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At the Perry Glass Studio
2013 Visiting Artist Series
The goal of the Chrysler Museum Glass Studio Visiting Artist Series is to bring some of the world’s top glass art talent to the Hampton Roads area, and the 2013 lineup did not disappoint.
March 16-24: Beth Lipman
Beth Lipman worked live in our Studio, and her work culminated in the conceptual art installation Adeline’s Portal at the Moses Myers House. There’s a legend Adeline Myers, a 19th century resident of the home, died of a broken heart.
May 3–5: Laura Donefer
Known for her colorful artwork and colorful personality, Laura Donefer thrilled Studio audiences May 3-5, 2013, producing her signature glass amulet baskets, which combine colorful blown glass, beads and found objects.
Donefer was born in Ithaca, N.Y. and was raised in Quebec, Canada. She trained as a glass artist at Sheridan College and has been using glass as the primary medium in her work for more than 25 years.
Her work has been exhibited at the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art in Japan, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the Hammelev Arts and Culture Centre in Denmark, the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingston, the Museo del Vidrio in Mexico, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in China.
August: Gianni Toso
Gianni Toso, creator of one of our most popular glass items in our collection (a very witty chess set) comes from a family with a seven-century—that’s not a misprint—tradition in Murano glass blowing. He was accepted into the local fine arts academy for glassblowers at age 14, and in 1967, at the age of 24, he opened a studio in Venice. He’s been at it ever since, and is considered one of the world’s great artists working in lampworked glass.
Toso burst into the spotlight after his work was promoted by Salvador Dali, but he had a fine line to walk in the early ’70s. The Glass Studio Movement was taking off, bringing a fresh sharing of ideas, but his family secrets of the great Italian glassmaking traditions had literally been held under penalty of death for centuries, and Toso had to be careful about what he could and could not share.
Here’s what made the difference as the secrecy broke down over time—this is glass as art, not a proprietary product. For that shift in thinking, glass art fans will be forever grateful. His August 2013 visit was one of our most well-attended sessions ever.
Fritz Dreisbach
With a career spanning five decades, Fritz Dreisbach is universally recognized as one of the pioneers of the American Studio Glass Movement.
Dreisbach is the holder of multiple academic degrees, and it was while he was studying at the University of Wisconsin in 1967 that he was introduced to the work of another Glass Studio Movement heavyweight, Harvey Littleton.
Over the course of a 35-year teaching career, Dreisbach has made stops at more than 100 institutions, including the Toledo Museum of Art, the Pilchuck Glass School in Washington, and the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina.
Dreisbach was a founding member of the Seattle-based Glass Art Society in 1971, and in 2002, the society he helped found presented him with a lifetime achievement award.
You can find Dreisbach’s work in top musuem collections across the country and around the world, from the Smithsonian to the Corning Museum of Glass, from the Glasmuseum Frauenau in Germany to the Glasmuseet Ebeltoft in Denmark.