Field Notes: Artists Observe Nature Opening Celebration

Saturday, November 16 | 12–4pm

Please join us in celebrating the opening of Field Notes: Artists Observe Nature at Museum of Glass!

Since the turn of the 20th century, there have been significant artistic moments in which artists have sought to mimic the forms and patterns of nature in glass. Field Notes: Artists Observe Nature explores specimens of work from the Art Nouveau period to the contemporary. With works by Vittorio Costantini, Joey Kirkpatrick, René Lalique, Flora C. Mace, and William Morris, among others, Guest Curator Linda Tesner has gathered an array of glass flora and fauna, ranging from vessels with applied hot-sculpted pinecones, to birds drawn in glass powder on glass pages, to intricately flameworked, etymologically accurate glass insect specimens.

Opening Activities

• Family Educational Activities - All Day

• Curator-Led Tour - 3pm

• Member Lounge - 2-4pm

The member lounge for Museum of Glass members will have snacks and refreshments. Please RSVP to Kristyn Kuehn kkuehn@museumofglass.org or 253.284.2126. Interested in becoming a Museum member? Click here.

See below for more on the Field Notes educational activities!

Family Educational Activities

Hands-On Craft: Trash Bugs

Sculpt your own insect specimen using a variety of found materials! 

New to the Education Studio is an immersive installation titled Bugs Can Dream, Too by artist Phil Roach. This piece is inspired by Henri Rousseau's lush Jungles (1844–1910) and Vittorio Costantini's Entomological Specimens, the biologically accurate glass insects featured in Field Notes.

Also featured in the Studio are vintage insect specimens from the Museum of Natural History at University of Puget Sound, which stress that nature cannot thrive without insects. The advent of great sweeps of grass replacing native plants in almost every culture has seriously depleted the ability of bugs to thrive, limiting their decisive contributions to our natural world. Therefore, these Education Studio installations ask the viewer to reflect on the meaning of nature today. Do we want insects to be part of nature for future generations? What is nature without insects? What will artists be inspired by in the Anthropocene, with nature now increasingly shaped by human activity? Under the guidance of Education Studio Artist Shannon Eakins, students and visitors can consider these questions and make their very own bug-based crafts from found materials. 

Meet Charles Darwin

During your wanders through the Field Notes gallery, you may encounter naturalist Charles Darwin!

An English naturalist, biologist, and geologist, Darwin (1809–1892) is best known for his contributions to the theory of evolutionary biology. In the gallery, Mr. Darwin will engage in conversation with guests and offer his unique perspective on the works on display in the exhibition.

About Curator Linda Tesner 

Linda Tesner is Guest Curator for Field Notes: Artists Observe Nature. Tesner is former director and curator of the Ronna and Eric Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art at Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon. Previously, she was assistant director of the Portland Art Museum and director of the Maryhill Museum of Art, Goldendale, Washington. She is the author of numerous exhibition catalogs and monographs. Tesner now curates a private collection. In 2015, Tesner was the guest curator of the exhibition, Joey Kirkpatrick and Flora C. Mace: Every Soil Bears Not Everything, authoring the companion exhibition catalog for Museum of Glass.