.johnlewisglass.com

1969 Dan Fenton 
Dan establishes his own stained glass studio in 1969. He has been described as a “walking-talking encyclopedia” for art glass techniques. A pioneer in the field, he combines slumping, fusing, cutting and reassembling, and painting to come up with unique designs and color compositions in a non-traditional style.
Dan teaches classes and workshops worldwide, and has written many articles and books. Pâte de Verre and Kiln Casting of Glass In Dan’s own words, “You will have at your fingertips the wealth of technical knowledge that can only come from years of experimentation and experience.” www.danfenton.net

1969 Dick Marquis Awarded Fullbright-Hayes Fellowship to Italy
Dan lives in Venice and works at Venini Fabbrica in Murano becoming one of the first Americans to every work in a Venetian glass factory.

1970 Dick Marquis
Dick brings back murini glass techniques and makes intricate lord prayer on a glass murine.

1970 Mark Peiser
Mark had an epiphany during Marvin Lipofsky’s 3rd “Great California Glass Symposium,” held at both University of California – Berkeley and California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC) in Oakland, following the 1970 Oakland NCECA Conference. While talking with West Coast glassblowers in the living room of Jim Wayne (a San Jose State Bay Area glassblower with a backyard furnace), Mark realized that we each thought the “real action” took place on the other coast from where we lived. Hit by this grass-is-greener syndrome, well all agreed with Mark’s suggestion to try and gather regularly to exchange information. This idea, a verbalization of our desire to help each other, became the incentive for developing a community with mutual interests. The bonding of artists to help each other is still virtually absent in disciplines like painting, printmaking, jewelry, etc. My non-glass friends are jealous of the camaraderie that I continue to share with my glass buddies.”
http://www.glassart.org/_The_First_Decade.html

1973  GCGS  Erik Hoglund

1974 Bullseye Glass
Bullseye Glass is the first new glass manufacturer to produce opal sheet glass since 1900. www.bullseyeglass.com

SJSU glass student Boyce Lundstrom is one of the three original partners who founded Bullseye Glass.  Boyce Lundstrom and fellow Bullseye co-owner are known to many kiln-glass artists as authors of the landmark Kiln Firing Glass: Glass Fusing Book One.  Boyce Lundstom is the author of Advanced Fusing Techniques (Glass Fusing, Book 2) and Glass Casting and Mold Making (Glass Fusing, Book 3).

1978 Glass Art Society meeting at Asilomar
The 2012 California Glass Exchange, California Contributions: 50 years of Studio Glass at the Crucible will feature and honor some of these early artists. www.glassart.org

By the mid 1970s: Glass Programs Were Thriving!
San Francisco State University
College of Marin
CSU Fresno
CSU Chico
Santa Monica College
Palomar College
CSU Fullerton

 In 1980s Cal Poly started it’s glass program

1982-86 Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend
Susan is a past board member of the Glass Art Society (1982-86) and an Honorary Life Member, served as the first woman president of the GAS. www.facebook.com/susan.stinsmuehlenamend

1985 Boyce Lundstom
Boyce sells his shares in Bulleye Glass and moved to Camp Colton.

By William Warmus* 

2012 celebrates 50 years of artists making art from glass. In 1962, the artist Harvey Littleton gathered a group of artists, craftspeople, scientists and scholars at the Toledo Museum of Art for a series of workshops that demonstrated that glass could be made into art in the artist’s studio rather than in an industrial setting: these came to be known as the founding events of studio glass.

The early workshops focused on blowing glass, although from the beginning there was also an interest among artists in all the ways glass could be used as an art medium: hot, cold, blown, cast, conceptual, abstract, realistic. Of course glass had been worked since ancient times. What gave these early workshops their defining quality was their focus on education: Littleton and others were intent upon bringing the medium of glass into university art programs, where once available, students and emerging artists could begin to make glass in their own studios. And from there, a gallery and collector base evolved beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.

Fifty years tells the story: a fiercely independent creative spirit emerged. Glass is now taught in hundreds of programs in the United States and perhaps thousands worldwide. There are dozens of prominent galleries exhibiting art made from glass, and leading museums display studio glass, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to the De Young in San Francisco and everywhere in between.

