Visiting Artist Lineup
March
Tariqa Waters
March 12-16
One of Seattle Magazine's most influential artists, Tariqa Waters' innovative practice masterfully commands space through her use of mixed-media tableaus, paintings, photographs, film, glass, and whimsical immersive installations. Her technicolor characterizations of multigenerational commercial references reclaim a sincere aesthetic steeped in effortless regality and proudly celebrated traditions.
Over the years, the art of storytelling has served as a resourceful tool within the evolution of her work. When she sits and thinks about her journey as a Black woman and mother in an inequitable art market, she often finds herself developing innovative ways to lampoon and defy generalizations that doubt her capabilities. Whether sustaining a decade-long, renowned, conceptual brick-and-mortar community-based art installation called Martyr Sauce, or shapeshifting that brick-and-mortar into a television show called Thank You, MS PAM on The Seattle Channel, celebrating artists, creatives, and small businesses around the PNW, or evolving her preferred medium from oil painting to motorized large-scale immersive fabrications and blown glass, she has never shied away from taking risks. Her world drips with colorful irreverence and cheeky humor, flipping gender scripts, remixing Black cultural touchpoints, and reflecting the contradictions of daily life.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
Priscilla Dobler Dzul
March 21-23
Priscilla Dobler Dzul is an interdisciplinary artist from Merida, Yucatan, and raised in Tacoma.
Her work documents the impacts of capitalism on ecosystems, gender structures, labor, and the erasure of traditional plant knowledge. Her installations begin with oral stories by her Maya elders, which reveal common themes reflecting western dichotomies of good vs. evil. Her inspiration comes from her passion and commitment to the preservation and representation of her indigenous heritage.
Dobler Dzul holds an MFA in Sculpture from State University of New York at New Paltz and has received the Edwin T. Pratt Scholarship and Robert B. McMillan Fellowship.
April
Cheryl Derricotte
April 2–6
Cheryl Derricotte returns to the Hot Shop to continue a historical portrait series, illuminating the life of Sally Hemings, the enslaved woman who was the mother of six children of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson. No known portraits or drawings of Hemings exist, so Derricotte has been crafting Hemings’ portrait in sculptural form. This tremendous undertaking was acknowledged at the Museum’s 2024 Red Hot Auction & Gala with the Artist’s Choice Coney Award, the prize for which included this residency.
Derricotte’s work is in the permanent collections of the deYoung Museum, the Historic New Orleans Collection, the Oakland Museum of California, the San Francisco Public Library and the National Association of Homebuilders. Cheryl holds a B.A. in Urban Affairs (Minor: History), Barnard College, Columbia University; the Master of Regional Planning, Cornell University and the Master of Fine Arts, California Institute of Integral Studies. A licensed city planner and member of the American Institute of Certified Planners since 1995, she serves as the Professional Development Officer of the new Arts & Planning Division of the American Planning Association.
Kwun Lan Wong
April 9-13
Kwun Lan Wong, a glass blower from Hong Kong, discovered her passion for this art form while finishing her Bachelor's in Visual Arts at Hong Kong Baptist University. After graduation, she worked as a studio assistant at the same university, taking on various responsibilities such as teaching, studio management, teaching material management, and equipment repair. She later pursued a Master's degree in glass at Southern Illinois University, where she honed her skills in hot sculpting.
Her figures manifest the words left unsaid in intimate relationships to avoid communicating verbally. Self-disclosure is a crucial part of any intimate relationship; in her culture, revealing your true thoughts is dangerous and exposes your weaknesses. This personal dichotomy is made public in her glass sculptures, where her insecure feelings and complex thoughts hide behind the figures.
She explores another aspect of her cultural identity as a Hong Kong artist. Hong Kong's identity is neither British nor Chinese. In her work, she repurposed the figure of Lo Ting (盧亭), a half-fish, half-human mythological character that doesn't belong to the sea or land, as a metaphor for the ambiguous feelings of Hongkongese.
