Earthlings and Extraterrestrials:
20 Years of Kids Design Glass

July 24, 2024 – January 2025

Exhibition Overview

In 2004, Museum of Glass hosted an exhibition titled Murano: Glass from the Olnick Spanu Collection, which, amongst other themes, explored the relationship between designer and maker. The Education Department asked, “Who could be a designer?”, and Kids Design Glass™ was born. The Kids Design Glass program provides children ages twelve and under with the opportunity to create drawings and submit them to the Museum’s Hot Shop Team. Throughout the year, the Team selects individual designs to be brought to life as glass sculptures, to the child designer’s exact specifications. The Team creates two sculptures of each design – one for the designer to keep and one for the Museum’s Permanent Collection.

Over the past twenty years, we have made a lot of pieces! In celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the Kids Design Glass Program, the Museum has pulled together a selection of creatures from the program’s body of work featuring a range of critters from both this world and others, created by the minds of children over the past two decades. In Earthlings and Extraterrestrials: 20 Years of Kids Design Glass, these pieces will be set in conversation with a collage of paintings and photographs which highlight the impact of climate change on our planet. As we celebrate the imaginations of the next generations of artists, designers, and creatives, we must also acknowledge the new challenges that they will face because of the Earth’s rapidly changing climate. In this exhibition, visitors will encounter open-ended questions to ponder about space, time, extinction, mutations, and how we can be better stewards of this planet that young artists call home.

Featured Images

Image Credits

1. Sewage Combo, 2010. Designed by Alex Baldinelli (age 10), made by Museum of Glass Hot Shop Team. Blown and hot-sculpted glass with applied bits; 16 1/2 × 8 3/4 × 4 in. Collection of Museum of Glass. Photo by Duncan Price.

2. Recycle Robot, 2009. Designed by Jeremiah Turnberg (age 11), made by Museum of Glass Hot Shop Team. Blown and hot-sculpted glass with applied bits; 17 x 14 x 5 in. Collection of Museum of Glass, sponsored by Sierra and Jasper Welly. Photo by Russell Johnson and Jeff Curtis.

3. La nuit des douphins, 2014. Designed by Lilou Duranton (age 10 ½), made by Museum of Glass Hot Shop Team. Hot-sculpted glass with applied bits; 6 3/4 x 9 1/2 x 3 1/8 in. Collection of Museum of Glass. Photo by Duncan Price.

Exhibition Credit

Organized by Museum of Glass, in partnership with artists Susie Russell Hall, Terry Rishel, and Climate Scientists Drs. Steven Neshbya and Penny Rowe.