The tastemaker Russell Lynes was a juror for both the landmark New Glass exhibition in 1979 as well as Glass 1959, which showcased primarily industrially designed glass, both at The Corning Museum of Glass. He summed up the changes that studio glass ignited: “the new glass is more romantic and flowing on the one hand, expressionist and tough on the other, freer in its design, more explosive. Its costume is blue jeans not black-tie, unmoved by the forms of etiquette and the manners of formality which pervaded the glass of 1959.”

What has also emerged during the 50 years since Toledo are a series of narratives about glass as art: aside from the focus on Littleton, there are narratives about the 1950s exploration of slumped, fused and cast glass as well as the emergent role of women in what was once an almost exclusively male domain. In part what we celebrate in 2012 is 50 years of effort on all these fronts to make this incredible magical medium available to artists everywhere. Glass has truly become the new bronze, but it is also the new paint, the new abstraction, the new architecture.

“Throughout history, people have suspected that glass is magic. How else can a material be explained that imitates other materials but cannot itself be imitated?…That is hot liquid and frozen solid, transparent and opaque, common and exalted?” – Tina Oldknow, Curator, The Corning Museum of Glass.

*William Warmus has been curating exhibitions and writing about glass since 1976, and is an AACG Advisory Board member.

http://contempglass.org/2012-celebration/info/50-Years-of-Studio-Glass-From-Black-Tie-to-Blue-Jeans

Press Release:  Symposium on ‘California Contributions: 50 Years of American Studio Glass 1962-1212’

The Crucible in Oakland, CA is hosting a symposium: ‘California Contributions: 50 Years of American Studio Glass 1962-1212 on November 10^th and 11^th, a California Glass Exchange. This year is the 50^th Anniversary of the American Studio Glass Movement.  Come and celebrate the evolution of the Studio Glass movement and the contributions of California artists. The two-day event includes glass demos, lectures, and over 90 pieces of original art in a two-day art exhibition.  Check out our website at www.californiastudioglass.org

Symposium Program: Saturday & Sunday – November 10 and 11^th – 10am – 6pm
This is a unique opportunity to see the founders and innovators of the Studio Glass movement sharing techniques and expertise at one location–The Crucible, 1260 7th Street, Oakland, CA 95607.

Keynotes-Suellen Fowler, Marvin Lipofsky, Richard Marquis, and Susan Stimsmuehlen-Amend

Demonstrations-in The Crucible’s six glass studios: Blowing, Cold Working, Fusing, Casting, Neon, Flame Working and Enameling.

Panels and Lectures-featuring glass artists who began working in glass in California from 1962 to present day.

Art Exhibition-The exhibit features California glass artists from the 1960’s to the current era.  The 50+ piece exhibition will be on display both Saturday and Sunday.

Living Glass Time Line-Add your information to the “Living Glass Timeline” that will be created during the event.  We encourage artists to bringing studio photos and bios to add to the timeline at the event.  In addition, we are creating a “Directory of California Glass Artists” on our website.  We welcome glass artists of all decades who have worked in California to fill out an information form with a bio and photos of your work to include in the Directory. The form is available on our website: www.californiastudioglass.org.

Glass Vendor & Organizations-Local glass and tool suppliers will be there to exhibit their wares.   Meet and talk to glass institutions as they showcase their programs.

Admission: $15 general admission per day, $10 for students and Crucible members.  Pre-registration is available on our website.

Reception and Awards Ceremony: Saturday November 10^th – 6pm-9pm.  This event will honor collectors, including collector Dorothy Saxe, and artists who have made special contributions to the California glass community.  Admission is free for the reception and awards ceremony.

Background-The studio glass movement began in 1962, when the artist Harvey Littleton gathered a group of artists, craftspeople, scientists and scholars at the Toledo Museum of Art for a series of workshops that demonstrated how glass could be made into art in the artist’s studio rather than in an industrial setting.  These came to be known as the founding events of studio glass.

The symposium program follows the tradition of the California Glass Exchanges.  San Jose State glass instructor, Dr Fritz and his student George Jercich started the Glass Exchange with the goal of gathering the California glass community together to share skills and techniques.

This event is partially sponsored by-The Crucible, The Glass Alliance of Northern California, the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass, Denny Abrams, the Glass Art Society, the Clay and Glass Arts Foundation, Annieglass, and Chalsty Family Foundation.

About The Crucible-The Crucible is an educational facility that offers classes in the fire and industrial arts to people at all skill levels as well as original Bay Area corporate team building events. The Crucible is located at 1260 7th Street, Oakland, CA 95607.   For more information about the Crucible go to www.thecrucible.org.