Kids Design Glass
October 31, 2009 – February, 2011
Organized by Museum of Glass
Exhibition sponsored by Russell Investments, Key Bank/Key Foundation, Muckleshoot Charity Fund, Dale Chihuly and Leslie Jackson Chihuly, Carl and Jan Fisher, Janet and Mike Halvorson, Leonard and Norma Klorfine Foundation, Randall and Joyce Lert, Mr. and Mrs. George H. Weyerhaeuser, Sr., The News Tribune and Click! Cable TV

Kids Design Glass is art that celebrates imagination.  Imagination is thinking—without rules or boundaries.
That is why kids are so good at it.
—Dale Chihuly, from the Kids Design Glass catalog foreword

Tacoma, Wash. (July 30, 2009)— On Halloween, October 31, 2009, the Museum of Glass will open a new exhibition that pays tribute to the imagination of children.  Kids Design Glass showcases 52 glass sculptures designed by children and crafted by professional glass artists in the Museum of Glass Hot Shop.  The exhibition will remain on view until February, 2011.

Kids Design Glass began as a temporary educational program in conjunction with Murano: Glass from the Olnick Spanu Collection, a traveling exhibition that came to the Museum of Glass in 2004.  The exhibition highlighted the symbiotic relationship between designers and glassblowers who make works of art in glass.  Similarly, the underlying concept of the Kids Design Glass program illustrates the interrelationship of these roles.  A child draws a design, generally a fantastical creature, names it, and writes a brief explanation or story about his or her creation.  The Museum’s Hot Shop Team selects one design every month based on its aesthetic merits and transforms the two-dimensional drawing into a three-dimensional sculpture.  As the designer, the child directs the artists as they make two sculptures—one for the child to take home and the other for the Museum’s Permanent Collection.

“Kids Design Glass documents the evolution of a museum program into a full-fledged collection of art,” states director Timothy Close.  “It has touched the hearts and minds of visitors and has positively impacted the lives of thousands of children.  This program is uniquely Museum of Glass and is part of our legacy.”

Children ages 12 and under who visit the Museum have the opportunity to submit a design.  Entry forms and drawing materials are always available in the hands-on art studio.  Patients at Tacoma’s Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital can also participate.

The Museum’s Hot Shop Team has become highly proficient in making the unconventional sculptures, which are more difficult to create than they might appear.  “Following a child’s drawing takes a whole different kind of precision,” comments Museum of Glass Hot Shop Manager Benjamin Cobb.  “Each Kids Design Glass session is an adventure.  The process is always a challenge and immensely rewarding.  It’s one of our favorite things to do—and one of the most intense.”

All 52 sculptures were created between 2005 and 2009 in the Museum of Glass Hot Shop by the Hot Shop Team and a handful of Visiting Artists, including Lino Tagliapietra, Preston Singletary, Joseph Rossano, John Miller, Dante Marioni, Nancy Callan, Martin Blank and Bee Kingdom, a Canadian glassblowing trio.  The original drawing, artist statement and photographs from the Hot Shop will be displayed with each piece.

A full-color catalog accompanies the exhibition and includes essays by Susan Linn, a psychologist at Harvard’s Judge Baker Children’s Center in Boston and director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, and Museum of Glass Hot Shop Manager Benjamin Cobb.  Linn discusses the importance of unbridled imagination for children and Cobb describes the creative and technical challenge of the process from the perspective of a glassblower.  Pip! The Baby Monster and How He Was Made, a children’s comic-style book written by noted children’s author George Shannon and illustrated by Ericka Moen, and a DVD documenting the creation of Recycle Robot are included with the catalog.

Kids Design Glass will become the third exhibition organized by the Museum of Glass to travel to venues across the country beginning in 2011.