The Washington Glass School was founded [1] in 2001 by Washington, DC area artists Tim Tate and Erwin Timmers.
The school teaches classes [2] on how to make kiln cast, fused, and cold worked glass sculptures and art. It is the second largest warm glass school in the United States. [3] [4]
Co-Founder Tim Tate's glass sculpture at the 2000 Artomatic art event [5] was acquired by the Smithsonian American Art Museum for the Renwick Gallery's permanent collection. [6] That sale also provided the funds that started the Washington Glass School. [7] Erwin Timmers' artwork was also on exhibit at Artomatic, where after the show, they began to collaborate, later teaming up to start the Washington Glass School & Studio. Michael Janis joined the school in 2003, and became a Co-Director of the Washington Glass School in 2005.
The school was initially located in the neighborhood where Nationals Park now stands, and as a result of the construction of the park, had to relocate to the current location in Mount Rainier, Maryland, just over the border with Washington, D.C.
In 2008, Artomatic organized an exhibit that focused on how three "glass" cities approach the sculptural medium and hosted by the Washington Glass School. The collaborative show was titled "Glass 3″ referencing the invited glass centers of Washington, D.C., Toledo, Ohio, and Sunderland, England. [8] The exhibit featured nearly 50 glass artists and created an international partnership and strong relationships that led to more international collaborative interactions. [9] Tim Tate and Michael Janis' Fulbright Scholarships were both completed at the University of Sunderland and the UK's National Glass Centre.
The Washington Glass Studio was established as part of the school in 2001 to create site specific art for architectural and landscape environments. The studio draws on the Washington Glass School Co-director's educational backgrounds in steel and glass sculpture, electronics and video media, architectural design, and ecological sustainability.
Notable public art projects by Washington Glass Studio include the monumental glass doors for the John Adams Building at the Library of Congress. Under the auspices of the Architect of the Capitol, the bronze doors to the John Adams Building were replaced in 2013 with code-complaint sculpted glass panels mirroring the original bronze door sculptures by American artist, Lee Lawrie, designed to commemorate the history of the written word, depicting gods of writing as well as real-life Native American Sequoyah. " [10] [11]
The public art commission for artwork at the entrance to the Laurel Branch Library was awarded to the Washington Glass Studio in 2016. The 16-foot (4.9 m) high glass-and-steel sculpture was made involving the surrounding community and library groups. In a series of glass-making workshops, images of books and stories, education and learning, and shared aspirations were created at the Washington Glass School to be incorporated into the internally illuminated tower. [12] In 2023, a second piece of public art for the Prince George's County Memorial Library system, "Reading the Waters," a 12-by-6-foot (3.7 m × 1.8 m) fused glass mural, was installed at the Bladensburg Branch Library as part of the facility's renovation. [13]
The Washington Glass School championed a new art movement dubbed Glass Secessionism to "underscore and define the 21st Century Sculptural Glass Movement and to illustrate the differences and strengths compared to late 20th century technique-driven glass. While the 20th century glass artists contributions have been spectacular and ground breaking, this group focuses on the aesthetic of the 21st century. The object of the Glass-Secession is to advance glass as applied to sculptural expression; to draw together those glass artists practicing or otherwise interested in the arts, and to discuss from time to time examples of the Glass-Secession or other narrative work." [15] [16] [17] Reflecting the evolving nature of glass art, the name of the Facebook group was amended in 2017 to "21st Century Glass : Conversations and Images / Glass Secessionism".
Lee Oscar Lawrie was an American architectural sculptor and an important figure in the American sculpture scene preceding World War II. Over his long career of more than 300 commissions Lawrie's style evolved through Modern Gothic, to Beaux-Arts, Classicism, and, finally, into Moderne or Art Deco.
Sir Michael Craig-Martin is an Irish-born contemporary conceptual artist and painter. He is known for fostering and adopting the Young British Artists, many of whom he taught, and for his conceptual artwork, An Oak Tree. He is an emeritus Professor of Fine Art at Goldsmiths. His memoir and advice for the aspiring artist, On Being An Artist, was published by London-based publisher Art / Books in April 2015.
Randolph Rogers was an American Neoclassical sculptor. An expatriate who lived most of his life in Italy, his works ranged from popular subjects to major commissions, including the Columbus Doors at the U.S. Capitol and American Civil War monuments.
Petworth is a neighborhood of Washington, D.C., located in Northwest D.C. While largely residential, Petworth is home to a notable commercial corridor of shops and restaurants, primarily along Georgia Avenue and Upshur Street, as well as a portion of 14th Street. The neighborhood is accessible via the Georgia Ave–Petworth station on the Green Line of the Washington Metro.