Corey Pemberton
April 30–May 4
As a queer person of mixed race, Corey Pemberton often feels other. Knowing nothing about his African roots and very little about his European heritage, the artist considers lineage and the idea of connectedness in his work. His blown glass baskets are inspired by his presumed ancestors, created with a European technique that borrows forms and patterns from the sweetgrass weavers of South Africa. This will be Pemberton’s first residency at Museum of Glass.
May
Ben Beres
May 14–18
Ben Beres is a Seattle-based artist who has been printmaking for the past two decades, with a focus on creating detailed works through the process of etching on copper. Over the years, his practice has expanded to include work in the as-yet-experimental arena of vitreography (printing with glass plates), etching on glass, and public engagement through performance. His residency will be an opportunity for Beres to continue to experiment on vessels that combine glassblowing with this printmaking practice. His residency is in honor of the People’s Choice Coney Award, which he received at MOG’s 2024 Red Hot Auction & Gala.
June
Kacie Lees
June 4-8
Kacie Lees is an impassioned and dedicated scholar specializing in neon fabrication whose opulent site-specific installations elucidate nature and history through the ineffable phenomena of light. Lees challenges the traditional craft of neon by both experimenting with alternative approaches of the material components, and focusing on scientific elements to educate the public on neon as a process-driven fine art form. Beyond her multifaceted artistic practice, Lees teaches inventive, media-rich neon courses at prominent cultural institutions across the United States, including New York University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Neon Art in LA. With research focused on the intricate physics of light and innovative learning methodologies, Lees’ professional work and classroom objectives synergize to form learning environments where exploration and creativity know no bounds.
Sonya Clark
June 18-22
Sonya Clark’s Jamaican mother and Trinidadian father of Yoruba descent informed her appreciation of diaspora and Afro-Caribbean traditions. Her maternal grandmother, a tailor from whom she learned to sew, and maternal grandfather, a skilled woodworker and furniture maker, further inspired the artist.
She has also studied with craftspeople in Australia, Brazil, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, India, and Indonesia to better understand the mediums, tools, techniques, and cultural associations that enrich her work.
Through her chosen materials—humble objects like combs, coins, seed beads, thin threads, and strands of human hair—Clark explores the various functions and connotations humans assign to things. “Objects have personal and cultural meaning because they absorb our stories and reflect our humanity back to us. My stories, your stories, our stories are held in the object,” says Clark.
She is best known for artwork that honors contemporary craftspeople like hairdressers and notable African American figures, including entrepreneur and activist Madam C.J. Walker and former President Barack Obama.
Clark has received the Anonymous Was A Woman Award (2016), ArtPrize Juried Grand Prize (co-winner, 2014), and Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2010 and 2011). She was a Distinguished Research Fellow in the School of Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University where she served as chair for the Craft/Material Studies Department from 2006 until 2017. She is currently a Professor of Art at Amherst College in Massachusetts.
July
Anna Ting Möller
July 16-20
Anna Ting Möller is an artist living and working in New York City and Stockholm. Möller received an MFA from Columbia University, New York and a BFA from Konstfack University, Stockholm, SE. Möller’s work has been exhibited at Liljevalchs Konsthall, SE; ArkDes, SE; Carl Eldh, SE; Jyväskylä Art Museum, FI. They participated in the 45th Tendencies Biennale in Norway and The Immigrant Artist Biennale in New York. Möller has received residencies and fellowships from EFA Robert Blackburn, US; Kronobergs Kulturpris, SE; Asia Art Archive in America, US; LMCC, US; The Here and There Co (THAT Co), US; The Sweden-America Foundation, SE; The artist's work has been reviewed in publications such Hyperallergic and Brooklyn Rail.
