Here’s What You Missed on Glee: MOG Spring Events Recap
This spring has been a busy time at MOG! In case you missed it, here’s a brief recap of all the fun things we’ve been up to over the past couple months.
An Evening with Yaa Gyasi
This year, Museum of Glass received a National Endowment of the Arts Big Read grant for the novel Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi for programming alongside current exhibition A Two-Way Mirror: Double Consciousness in Contemporary Glass by Black Artists. On March 7, MOG had the honor of partnering with the Race & Pedagogy Institute and African American Studies at University of Puget Sound, along with the Pierce County Library System & Foundation, to host an author talk with Gyasi in conversation with A Two-Way Mirror curator Jabari Owens-Bailey. This sold-out event filled UPS’s Schneebeck Concert Hall, where Gyasi and Owens-Bailey discussed some of the themes shared between the novel and the exhibition, including migration, history of enslavement, generational trauma, resilience, and the shifting of Black identities.
Homegoing author Yaa Gyasi. Photo courtesy of University of Puget Sound.
A Two-Way Mirror Exhibition Curator Jabari Owens-Bailey interviews Yaa Gyasi. Photo courtesy of University of Puget Sound.
Following the conversation, Gyasi signed copies of her books for a line that ran all the way through Wyatt Hall’s atrium, at a table fittingly positioned beneath the glass installation created for the university by UPS alum and MOG cofounder Dale Chihuly.
Museum of Glass Board Chair Kenneth Farmer has his copy of Transcendent Kingdom signed by Yaa Gyasi.
Blown Away Watch Party + Cast Q&A
The next night, March 8, MOG guests and staff gathered in the Hot Shop Amphitheater with popcorn and candy for a release day screening of Netflix’s Blown Away Season 4, Episode 6 – featuring the Museum’s very own Hot Shop Director Benjamin Cobb as the guest judge! This episode’s challenge was inspired by MOG’s popular Kids Design Glass program, which is celebrating its 20th year in 2024. The contestants created works inspired by the drawings of their child designer partners. Cobb and three local artists from the season – Ryan Blythe, Karen Willenbrink Johnsen, and Morgan Peterson – joined us for a cast Q&A following the episode, along with a surprise appearance from the episode’s winner, Ryan Thompson, via Zoom. MOG Curator Katie Buckingham moderated the panel, taking questions from the full audience about the successes, challenges, and behind-the-scenes tidbits of working the Blown Away hot shop.
(Left to right): Morgan Peterson, Karen Willenbrink Johnsen, Ryan Thompson, and Ben Cobb in conversation during the Blown Away cast panel.
The panelists and the audience watch Blown Away Season 4, Episode 6 together.
If you’re a Blown Away fan who missed this event, worry not! The livestream recording of the Q&A session is available here. Plus, as the winner of the episode, Ryan Thompson will be the Hot Shop for his prize package Visiting Artist Residency later this year, October 9–13 with an Artist Talk on Sunday, 10/13 at 1pm!
Concert in the Cone: Signs of Spring
On March 21, MOG celebrated the arrival of spring with Northwest Sinfonietta at our fourth Concert in the Cone. The Sinfonietta’s program was a bouquet of light classics, jazz, and ragtime, including Vivaldi’s “Spring” from The Four Seasons, Pelecis’s Flowering Jasmine, and “In Summer” from Disney’s Frozen. While the musicians played through their set, students from Hilltop Artists led live glassblowing demos on the Hot Shop floor, creating works inspired by the music. The community showed up in droves for this event, lining up an hour before the concert was set to start. Once the Hot Shop seating areas reached fire code capacity, folks continued to queue outside of the Hot Shop doors for their turns in the audience, making this the most well attended Concert in the Cone we’ve had yet!
Northwest Sinfonietta performs on the Hot Shop balcony.
Hilltop Artists students work on the Hot Shop floor while the Sinfonietta performs.
As part of the Museum’s monthly Third Thursday programming, this concert was free for all attendees, thanks to the support of Tacoma Creates. The livestream recording of the concert is available here.
Chronic Heat: A Joint Venture
Over the 2024 4/20 weekend, MOG hosted Chronic Heat: A Joint Venture, featuring a lineup of pipemakers in the Hot Shop! This event was the first of its kind for MOG, inspired by the recent acquisition to the Permanent Collection of three functional glass pieces by artist Ryan “Buck” Harris. These usable glass pipes, painstakingly flameworked by the artist, are the first of their kind to have a permanent home at the Museum.
Nic Asturino (Annealed Innovations). Photo by Jamie Zill Glass Photography.
Chris Carlson. Photo by Jamie Zill Glass Photography.
Although the Pacific Northwest is renowned for its hot glass, community, a portion of these artists have too frequently been overlooked in the conversation. The greater pipe community also has its origins in this region, having developed alongside the rise of artists working in soft glass. To further explore this important corner of the glassmaking world, MOG was thrilled to host a collaboration of soft glass and borosilicate (or “hard glass”) pipemakers to exhibit their skills in this complex, and once taboo, art form which bridges the gap between functional and fine art. The artist lineup included Nic Asturino (Annealed Innovations), Jeff Ballard (Soft Serve Glass), Chris Carlson, Anthony Charles (Frit Glass), Patricia Davidson, Jason Elliot (JLE Glass), Scott Moan (Scomoanet), Cameron Tower, Turtle Anuweh (Turtle Time Glass), Joe Tsoulfas (Bigspin Glass), and Edgar Valentine. The livestream recordings from the weekend are available here and here.
Joe Tsoulfas (Bigspin Glass) and Jeff Ballard (Soft Serve Glass). Photo by Jamie Zill Glass Photography.
Patricia Davidson. Photo by Jamie Zill Photography.
Huge thanks to each and every person who joined us at one or many of these events! We feel super lucky to have the opportunity to share so many facets of the wide world of glass art with such an avid community of artists and art enjoyers!