RIT Glass Guild

John Miller’s Artists Statement:

My work reflects both a love of the immediacy of the glass material and a respect for its demanding properties.  Some pieces are very formal and about glass and how it moves; others envelope a sense of humor and playfulness.  I am always interested in pushing the medium to its heights.  My work is about control and proportion as much as it is about finding new textures and forms.

Being primarily a blower, the basic form of all my sculptural work is the vessel.  My initial interest in vessel making developed when I began blowing glass over a decade ago.  Since then, I have explored many ways of transforming the vessel form into sculpture.  I began combining the glass vessel with a variety of materials using cold processes.  Later, I manipulated hot glass, adding solid glass elements to the basic vessel form, as well as copper elements to restrict and constrain molten material.  In my most recent series, I have challenged my technical skill by experimenting with scale.

Much of my work has its roots in the traditional Venetian style of glass blowing.  I found that by reproducing traditional goblet forms on a larger scale, these objects began to take on new meaning.  The form became physically challenging to the viewer and entered a new realm of significance.  Eventually, I would experiment with the exaggerated scale of a variety of recognizable objects.  The result was often humorous.

While looking through images of the work of Pop artist’s from the 1960′s, something clicked for me.  Previously, I had been making artwork that revolved around serious topics.  I felt that this work revealed only one side of me.  The predominant side of my personality is very loose and comical, but this had not come out yet artistically.

One of my main influences growing up was the silent comedy genius of Buster Keaton.  Although humor was central to his art, he was intensely serious about his work.  I feel our approach to the creative process is similar.  Keaton managed to find a balance between his difficult life and his brilliant slapstick gags.  Similarly, I try to find equilibrium between the intensity of glass blowing and the humor which can be found in art and the art making process.

It seems that I have returned to my roots as a vessel maker in my most recent work, but with a better understanding of the influences and motivation behind my choices.  I feel that my experiences as a student of art and a working artist have given me a solid understanding of the technical processes of making sculpture and an awareness of the contexts and influences behind my aesthetic decisions.

This week we are delighted to have Peter Houk as our visiting artist. Peter came to the world of glass in 1988 with a background in painting and printmaking. First invited to teach at the Glass Lab at MIT in 1993, he continued his education in glass blowing, painting, and sculpture at the Pilchuck Glass School and the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Houk took up the leadership of the Glass Lab in 1997, and has since then expanded the program to accommodate intermediate and advanced students, as well as taking on many special projects in the Lab. His artwork ranges from intimate pieces in which the blown, sandblasted and painted vessel is used as a vehicle for landscape, to sculptural work – sometimes on a large scale – installed in architectural settings. About his own work, he says,“In one way or another, all of my work is linked to painting, printmaking, or drawing. My main preoccupation seems to be with the differences and similarities between natural and man-made structures”. Houk has designed and executed commissions internationally, and his work is held in many collections, including the Corning Museum of Glass and The Museum of American Glass at Wheaton Village.

This week our visiting artist is Judy Hill. Judy Hill makes female figures that look identical, but which are individualized through posture and gesture. All of her figures, whether single or grouped, are portraits of herself that reflect different states of mind, thoughts, preoccupations, and experiences.

Matt is our visiting artist this week. Matt Eskuche is a glass artist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While most glass artists focus on the luxurious nature of glass and the medium’s delicate nature, Matt takes
his inspiration from trash, discarded plastic bottles, crumpled paper and take-out containers are only some of the pieces which Matt uses to model his glass art after.

Richard Meitner at the CMoG

Click here to follow link

April 4–October 18, 2009

Meet the Artist: Richard Craig Meitner
April 3, 2009
Members-only reception at 5:15 p.m., lecture at 6:00 p.m.
Hear from Richard Craig Meitner, the artist whose Masters of Glass exhibition opens the next day on the West Bridge.

Exhibition: 1500 Years of European Glass, click to follow link

Work of Czech Studio Glass Master Frantisek Vizner Surveyed at The Corning Museum of Glass, click to follow link

This week at RIT we are privileged to have Slate Grove as a visiting artist.

Slate Grove was born and raised in Fort Dodge, Iowa. At an early age he developed a passion for art, which he attributes to his older brother teaching him how to draw. While attending high school, Slate received his first tattoo at the age of 18. So enthralled by the experience of such a permanent art form, he convinced his parents to let him serve a formal apprenticeship under the artist that had given him his first tattoo. While continuing to attend a local community college, Slate worked his way to the top of the ladder in his hometown tattoo studio. After managing the studio for 4 years, he decided it was time to move out of his hometown, and applied to the Cleveland Institute of Art.

In 2001, Slate made the move from a community college and tattoo studio in small town Iowa to one of the top art schools in the country, complete with a job in a Cleveland area tattoo studio. The fall of 2002 offered Slate an opportunity that would prove to be a turning point in his artistic career, his first exposure to glass. Almost instantaneously the medium began to consume his artistic endeavors. Shortly after, he would leave the tattoo studio and work exclusively with glass.

“If I had to pick my single largest accomplishment with glass, it would have to be when I was afforded the opportunity to present Itzhak Perlman with a glass violin. The chance to stand on a stage like Severance Hall and present a piece of my work to a music icon of his stature still astounds me.”

Slate is currently the Studio Coordinator at Penland School of Crafts.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLAY!!!!! Clay loves Choo choos