Möller’s work explores the intersections of materiality, transformation, and bodily processes. The work often incorporates kombucha cultures to create ephemeral sculptures that challenge conventional notions of life, death, and lineage. Focusing on themes such as the sexualized and grotesque, Möller critiques societal constructs, particularly the fetishization of the Other.
Wendy Red Star
July 23-27
Wendy Red Star lives and works in Portland, Oregon. An enrolled member of the Apsáalooke (Crow) Tribe, Red Star works across disciplines to explore the intersections of Native American ideologies and colonialist structures, both historically and in contemporary society. Drawing on pop culture, conceptual art strategies, and the Crow traditions within which she was raised, Red Star pushes the conversation surrounding Native American perspectives in new directions. Her residency, part of an on-going collaboration with Pilchuck Glass School, will be an opportunity for Red Star to experiment with incorporating glass into her artistic practice.
Red Star has exhibited in the United States and abroad at venues including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY); The Newark Museum (Newark, NJ), Brooklyn Museum (Brooklyn, NY), The Broad (Los Angeles, CA); the Getty Museum (Los Angeles, CA); Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain (Paris, France); Seattle Art Museum (Seattle, WA); Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR); the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (Chicago, IL); St. Louis Art Museum (St. Louis, MO); the Contemporary Austin (Austin, TX); Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, MN); Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MassMoCA) (North Adams, MA); The Drawing Center (New York, NY); and the Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, OH), among many others. Her monumental sculpture, The Soil You See…, was included in Beyond Granite: Pulling Together, the first curated outdoor exhibition in the history of the National Mall (Washington, D.C), organized by Monument Lab in 2023. The work was then acquired by Tippet Rise Art Center (Fishtail, MT). Red Star’s was included in Acts of Resistance: Photography, Feminisms and the Art of Protest exhibition at South London Gallery, in partnership with the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, UK) in 2024.
Hilltop Artists
July 30-August 3
Hilltop Artists is a youth development arts nonprofit in Tacoma, Washington, operating deeply impactful programs since 1994 with broad community support and a track record of success. Hilltop Artists serves over 650 students a year ages 12 – 26 through its programming, providing tuition-free glass instruction, mentorship, and collaborative leadership opportunities. Hilltop Artists is dedicated to its mission: Using glass art to connect young people from diverse cultural and economic backgrounds to better futures.
In 1994, the inaugural group of twenty youth from the Hilltop neighborhood met in the former wood shop at Jason Lee Middle School – now Hilltop Heritage Middle School. They were introduced to a range of sculptural mediums, including woodworking. Back then, glass art involved converting Snapple and soda bottles into blown glass drinkware and vases.
In addition to the now world class hot shop at Hilltop Heritage Middle School, Hilltop Artists has grown to include a hot shop at Silas (formerly Wilson) High School. Tacoma Public Schools has partnered with Hilltop Artists since the beginning, highlighting the organization as a positive force in increasing students’ academic and interpersonal success.
August
Joseph Seymour Jr.
August 8-10
Joe Seymour, Jr. is from the Squaxin Island tribe on his father’s side and from the Pueblo of Acoma on his mother’s side. He grew up in the village of McCartys on the Acoma reservation. In 1996, Joe moved to Olympia, Washington to learn about his Coast Salish culture.
In 2006, he made the decision quit his job as a commercial diver to become a professional artist. He works as a multidisciplinary artist. Primarily he has been studying and making Coast Salish art. But now he is focusing on his Acoma heritage. “Even though I’ve lived in Washington for so long, I never forgot my Acoma culture. I always made home for our sacred days of prayer and dancing.” Now I get to focus on making art from my Acoma culture. His mother designed pottery, his grandmother designed pottery, and Joe is learning from the legacy that they left behind.
Joe received his BA from the Evergreen State College in 2018. In 2023, he was in the inaugural graduating class of the Institute of American Indian Arts, MFA Studio Arts program.
Joseph Seymour joins Museum of Glass in conjunction with Glass Fest Northwest and IN THE SPIRT Arts Market and Northwest Native Festival.