The John Adams Building is the second oldest of the buildings of the Library of Congress of the United States. Built in the 1930s, it is named for John Adams, the second president, who signed the law creating the Library of Congress in 1800. The building is in the Capitol Hill district of Washington D.C. next to the library's main building in the Capitol Complex. The Adams building opened to the public on April 5, 1939, and before being named for the president in 1980, was simply called The Annex building. It is designed in a restrained but very detailed Art Deco style and faced in white Georgia marble. It is located on Second Street SE between Independence Avenue and East Capitol Street in Washington, DC.
Larry Bell is an American contemporary artist and sculptor. He is best known for his glass boxes and large-scaled illusionistic sculptures. He is a grant recipient from, among others, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, and his artworks are found in the collections of many major cultural institutions. He lives and works in Taos, New Mexico, and maintains a studio in Venice, California.
Artomatic is a multi-week, multimedia arts event held in the Washington metropolitan area. It was founded by Washington, D.C. artist and arts activist George Koch. The non-juried, open event has provided a forum for artists of all types and abilities. There are also arts education and professional development workshops and discussions. Events were held from 1999 up to 2017 at intervals from one to three years, depending upon the availability of a site. Unable to have in-person events due to the COVID-19 pandemic, an online event was held in 2020. The organization has remained active in the local arts community.
The American University Museum is located within the Katzen Arts Center at the American University in Washington, DC.
Albert Paley is an American modernist metal sculptor. Initially starting out as a jeweler, Paley has become one of the most distinguished and influential metalsmiths in the world. Within each of his works, three foundational elements stay true: the natural environment, the built environment, and the human presence. Paley is the first metal sculptor to have received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Institute of Architects. He lives and works in Rochester, New York with his wife, Frances.
Erwin Eisch was a German artist who worked with glass. He was also a painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Eisch's work in glass, along with that of his friend and colleague Harvey Littleton, embodies the ideas of the international studio glass movement. Eisch is considered a founder of the studio glass movement in Europe.
Therman Statom is an American Studio Glass artist whose primary medium is sheet glass. He cuts, paints, and assembles the glass - adding found glass objects along the way – to create three-dimensional sculptures. Many of these works are large in scale. Statom is known for his site-specific installations in which his glass structures dwarf the visitor. Sound and projected digital imagery are also features of the environmental works.
Robert Adams was an English sculptor and designer. Whilst not widely known outside of artistic circles, he was nonetheless regarded as one of the foremost sculptors of his generation. In a critical review of a retrospective mounted by the Gimpel Fils gallery in London in 1993, Brian Glasser of Time Out magazine described Adams as "the neglected genius of post-war British sculpture", a sentiment echoed by Tim Hilton in the Sunday Independent, who ranked Adams' work above that of his contemporaries, Ken Armitage, Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick and Bernard Meadows.
Glasstress is a recurring exhibition that brings together art by contemporary artists made with glass. Launched in 2009 as a collateral exhibition of the Venice Biennale of Arts by Adriano Berengo as a way of showcasing the works produced by Berengo Studio, it has since had editions take place in 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2022.
Steven Weitzman is an American public artist and designer known for his figurative sculptures, murals, and aesthetic designs for highway and bridge infrastructure projects.
Erwin Timmers is a Dutch-born American artist and the co-founder of the Washington Glass School in the Greater Washington, D.C. capital area. Timmers has been recognized as one of the early "green or environmental artists", working mostly with recycled glass.
Michael Janis is an American artist currently residing in Washington, DC where he is one of the directors of the Washington Glass School. He is known for his work on glass using the exceptionally difficult sgraffito technique on glass.
Tim Tate is an American artist and the co-founder of the Washington Glass School in the Greater Washington, DC capital area. The school was founded in 2001 and is now the second largest warm glass school in the United States. Tate was diagnosed as HIV positive in 1989 and was told that he had a year left to live. As a result, Tate decided to begin working with glass in order to leave a legacy behind. Over a decade ago, Tate began incorporating video and embedded electronics into his glass sculptures, thus becoming one of the first artists to migrate and integrate the relatively new form of video art into sculptural works. In 2019 he was selected to represent the United States at the sixth edition of the GLASSTRESS exhibition at the Venice Biennale.
Catriona Fraser is a British photographer and art dealer. She has lived in Washington, DC since 1996.
The New Orleans AIDS Monument is a public, outdoor sculpture erected in 2008 on the grounds of Washington Square Park, near the corner of Dauphine St. and Elysian Fields Avenue in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans.
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