Visions in Glass...continued

   The Revolution Continues
   The glass revolution continues to gather momentum today. "Back when Labino was doing his work and when this whole glass art movement was taking off, nobody was [blowing glass.] It was unusual. It was rare. Now there are two glassblowers under every bush from here to California. Everybody's blowing glass. I have talked to people that you would never imagine. They sell real estate as their day job, have three kids, and at night they go down to the museum and blow glass. I mean that's pretty great, just in terms of more people handling the material and understanding it," says Baker O'Brien, Labino's only student.
   Parellel to the burgeoning numbers of glassblowers found across the States was the upswing of studio glass acquisitions by major museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, TMA, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Private collectors also recognized glass quickly; a fact evidenced by the meteoric expansion of the Glass Auction of the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo (ACGT).
   For the past five years, the ACGT has held an annual glass auction representing some of the finest glasswork in the world. It began in 1991 in a private home as a small fundraiser for ACGT. The first year local artists donated 15 pieces, which raised 10,000 dollars for the commission. Now the Glass Auction enjoys national prominence, exhibiting in the Owens-Illinois Gallery, with of global artists. Attracting requests for auction guides from places as diverse as Shaker Heights and Great Neck, New York, the Glass Auction validates the rise of glass as an art form. It also "has validated our mission," says ACGT executive director Eileen Kerner, who points out that the success of the auction directly benefits Toledo by making commissions like the Ottawa Park Gate possible. The auction symbolizes another turn in the glass revolution. "A lot of those original glass studio visionaries are in our Glass Auction today as wonderful, experienced glass artists," explains Kerner.
   Because of the designs and dreams of Labino and Littleton, glass has escaped the fetters of function and today occupies its share of space in small studios, galleries and workshops. TMA continues the studio workshop tradition through a series of classes. In thirty-three years, a few changes have been made to the workshop site. The garage was razed; in its place, stands a studio workshop designed to meet the needs of gaffers. Open enrollment in glassblowing classes ensures that newcomers as well as experienced art students can take advantage of the advances the 1962 workshops provided and learn the intricacies of working with glass.
   In the fall of 1988, Leonard Marty took over the glassblowing program at TMA. Not only does he educate the community on aspects of working with hot glass, Marty tries to "keep people abreast of current glass art nationally and internationally," he reports. TMA's adult education in glassblowing program remains one of the most popular glass programs in the country, with 50 students of varying levels participating each term. This past fall, the glassblowing program enjoyed the participation of a special guest, visiting artist-in-residence Therman Statom, who recently opened an exhibition in Detroit at the Habitat Gallery.
   The Studio Glass Movement and the Toledo Workshops, which helped catapult it to global prominence, secure for glasswork a respected place in American Art and provided for its practitioners a niche in museums around the world. The initial explosion of the revolution lent to the movement a momentum which has not diminished today. More people are working with glass in small studios that ever before, exploring its use and applications in a constant experimentation liberated from the demands of function, precisely what Harvey Littleton had been hoping for. A new generation of artists has been initiated into the tradition, and here is where the future of studio glass lies. Littleton concludes, "as long as there are people, there is going to be art. And artists will use whatever materials are going to appeal to them. The tragedy was that glass wasnt' able to be used. And what we did was put glass back into the hands of artists."

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