Two Days of Demos, Lectures, and Two Day Glass Art Exhibition
It’s easy for visitors walking into The Crucible’s main studio space to see how much glass means to our programs. From our furnace of molten glass kept orange-hot 24 hours a day, to the glass monsters and beads in our flameworking lab, glass is one of the most extensively used materials in our studio. It’s hot, glossy, temperamental and very sexy.
“From the first moment I started working with glass, “said Keir Lugo, glass studio instructor, “I was hooked. It’s just unlike anything else.”
As a material, though, hot glass hasn’t always been accessible: through the 1950s glass used almost exclusively by industry. In 1962 artist Harvey Littleton gathered a group of artists, craftspeople, scientists and scholars at the Toledo Museum of Art for a series of workshops, demonstrating ways that glass could be manipulated outside of an industrial setting and beginning the Studio Glass Movement.
While the movement officially began in Ohio, more glass arts programs developed in California in the late 1960s and 1970s than in any other state. By 1975 vibrant glass programs had been established in higher educational institutions across the state, and many distinquished glass artists had begun to form their careers.
In the mid 1980s San Jose State University glass program founder Dr. Robert Fritz and his student George Jercich hosted the first California Glass Exchange (CGE). The CGE was formed with as a regional, bi-annual conference with the goal of gathering the California glass community together to share skills and techniques. This fall The Crucible hosts a CGE Symposium, showcasing California glass artists and the history surrounding the art, with two days of glass demos, lectures and exhibition.
The CGE Symposium is a volunteer driven community effort, organized by the Crucible Glass Faculty, with support from The Crucible, The Clay and Glass Arts Foundation, the Glass Art Society, The Glass Alliance for Contemporary Glass, The Glass Alliance of Northern California and Denny Abrams.
The event will showcase a spectacular set of glass art with over 60 presenters from around California. If you’re intrigued by the history and process of studio glass, this is definitely an event you will not want to miss.
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