"So now that I've cut a skillion skinny little strips of glass, how about I drive back up I-5 to my own hot shop and you guys finish up here?"

Is there no end to what this guy will put up with???

A few days ago I posted about how Dante Marioni endured a decade of blowing for us during Thanksgiving weekends from 1995 to 2004. Looking back, it’s hard to miss the similarity to the classic Failed Marriage dictum: “I love you. You’re perfect. Now change.

After watching Dante & Team blow dazzling forms in glass for ten years, what would you expect us to do?

We asked him to try kilnforming.

What a sport. He did.

Here’s a detail of one of his newbie projects:

And the whole nine yards…or 40 leaves…or seven feet (diameter):

2008…Dan “Hmmmm…What can we ask him to do next?”

1995…Dan: “Got any plans for the next ten Thanksgivings?”
Dante: “Hmmm. Where’s this going?”

The decade of the Dante Circles (1995-2004) is fast becoming history. But like lots of history, it only seems to get grander in its passing.

So it is that this weekend I am again fondly remembering all those years that Dante, Janusz and Paul came down to Portland for the three days following Thanksgiving to blow “cups” while we drank champagne and brunched on the bleachers. It was our celebration of glass. Humored by Dante & Friends we got to sit in front of the furnaces watching them work.

Today – Sunday – would have been The Last Day of the blow. We – the diehard fanatical Watchers – would still be glued to the bleachers, swilling the dregs of the flat bubbly, and begging Dante to “make another Queen Marguerite…puleeeez….”… “No, no, something with more squigglies….”

It all seems so long ago now. And – hard to believe – since it happened in the decade before YouTube, we didn’t save all those great chops on video. We DID eventually turn it into a little catalog called Ten Circles.

Or, if you’d rather just watch a brilliant glassmaker – working out on this Thanksgiving weekend, here goes. (I’m off in search of flat champagne.)

2006 e-merge finalist Robin Provart-Kelly was battling a coven of kiln witches in order to get a piece to us in time for SOFA Chicago. After what seemed like a lifetime of hell in the hot zone, we got an email from Robin with a 20 point EUREKA and a picture of this amazing pâte de verre work.

Robin Provart-Kelly, “Bounty”, 2008. Pâte de verre and kilnformed glass. 3.5″ x 8.25″ x 8″

It’s missed our outbound SOFA truck, so it’s traveling solo to meet up with us when we get to Chicago. We’re all elated – and minus fingernails – to be able to show Robin’s work for the first time at the fair.

Some of you may remember that Robin won second place in the Non-Functional category of e-merge in 2006. She also won an all-expense paid trip to North Lands Creative Glass in Scotland and a place in Silvia Levenson’s summer 2007 workshop there.

Robin, Cobi Cockburn and Silvia Levenson at North Lands, June 2007. Great memories, odd lunch, Robin! (fruit, kelp and driftwood?)

BTW, after e-merge and North Lands, Californian Robin went on to be shortlisted in the First London International Creative Competition.

Come on by the Bullseye Gallery booth (#407) at SOFA Chicago to check out some post-Halloween treats.

An old SOFA. In 2006 we used our booth to spotlight some great talent, artists who had worked at North Lands Creative Glass.

This year we’ve dedicated the Bullseye Gallery booth to showcasing past participants in our biennial e-merge competition.

Selecting just six from the hundreds of enormously talented emerging and early-career artists who, over the years, have taken part in e-merge (and its predecessor WG@BE) wasn’t easy.

2000 – 2002 Catharine Newell

By now it’s hard to consider Catharine Newell an emerging artist.

But back in 2000 Catharine was an honorable mention in our first competition (the first two contests were called “WG@BE”) . By 2002 she’d taken First Place.  Today, her thoughtful commentaries on life, whether human or avian, are appreciated and collected by glass- and art-lovers around the world.

Catharine Newell, “Scat”, 2008. 37.375 x 37.5 x 2 inches installed

2004 Jeff Wallin

Our First Prize (Nonfunctional) winner in 2004  went on in 2007 to win the Sybren Valkema Prize in the Young Glass competition hosted by the Ebeltoft Glass Museum in Denmark.

Jeff Wallin “The Curtains are Cliffs”, 2008. 29.5 x 18.25 x 1.25″

Jeff’s work has continued to develop powerfully in the years since we saw his first painterly work in glass. We’re excited to be previewing his upcoming solo at Bullseye (December 2 – January 31) by showcasing a few new wall works at SOFA Chicago.

2004 April Surgent

This is where I admit to voter fraud.

In 2004 I was so excited about a student I’d been watching in the Canberra Glass Workshop program that I had a personal meltdown when I realized she wasn’t qualified to enter e-merge (we’d included a couple of her school-made pieces in a group show at the gallery already – which made her ineligible to enter e-merge).

So I created something called “The Director’s Corner” where I showed off a few pieces that – for various reasons – hadn’t qualified for the formal jury and awards system.

Since being featured in the infamous Director’s Corner at e-merge, April has visited Bullseye a number of times to work in our R&E department in solo and dual exchanges, most recently with Czech master Jiri Harcuba.

I got a few nasty letters for taking that kind of liberty with the competition and haven’t done it since. But do I regret it? No. Although not eligible on a technicality, April still epitomizes the best of what is emerging in our field: fresh ideas coupled with fresh methodology.

2006 Carrie Iverson

One of the many things I love about the work of 2006 finalist Carrie Iverson is how well it illustrates the power of crossover in our field. An accomplished printmaker before taking up glass, Carrie uses our medium to amplify her visual message about what lies below the surface.

