Knitting is a method for production of textile fabrics by interlacing yarn loops with loops of the same or other yarns. It is used to create many types of garments. Knitting may be done by hand or by machine.
Studio glass is the modern use of glass as an artistic medium to produce sculptures or three-dimensional artworks in the fine arts. The glass objects created are intended to make a sculptural or decorative statement, and typically serve no useful function. Though usage varies, the term is properly restricted to glass made as art in small workshops, typically with the personal involvement of the artist who designed the piece. This is in contrast to art glass, made by craftsmen in factories, and glass art, covering the whole range of glass with artistic interest made throughout history. Both art glass and studio glass originate in the 19th century, and the terms compare with studio pottery and art pottery, but in glass the term "studio glass" is mostly used for work made in the period beginning in the 1960s with a major revival in interest in artistic glassmaking.
Lost-wax casting – also called investment casting, precision casting, or cire perdue – is the process by which a duplicate sculpture is cast from an original sculpture. Intricate works can be achieved by this method.
Craftivism is a form of activism, typically incorporating elements of anti-capitalism, environmentalism, solidarity, or third-wave feminism, that is centered on practices of craft - or what has traditionally been referred to as "domestic arts". Craftivism includes, but is not limited to, various forms of needlework including yarn-bombing or cross-stitch. Craftivism is a social process of collective empowerment, action, expression and negotiation. In craftivism, engaging in the social and critical discourse around the work is central to its production and dissemination. Practitioners are known as craftivists. The word 'craftivism' is a portmanteau of the words craft and activism.
Ginny Ruffner is a pioneering American glass artist based in Seattle, Washington. She is known for her use of the lampworking technique and for her use of borosilicate glass in her painted glass sculptures.
Mary Walker Phillips, was an American textile artist, author and educator. She revolutionized the craft of hand knitting by exploring knitting as an independent art form. Her hand-knit tapestries and other creative pieces are exhibited in museums in the U.S. and Europe. She was honored as a fellow by the American Craft Council (ACC) in 1978.
Glass casting is the process in which glass objects are cast by directing molten glass into a mould where it solidifies. The technique has been used since the 15th century BCE in both Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Modern cast glass is formed by a variety of processes such as kiln casting or casting into sand, graphite or metal moulds.
David Reekie is an English glass sculptor who uses drawing and glass casting to express his vision of the human condition. His art can be found in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, as well as in several other public collections in the United Kingdom.
A glossary of terms used in glass art
Anne Wilson is a Chicago-based visual artist. Wilson creates sculpture, drawings, Internet projects, photography, performance, and DVD stop motion animations employing table linens, bed sheets, human hair, lace, thread and wire. Her work extends the traditional processes of fiber art to other media. Wilson is a professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Yarn bombing is a type of graffiti or street art that employs colourful displays of knitted or crocheted yarn or fibre rather than paint or chalk. It is also called wool bombing, yarn storming, guerrilla knitting, kniffiti, urban knitting, or graffiti knitting.
Glass art refers to individual works of art that are substantially or wholly made of glass. It ranges in size from monumental works and installation pieces to wall hangings and windows, to works of art made in studios and factories, including glass jewelry and tableware.
The Modern Art Foundry is an historic foundry in Astoria, Queens, New York, founded in 1932 by John Spring. His descendants continue to operate the business in what used to be the carriage house of the Steinway Mansion.
Patti Warashina is an American artist known for her imaginative ceramic sculptures. Often constructing her sculptures using porcelain, Warashina creates narrative and figurative art. Her works are in the collection of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Ann Robinson is a New Zealand studio glass artist who is internationally renowned for her glass casting work. Robinson is a recipient of the ONZM (2001) and a Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Glass Art Society (2006), and is a Laureate of the Arts Foundation of New Zealand (2006).
Maria Porges is an American artist and writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. As an artist she is known for the prominent use of text in her visual works, which encompass sculpture, works on paper and assemblage and have an epistemological bent. As a critic Porges has written for Artforum, Art in America, Sculpture and SquareCylinder, among other publications.
Cat Mazza is an American textile artist. Her practice combines tactical media, activism, craft-based art making and animation in a form that has frequently been described as craftivism. She is the founder of the craftivist collective microRevolt. Mazza is an associate professor of art at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
Kate Just is an American-born Australian feminist artist. Just is best known for her inventive and political use of knitting, both in sculptural and pictorial form. In addition to her solo practice, Just often works socially and collaboratively within communities to create large scale, public art projects that tackle significant social issues including sexual harassment and violence against women.
Ann Morhauser is an American glass artist based in California. She is the founder of Annieglass, a glassware, tableware and glass sculpture company. Her work is held in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In 2022, she was recognized as the Santa Cruz County Artist of the Year.
