Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend Hours:
Closed Thursday, November 23
10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Friday, November 24 and Saturday, November 25
12 – 5 p.m. Sunday, November 26

Tacoma, Wash. (November 16, 2006)—The Museum of Glass will be open Thanksgiving Weekend (Friday, November 24 through Sunday, November 26) with a line-up of interactive and lively activities for the whole family. Visitors can watch guest artist John Miller at work with the Museum’s resident team of glassblowers in the Hot Shop Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Miller is known for his playfulness, slapstick humor and engaging personality which makes him an ideal choice to be the first guest artist to participate in the Design Your Own Vessel Program on Sunday. In this program, young artists (12 years of age or younger) create and submit original designs. One or two finalists are chosen each month and their drawings are interpreted into glass by the Hot Shop Team. Two vessels are made from each design—one for the Museum’s collection and one for the designer to take home.

On Friday, the world-renowned dance troupe Lelavision returns to the Museum for a third consecutive year to perform Physical Music, a choreographed display of physical agility and musical prowess infused with a delightful sense of humor. The performers use sculpture, music, and movement to develop themes based on myth, nature, and spirit. The end result is Physical Music, the complete integration of music and movement.

In the galleries, visitors can explore all of the current exhibitions, including the recently-opened Contrasts: A Glass Primer, a captivating exhibition designed as an introduction to the medium of glass. Curated by Vicki Halper, Contrasts displays more than 50 historically important and visually stunning glass objects in 19 pairings or small groupings that highlight differences in technique, appearance, conception or purpose. Works included in the exhibition come from artists such as Louis Comfort Tiffany, Frank Lloyd Wright, Dale Chihuly, Harvey Littleton, Walter Lieberman and Ginny Ruffner, among others.

All events are included with Museum admission unless otherwise noted.

Thanksgiving Weekend Events

Hot Shop Guest Artist John Miller, Champaign, IL
Friday – Sunday
Guest artists work with the Museum’s resident Hot Shop Team to explore, invent and create with glass. With a diverse mixture of culture, style, focus and expertise, each artist offers visitors the chance to experience a distinct creative style.

John Miller maintains a studio in Champaign, Illinois, where he creates expressive works for exhibition across the nation. “My work reflects both a love of the immediacy of the glass material and a respect for its demanding properties. Some pieces are very formal and about glass and how it moves; others envelope a sense of humor and playfulness. I am always interested in pushing the medium to its heights.”

Lelavision Physical Music
(www.lelavision.com)
Friday, November 24
1 and 3:30 p.m.
Physical Music is a display of physical agility and musical prowess infused with a delightful sense of humor. The choreography, instead of being performed to a musical score, arises entirely from the performers playing “musical sculptures” designed specifically to evoke such movement. Each performance consists of several shorter works centered around themes of invention, discovery and play.

Design Your Own Vessel Creation with John Miller
Sunday, November 26
Sponsored by Key Foundation, a foundation funded by KeyBank, and the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe

Hands-On Art Activity with Mindi Katzman
10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Friday; 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Saturday; 12 – 5 p.m. Sunday
Create a Fresh! scene using colorful foam

Museum Member Holiday Sale
November 24 – 26
Museum of Glass members receive a 20% discount on all purchases in the Museum Store.

Exhibitions

Context Series, Part I
Fresh! Contemporary Takes on Nature & Allegory
Organized by the Museum of Glass
Through December 31, 2006
Sponsored by the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation

Seen through the eyes of fifteen international artists working in a range of media, Fresh! examines how early 21st century artists are exploring the natural and the synthetic in contemporary allegories. Fresh! is the first exhibition in the Museum’s Context series which places works in glass in context with other media.

Transparently Built: A Group Show of Glass Installations
Organized by the Museum of Glass
Through May 27, 2007
Sponsored by Russell Investment Group, Heritage Bank and the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass

Transparently Built explores the diverse architectural properties of glass through site-specific works. The installations respond to and interact with the structure and space of the Museum building, compelling the viewer to reexamine his/her physical surroundings.

Contrasts: A Glass Primer
Organized by the Museum of Glass
Through November 2009
Sponsored by the Ben B. Cheney Foundation, the Gottfried and Mary Fuchs Foundation, The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

A captivating introduction to the medium of glass, Contrasts includes international, historically important and visually stunning works of art that are grouped to illustrate opposing ideas, techniques and styles. The exhibition provides a visual feast of more than 50 objects.