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I recently posted some images on Facebook of a factory tour that I led at Bullseye for a group of second and third graders. Then I casually commented that children’s tours helped me to understand “what it is about glass that most attracts kids.”  Kids and Glass: a magic – and sometimes maniacal - match. I should know better. A friend immediately jumped in and asked me to list “the top 3 or 4 things” that make this material so attractive to kids. read more |
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The research continues…  I owe this shot to Amy Ferber – one of our favorite party girls! The second most popular interactive display in Bullseye Gallery’s recent Retrospective exhibition was a set of brightly colored cast-glass wedges. It wasn’t designed with children in mind. It was intended to show the range of possibilities in mixing frits and the gradations related to thickness. read more |
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Art happens.  Kids love glass – or sand pretending to be glass The Gallery’s most recent exhibition is a didactic one: Retrospective tells the story of a factory that has always worked with artists. The works on display reflect some of those projects. Among my favorites are those done in the “painting with glass” methods that have flowed out of sessions with masters like Narcissus Quagliata and his friend Rafael Cauduro. read more |
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At the risk of being charged a chromo-phobe (great book, risky political position on the eve of BECon’s Chroma-Culture conference), I have to admit to a bias for a recurring aesthetic I observed at this weekend’s COLLECT fair in London. Going monochrome in the middle of a kaleidoscopic fair may be the way to stand out. Whether textile, ceramic or glass, the works that grabbed me did so by whispering – even while towering over me.  Piled Higher (and brilliantly) Deeper |
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Last year we invited Tanja Pak, Slovenia’s Designer of the Year, to “fuse aesthetics to practicality” in a factory residency that would provide the content for her discussion with Bullseye’s lead fabricator Tom Jacobs on The Poetry of Production at this summer’s BECon conference.  Brian, Trevor, Ted, Tom, and Tanja: Day One |
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After we’d toured the kids around the glass factory a week ago, they spent some time in their school studio translating the experience with paper, pencil and clay. I was told that one of their Tour Guides (moi) made a big impression on them. A kind of doughy impression. Something between Francis Bacon and Mr Potato Head.  Moi or mwah? |
 What I'm learning along the edge.... So, yesterday I’m standing in front of a dozen kindergarten kids who are about to take a tour of our glass factory. |
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“When you model clay you’re ambidextrous – which also means, of course, that you’re using both sides of your brain. That’s not true with other art materials.”  The instructions were direct: shape the clay, think about feelings, put words to feelings, then to paper... A group of us were visiting the Galisteo studio of New Mexico artist Judy Tuwaletstiwa (say “two wallets tea wah”) midstream in a group residency that Steve Klein and Richard Parrish led this past October in Santa Fe when Judy casually suggested that the group try an exercise. read more |
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Sipping a hotel room Nespresso from bed in New York, nursing a hangover (sadly NOT induced by alcohol, but by a day of ugly air travel), a Google alert (for “Bullseye glass”, what else?) takes me to the website of a designer in North Devon, England.  Just more proof that Little People make the best fusers.... read more |
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I’m in Santa Fe again – a place where worlds, ideas, and art seem to collide in a rainbow of magic ways.  Glass is magic, but books on color are a great place to start the journey. |