Carrie Iverson. “Cartography” 2008. 17.375″ x 21″ x .25″

Carrie moved quickly through the ranks, not only as an artist working in glass, but now as a teacher. She’s been demonstrating her methods of image transfer for kiln-glass at the Bullseye Resource Center (to SRO crowds!)  and I’ve heard rumors of her teaching a class there soon.

It’s especially rewarding to bring Carrie’s glass work to Chicago, where local TV station WGB just won an Emmy for a documentary on her very moving installation “Façade Project” .

2006 Cobi Cockburn

In 2006 we enjoyed one of those most rare of moments in the art world: the jurors and the public agreed.

Cobi Cockburn won both First Prize (Nonfunctional) and the Popular Prize (selected by votes cast by exhibition visitors) for her set of fused, rolled-up, pulled, refused, cold-worked and kilnformed vessels titled simply “Spring Grass”!

Cobi Cockburn “Spring Grass”, 2006. Larger boat 4.625″ x 29.125″ x 4.375″

Exceptional convergence is at the core of Cobi’s work: a point at which technical virtuosity supports but does not for a moment upstage the message. On close inspection it’s hard not to marvel at the complexity of her method: furnace work, torch work, kiln work, cold work – all intricately woven together to create objects that reflect a journey as personal and unique as the simple grasses of the artist’s homeland.

Cobi, head in oven, taking glass to places its never gone before.

2008 Heike Brachlow

I’m a firm believer that simple is the most difficult. In 2008 when I saw London-based Heike Brachlow’s cast glass cylinders I was stunned.  Even without picking a piece up, to me they shouted “heavy”, “substantial”, “grounded”. So when I touched one and it rocked from side to side I just about came unglued.

Brachlow, Heike “Waiting V” 2008. 25″ x 7″ x 7″

Startling is the word I’d use for Heike’s work. The shock of finding instability in the stable, weightlessness in mass, imbalance in balance is just the kind of gratifying surprise we look for in emerging talent.

No, we don’t typically get this reckless with the art. It’s the magic of photography that make the RPMs seem so much greater than they are on this one.

But yes…..it truly is work that makes my head spin…..as I’m sure SOFA will.

I hope you’ll come visit us there – booth #407.

And consider entering your work in e-merge 2010. It’s the future – and a bright one.

Peter and Leslie’s comments to my last post got me to thinking about brainstorming ways for artists to get through a rough economy.  Not that I feel artists really need my two cents on this one – doesn’t the very expression “starving artist” point to the symbiotic nature of adversity and creativity?

But while we’re all waiting for the world’s financial wounds to heal, I’ll throw out a few ideas for thinking outside the casket.

No. 1: Reach beyond your own skill-set.

How about collaborating with an artist, designer or craftsperson whose primary material is not glass? Painters and printmakers bring a wealth of ideas to the table that many of us glass-centrics often overlook.

Alex Hirsch “Island’s Edge” Watercolor and ink.

A couple of years ago Portland artist Alex Hirsch crossed our radar. Her segmented compositions seemed perfectly suited to modular construction, painting-with-light methods, and, most specifically, a project that we’d been approached to fabricate for a recently completed medical office at the Oregon Health Sciences University’s Center for Health and Healing.

Hirsch’s design sense paired with our team’s technical skills (and ample kilns) was the ideal solution to the client’s aesthetic and practical needs.

Hirsch and Bullseye tech Nathan Sandberg discuss pre-fired elements that will eventually be fused to larger Tekta plates and finally laminated.

2. Consider the functional – in addition to the aesthetic – side of art glass

We’re all seduced by the beauty of glass. It’s functionality is sometimes a harder sell. In the case of this project – and many others – art glass offers practical benefits that are easily as appealing as its aesthetic ones. In this case it was the ability to both obscure and allow visibility within an interior environment that demanded both privacy for patients and visual control by staff.

The problem: the client wanted a screen that would…

1) shield the hallway and nurses station adjacent to examining rooms from the view of waiting room visitors;

2) allow nurses to see movement, i.e., the presence of people, in the waiting room;

3) bring the organic and soothing feel of a nearby roof garden into the waiting area.

Hirsch’s design provided the ideal solution.

3. Think retro-fit

The current economy is not being kind to builders. A lot of projects are being delayed or canceled. Property owners – whether home or office – are increasingly thinking about remodeling instead of building new.

The OHSU project was not really a renovation, but the interior glass partition wall had not been planned into the original design of the space. It was only after the waiting room interior had been completed and furnished that the medical staff realized the need for more privacy than the original floor plan provided.

That’s when we were contacted and Hirsch invited to propose an “art wall” that would serve as both mural and veil. Track installed above and below the glass panels provided all the support necessary for the partition wall.

4. Enter Bullseye’s biennial e-merge competition.

Huh? What’s this got to do with it?

We – and ultimately the client – had originally become familiar with Hirsch’s talent through her entry in our 2006 e-merge competition. She’d been working in glass on a smaller scale after being mentored by a local glass artist. When we saw her e-merge entry, we knew that her work would translate into an architectural scale and invited her to work with our technical team to realize the OHSU project.

Hirsch’s “Highway 101″ fused frit panel, 11″ x 31.5″ x .25″. Winner of e-merge 2006 Newcomer Prize.

But no, you don’t have to host a competition to find opportunities for collaboration. Visit non-glass galleries in your area. Enroll in a drawing, painting or design course at a local arts center. Network with artists from other media. Take your glass skills outside the glass world.

Yes, it’s a scary world out there at the moment, but it’s also bursting with opportunity for the creative.

For more views of Hirsch’s glasswork, click here.

To learn more about e-merge, click here.

For even MORE about e-merge, stay tuned for news about e-merge and SOFA later this week.