MILLVILLE – The Creative Glass Center of America celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2013 and the Museum of American Glass at WheatonArts will celebrate the occasion with a new exhibition, “Wheaton Glass: The Art of the Fellowship.” The exhibition opens April 2 and continues through Jan. 5, 2014.
In 2013 the Creative Glass Center of America (CGCA) at WheatonArts celebrates three decades of support for artists and craftspeople working in glass. Since 1982, over three hundred fellowship recipients have conceived of and executed artistic ideas and objects at the CGCA, benefiting from the facilities, financial support and creative environment provided by WheatonArts. This exhibition provides only a glimpse into the work created through and inspired by the CGCA fellowship program.
The artists and work chosen for this anniversary exhibition prompt conversations about the legacy of the WheatonArts fellows, the traditions of glassmaking, and the evolution of both methods and concepts articulated in glass. The show highlights a wide range of artists from the past decades, acknowledging early studio glassmakers while focusing on the work of more recent fellows. The artists chosen for this exhibit demonstrate in their work how ideas and materials conflate in the service of meaning. Themes that run across a broader field of art also appear within the exhibition, such as narrative, science and art, and material exploration in the areas of sculpture and the vessel, representing the pluralistic dialogue that exists among artists working today.
Guest Curator Diane Wright, Marketing and Communications, Pilchuck Glass School, received her MA in the History of Decorative Arts and Design from Parsons the New School for Design, specializing in glass studies. She has conducted research and lectured on glass for a number of institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Chrysler Museum of Art, the Blair House, the University of Washington and The Freer/Sackler Galleries at the Smithsonian Institution. She recently completed a three-year term as a Senior Fellow in the American Decorative Arts Department at the Yale University Art Gallery where she pursued research on Yale’s collection of early American Glass and began building a collection of studio glass for the Museum. She has worked as an Educator at the Corning Museum of Glass where she taught about glass making history and techniques to students of all ages.
Wright has extensively researched the leaded-glass windows and mosaics of Tiffany Studios at churches across the country. Her graduate thesis presented the first in-depth study of Frederick Wilson, Louis C. Tiffany’s most prolific window designer and head of the ecclesiastic department at Tiffany Studios. In 2009 she published an article on the life and work of Frederick Wilson, in the Journal of Glass Studies (Corning Museum of Glass). She recently co-curator the exhibition, “Louis C. Tiffany and the Art of Devotion” and contributed an essay for the accompanying catalogue (published by the Museum of Biblical Art in conjunction with D. Giles, 2012).
Wright has taught courses and seminars on the history of glass at the Rhode Island School of Design, Parsons the New School for Design and George Mason University and has published on contemporary glass in Modern Magazine, Glass Quarterly Magazine, and the Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin. She is the recipient of the 2011 Rakow Grant for Glass Research from the Corning Museum of Glass. She currently works for Pilchuck Glass School. Her specialties include the history of glass, ancient to modern; studio and contemporary glass; stained glass, Louis C. Tiffany, and Frederick Wilson.
Guest Curator, Tina Aufiero, Adjunct Faculty, Cornish College of the Arts, is a visual artist and educator. Aufiero arrived in Seattle after living in New York, NY over 20 years. A lover of adventurous outdoors experiences, Aufiero can often be found driving through Skagit Valley equiped with balloons and small cameras, recording images and sounds of migrating birds. A self-proclaimed obsessed swan lover, Aufiero creates projects that often focus on utilizing the swan as the metaphor to create meaning. Imagery and information gathered is then articulated in sculptural objects, mixed media video works, and photographic pieces.
Aufiero has exhibited and lectured internationally. Works are included in the collections of Pilchuck Print Collection, Seattle, WA; John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI.; The Heinneman Collection-Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY; Musee des Art Decoratifs, Lausanne, Switzerland; Venini SpA, Italy. Her awards include Fulbright Research Grant-Iceland, Technology Initiative Fund NSU, ATT Foundation, Pollack – Krasner Foundation, Penny McCalls Foundation, PS1-National Institute for Contemporary Art and the NEA.
Aufiero’s work and teaching spans across disciplines, to the areas of art, sculpture, craft, design and technology. Her teaching experienced includes 15 years at Parsons the New School for Design with courses taught in Design & Technology, Foundation and Product Design. Aufiero acted as Director of the BFA Design & Technology Program for two years prior to her move. She is committed to developing undergraduate curriculum that embraces the 21st century. Other teaching includes Iceland Academy of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Tyler School of Art, Cooper Union Outreach Program, UrbanGlass in New York, NY, and Pilchuck Glass School, WA. She holds a BFA, Sculpture/Glass- RISD, MFA in Design & Technology, Parsons, with Master Studies NYU – Feminist Theory/Performance.
WheatonArts strives to ensure the accessibility of its exhibitions, events and programs to all persons with disabilities. Provide two weeks notice for additional needs. Patrons with hearing and speech disabilities may contact WheatonArts through the New Jersey Relay Service (TRS) 800-852-7899 or by dialing 711.
Funding has been made possible in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey Cultural Trust. WheatonArts receives general operating support from the New Jersey Historical Commission, Division of Cultural Affairs in the New Jersey Department of State, and is supported in part by the New Jersey Department of State, Division of Travel and Tourism and Cumberland County Urban Enterprise Zone.
