The GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet

Kevin Kutch (seated) and Kevin Scanlan blowing glass at Pier Glass.

Pier Glass, whose devastating experience of Hurricane Sandy was documented in detail on the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet last year, is celebrating its grand reopening with a three-day party that runs from April 26th – 28th, and will include a silent auction, glassblowing demos, lectures, and glass for sale. The event, which is being co-sponsored by Scanlan Glass, is being billed as “a weekend of thanks” to share appreciation with the many volunteers who helped to haul debris and restore the studio to its pre-flooded state, something that is still very much in progress for Pier Glass owners Kevin and Mary Ellen Buxton-Kutch, as well as Kevin Scanlan of Scanlan Glass and Alison Ruzsa who rent space there as well. Continue reading →

A last-ditch push to raise attendance in the 2013 Glass Art Association of Canada conference failed to raise sign-ups sufficiently to make the event financially viable for the 30-year-old artist organization. Organizers say they were 30-percent of the way to a break-even event, but that is where enrollment stalled with only 6 weeks to go before the scheduled event was to take place on May 23rd, 2013, in Calgary, Alberta. The cancellation is all the more bittersweet as it was to be a celebratory event of the association’s three-decade anniversary, and was entitled: “Breaking Boundaries: 30 Smashing Years!” And so on Wednesday, GAAC president Jamie Gray notified members of the decision. “Very sadly and with great regret, we have had to make the decision to cancel the conference,” she wrote in an emailed letter.

Continue reading →

UPDATED 4/10/13, 2 PM

The official 2013 Glass Art Society conference may have been scrapped, but the key organizers on the ground in Boston haven’t given up the dream of a glass gathering in Beantown this summer. In fact, they are proceeding with a novel four-day glass event they are calling the “GlassBoston Conference.” Running from June 13th through the 16th, and limited to 200 attendees, it promises to be chock full of workshops, lectures, and demonstrations that will take place across four venues: the MIT Glass Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts; NOCA Glass School in North Cambridge, Massachusetts; The Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston; and Strattman Design in Boston. (Notably absent is any event at MassArt, which had been one of the major venues in the plans for the GAS conference.) In a departure from the all-encompassing conference fee that GAS uses, the event organizers are selling tickets to individual days of the conference and individual events in a sort of a-la-carte alternative to the all-you-can-eat menu typical of the official conference. Daily prices of $60 are supplemented by additional fees to attend tours or social events such as a barbecue or dance party. In a sign of the unusual financing of the event, many of the lectures and demonstrations are being underwritten (with some sponsored by the Glass Art Society, itself, in a good-will gesture of support). Affordable housing ($68, single room; $88, double) is being offered at the MIT dorms. Continue reading →

A scene from a demo during the 2010 GAAC conference in Montreal. Anthony Schafermeyer, assisted by Vincent Chagnon and Simon Muller, fuses a circle of murrini for a pick up. photo: patrick fisher

With seven short weeks before its scheduled 2013 conference is set to begin on May 23rd, 2013, in Calgary, Alberta, the Glass Art Association of Canada has issued an urgent plea to its members to sign up by Tuesday, April 9th, so that organizers can decide whether or not to proceed with the planned event. The limited number of registrations has put the entire conference, titled “Breaking Boundaries: 30 Smashing Years!” in jeopardy, according to a letter emailed to members by association president Jamie Gray today. As an extra incentive, the early-bird registration fee of $300 has been extended beyond the March 31st cutoff. There has already been one casualty of the limited number of registrants so far — the pre- and post-conference workshops have been scrapped. Those who’ve signed up will be formally notified by the association in the coming days. Continue reading →