Glass acts

Art glass may be finally finding its place in the Inland Northwest.

Two local events featuring dozens of regional glass artists are set for next Saturday and Sunday – the 13th annual Glass on the Grass at Gonzaga University and the new Art and Glass Fest at Arbor Crest.

“Glass is a very magical, colorful and exciting medium,” says fused glass artist Louise Telford of Post Falls. “What drew me to it is the variety of things that can be done with glass.”

The many ways of creating in glass include blowing, casting, fusing, flameworking, slumping and staining. (See glossary inside.)

While today’s glass artists use high tech torches, furnaces and annealers, the basic techniques of making objects have not changed much in thousand of years.

“Romans were blowing glass 2,000 years ago,” says Spokane glass artist Steve Adams. “The Egyptians made elaborate fushed objects before 1500 BC.”

It was in the early 1960s when the contemporary studio glass movement evolved with the development of a small furnace by a University of Wisconsin art professor.

“Without Harvey Littleton there wouldn’t be a studio glass movement,” says Adams. “He scaled down the design of the equipment so it would fit within an individual artist’s studio.”

Dale Chihuly of Tacoma, one of Littleton’s students, popularized the glass studio movement and has been at the forefront of publicizing blown glass.

“Glass art has really spread out from the Seattle area,” says Conrad Bagley, coordinator of Glass on the Grass.

With the availability in recent years of introductory classes through local colleges and Spokane Art School, more people in the Inland Northwest have been able to learn basic glass making techniques.

“In the eight years I’ve been here,” says Karen Mobley, director of the Spokane Arts Commission, “there are many more artists working in glass than before.”

Longtime Spokane glass artist Sherry Yost, known for her liturgical stained glass windows, teaches glass painting, frit painting, fusing and slumping.

“I have enjoyed working with multimedia in glass,” says Yost, “everything from traditional to contemporary applications.”

Most local glass workers, however, are doing fusing or flame working because small kilns and torches have become affordable and accessible.

“You can have them at your house now,” says Telford, a weaver who has been working with glass for 10years.

“The temperatures of the smaller glass kiln is not nearly as high and intimidating as the hot glass blowing furnace, and it is much cheaper to run.”

Linda Nicholson of Spokane Valley has been making flamed-worked glass art beads since 1997 in her home studio.

Her beads range in size from 1 1/2- to 3-inches. Holes run through the center of each bead making them wearable as art, or with an optional stand, as incense burners.

“Each bead is unique,” says Nicholson. “There are like miniature sculptures.”

While more local artists are working in glass – few of them are earning a living wage doing it.

In recent years a number of veteran blown glass artists – Steve Adams, Spencer Erlendson and Paul Labrie – have cut back on their furnace time because of the rapidly rising cost of energy and a more saturated market.

“There is a lot of imported glass from China out there,” says lamp worker Labrie who specializes in hand-sculpted pieces. “Sometimes it’s hard to differentiate your work from the imports.”

Paperweight, hummingbird and candle sticks are easily copied and manufactured overseas.

“People can go to Wal-Mart and buy a beautiful glass vase, even though there may be 50,000 of the same unit, for $20,” says Labrie.

“A glass blower here would have to charge 20-times that amount in order to produce something the same size,” he says.

“Buyers can’t make the leap between the $20 at Wal-Mart and the $400 that we have to change,” says the Spokane Valley artist. “People overseas are making 50-cents to $1 a day. You can’t compete with those wages.”

Adams has long had to sell his work outside of Spokane to make a living with his blown glass.

“I don’t want to sound negative,” says Adams, “but, the state of glass in Spokane is underdeveloped for a city of its size.”

While the Puget Sound area boosts of more than 50 hot glass studios and a good number of galleries that specialize in many levels and types of glass, there are less than a handful of such places east of the Cascades.

“In Seattle you can see a $50,000 piece of art glass by Italian master glass blower Lino Tagliapietra,” says Adams.

“Lino is responsible for bringing refined Venetian glass blowing techniques to a generation of artists around the world,” says Adams. “In Spokane almost no one knows who he is.”