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Works from Home
Works from Home: Spring 2020 Studio Assistantship Exhibition
The Studio Assistantship Program, which began in 2011 as an educational opportunity designed for emerging artists, has proudly graduated 124 glass artists. Under normal circumstances, they would be working towards an exhibition at the end of this six-month program.
2020 has proven to be anything but normal, but these artists found time in quarantine to make art. Without traditional glassmaking tools, each artist found creative solutions to continuing their artistic practices using household materials like salt and vinegar or found objects like ocean-engraved shells or a readily available newspaper. When left with minimal tools and space to work, each came up with imaginative solutions to make works speaking to the complicated times we exist in.
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Today, Tomorrow, 2020
About the work
Today, Tomorrow, 2019—2020
Abegael Uffelman, American, b. 1997
Today, Tomorrow, 2019—2020
Newspaper from 2020, glass, gaffer tape
After decades of fighting for racial equality, Americans are not equal, particularly Black Americans. Due to police brutality, systemic racism, and millions of cries falling on deaf ears, the news of today focuses on a movement of change. The fortune teller is a childhood toy that uses arbitrary choices to tell one’s future. Today focuses on oppression being faced because of skin color. Lines like “They’re going to kill me,” words said by George Floyd just before he was killed, and “this time is different” read as the fortune teller unfolds. Tomorrow is clear, blank, and fragile—our future awaiting change.
Abegael Uffelman
About the artist
Abegael Uffelman earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts with a minor in art history from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Her work has been featured and awarded at the Glass Art Society International Student Exhibition (St. Petersburg, FL) and VisArts NextGen (Rockville, MD). She also exhibited at The Kitchen Table Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), d’Art Center (Norfolk, VA), and The Neil Britton Gallery (Virginia Beach, VA). Recently, she completed a visiting artist residency and taught at New Street Glass (Worcester, MA). Currently, she works as a studio assistant at the Chrysler Museum Glass Studio.
abegaeluffelman.com | Instagram: @abbey.u
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Faceless, 2020
About the work
Faceless, 2020
Dara Ronli Alper, American, b. 1997
Faceless, 2020
Glass, television
Our present world is dependent upon the thoughts of the people in the past. Our thoughts inform our actions, and our actions, both conscious and unconscious, construct our reality and society. For many of us, multiple hours are spent each day consuming news and social media. These platforms often make sweeping generalizations of people, stripping away individuality and dehumanizing large portions of our society.
Faceless silhouettes are entangled in glass medical tubing, spilling from a television screen. The tubing is a metaphor for dissemination of information, questioning the wider implications of how this mass consumption shapes our thoughts.
Dara Ronli Alper
About the Artist
Dara Ronli Alper uses glass and multi-disciplinary processes to explore self-portraiture, social interaction, and gendered biases. In 2012, the Norfolk, Virginia native began blowing glass at Tidewater Community College. Seduced by the materiality and communal making processes of molten glass, she went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Kent State University in 2018. She also studied at Pilchuck Glass School and the University of Sunderland, United Kingdom. Alper has completed residencies in Murano, Italy and Salem, New York.
daraalper.com | Instagram: @dalperarts
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A Quarantine State of Minds, 2020
About the work
A Quarantine State of Minds, 2020
Megan Lange, American, b. 1996
A Quarantine State of Minds, 2020
Charcoal, paper
How do you make a body of work with limited supplies while isolated in your apartment with no good views to remind you of the outside world? How do you create the only connection you have to other people through social media because the world is in the middle of a pandemic?
After getting back into drawing, I was getting tired of myself and my tight surroundings being the main form of inspiration. Mindless scrolling on social media was getting old. I was missing everyone terribly. My anxiety and depression were high, and I was at an all-time low. I went out into the world as few times as possible for fear of spreading or catching coronavirus. I spent most of my time in a basement apartment with two small windows that were constantly being taken over by the cats. How was everyone actually feeling during quarantine? Was everyone going as crazy as I was? How can I reconnect with people?
A Quarantine State of Minds is a body of work I created in response to these feelings and questions. I gave people a prompt: send me a selfie depicting how you are feeling during quarantine along with a statement or phrase. I interpreted these selfies with supplies found in my home: charcoal and an old sketch pad. It was really great to not only have a reason to create but a reason to talk to people who I would not typically converse with. Some conversations were as simple as “here you go” while others lead to reconnecting with old friends. Although I do not feel that electronic communication is ever going to be an acceptable replacement for in-person interaction, creating A Quarantine State of Minds gave me a community to once again interact with and find comfort in knowing others were also experiencing the array of emotions as I.
Megan Lange
About the artist
Avid hugger and animal lover Megan Lange grew up in small-town Ohio with an appreciation of music, nature, and family. Lange graduated from Ball State University in 2019 with dual Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in Glass and Ceramics. She has had the privilege of taking workshops at such places as the Penland School of Crafts, Pittsburgh Glass Center, and the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw, Poland. She often uses glass as a medium in her artistic practice, using other materials as needed for conceptual fulfillment. She splits her artistic time between vessel making and letting her mind wander when creating more abstract works. Lange often draws inspiration from nature, her fascination of the interaction between light and glass, and the connection between vessels and the human form. Currently, she has been drawn to exploring charcoal drawings and finds comfort in their similarity to three-dimensional work as well as the inspirational ties of the human form in both her two-dimensional and three- dimensional work.
meglangestudios.com | Instagram: @meglangestudios
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Covid Disconnections, 2020
About the work
Covid Disconnections, 2020
Michael Mills, American, b. 1952
Covid Disconnections, 2020
Found sea shells, felt
The marks on these shells were made by other mollusks seeking to bore into the shells and consume the creature inside. The shapes of the marks are the results of evasive actions of the potential prey and the currents in the seas. They are the marks of the eternal interaction of the hunter and the hunted. I have arrayed these marks to suggest words and concepts that we have used to react to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our public discourse and social implementation of these notions have carried no more meaning or agreement to us than they did to the creatures that created these “letters.”
Michael Mills
About the Artist
As a university faculty member, Michael Mills first blew glass in the mid 1990s. Since 2008, his passion for glass has grown through glassblowing classes at Anoka Ramsey Community College (MN). In retirement, despite his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, Mills is focusing his creative efforts on glass. In vessels and sculpture, he applies traditional glassblowing techniques in novel patterns and forms to emphasize the optical effects, visual flow, and joy that glass communicates. He also explores themes of pattern, change, generation, and evolution to challenge the current glorification of social, political, and economic disruption.
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Thang #381, 2020
About the Work
Thang #381
Pat Langley, American
Thang #381, 2020
Glass, copper, patina, time
Like most things in the universe, art is meant to grow with time, both in manifestation and contemplation. Thang #381 was made by blowing glass into a hand-woven copper wire cage, which was then sealed in a container with a salt and vinegar solution for ninety-one days. As the patina grew across the copper, COVID-19 spread across the United States, leaving most people confined in their homes. Thang #381 is a statement of change over time and how environment effects that change.
Pat Langley
About the artist
Rumored to be from Saturn, Pat Langley is a non-binary artist who grew up in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2016. They are a detail-oriented artist who works primarily with glass.
They are currently exploring the phrase “cradle of life” in reference to the evolution of life on earth and its oceanic origins. Taking inspiration from their recent time in the Pacific Northwest and Norfolk, Virginia, Pat is creating work that aims to start a conversation about the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.
Pat believes in the importance of arts education and that every person deserves the opportunity to learn and express themselves through art. They love to travel and strive to bring love, beauty, and inspiration into others’ lives by promoting creativity.
www.plangthangs.com | Instagram: @plangthangs