Annette Blair
August 20-24
Australian artist Annette Blair creates work which most recently explores simple utilitarian objects and their ability to evoke a common sense of nostalgia. Her artistic practice is divided into several facets; the design and manufacture of functional glassware, the development of exhibition work, teaching in Australia and the United States, as well as gaffing for many of Australia’s leading glass artists. Blair’s residency is part of the Museum’s collaboration with Pilchuck Glass School, and will be an opportunity for Blair to push the boundaries of her work with the help of the Hot Shop Team.
October
Alton Bucheimer
October 3-5
Alton Bucheimer is a trans AFAB Filipino glass artist working in Seattle, WA. He was raised in a small farm town in Maryland where he started blowing glass in 2009 at the age of sixteen. He went on to receive his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design with a concentration in glass in 2014. After graduation he relocated to Seattle, Washington.
His studio work is an exploration of both his gender and racial identity using pattern and form. Heavily focusing on negative space utilizing the transparent properties of glass he explores the multiple dualities of his identity and how he fits into the world. He finds inspiration in community, written language, and society.
David Walters
October 8-12
Throughout his career, David Walters has been fascinated with narrative and storytelling. Referring often to the fairy tales of our youth, he weaves familiar stories with a more personal interpretation. He imbues these cautionary tales a sense of his own history or personal experience to give them a more contemporary and intimate relevance. Walters joins the Hot Shop after being honored with the Grand Prize Coney Award for his contribution to the 2024 Red Hot Annual Auction and Gala.
Åsa Sandlund
October 15-19
Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Åsa studied in France and England, spent two years at the Sorbonne, and earned her BFA at Beckmans School of Design. She began her career as an art director at Lowe-Brindfors, working on accounts like Ikea and Saab. Her role as a design assistant at Kosta Boda earned her a scholarship to the Pilchuck Glass School.
Åsa immigrated to the U.S. in 1995 and joined Nordstrom as a Graphic Designer and Art Director. She rose through various creative leadership roles and now serves as the Senior Creative Director, overseeing Nordstrom’s brand strategy and identity across all channels. Her work has earned numerous awards, including RAC Gold and AIGA, and she has authored a book on typography.
In addition to her corporate role, Åsa collaborates with her husband, glass artist Preston Singletary, and is an accomplished glass artist herself. Her work has been exhibited in galleries in the U.S. and abroad and featured in publications like New Glass Review and The New York Times. Åsa have served on advisory boards for IslandWood, The Pilchuck Glass School, Artist Trust, and the University of Washington’s professional advisory council in design.
Luis Sanchez
October 31-November 2
Luis Sanchez was born in Berkeley, California, and later moved to Tacoma, Washington when he was nine years old. Luis found glass at the age of 13 through the Hilltop Artists program. He has continued to work for Hilltop Artists for the past decade, going from student to the Programs Manager, now overseeing the production program. Luis has gained further skills at Pilchuck Glass School and Touchstone Center for Crafts. He has been featured in the Tacoma Art Museum, Bainbridge Arts & Crafts, and most recently Bainbridge Island Museum of Art. Luis was one of the Hauberg Fellows at Pilchuck Glass during the 2024 spring residencies. Luis is inspired by traditional Mexican folk art sculptures which are covered in bright colors and small fun textures.
November
Stephanie Simek
November 14-16
Starting in 2007, Simek began performing with instruments built from deconstructed obsolete devices. Her residency at the Museum of Contemporary Craft titled "Jewels/Joules" led to a research residency at Signal Culture NY, where she studied the magnetic recording potential of minerals.
Most recently Simek has been studying the elusive interpretations of holes within the fields of mathematics, philosophy, science, and law. Ideas around what constitutes emptiness have provided the starting point for her work over the past several years, creating conceptual “containers” or “vessels”, in a wide range of forms and materials.
