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Glass in the Pacific Northwest
In a recent survey, it was estimated that over three hundred artists working in glass are living in the Pacific Northwest region between Portland, Oregon (just south of the Oregon-Washington
border) and Bellingham, Washington (near the U.S.-Canada border). The center of this substantial activity is the city of Seattle and ninety kilometers to the
north, Stanwood, where Pilchuck Glass School operates. Visitors to the Seattle area are constantly surprised by the volume of glassmaking going on, since it is an activity that most Americans regard as fairly
unusual, even for artists.
"Seattle," Los Angeles artist Therman Statom once declared, "is the Venice of the West." But not just because glassmakers live
there. Statom was also referring to the strong attraction of Pacific Northwest glass artists to the Venetian style, and particularly to the traditional glassworking techniques practiced on the Venetian island of Murano. Characteristics of the Venetian style in glass include the use of soda-lime
glass, the preference for blown, classically proportioned forms and intense
colors, and a flawless technique that may or may not involve complex internal or applied
decoration. Less-tangible, but equally distinctive, is the feeling of the
glass: a liquidity, delicacy, and a joie de vivre that is effortlessly
elegant, spontaneous, and upbeat.
Seattle is not (and never could be) Venice, however, and many artists working in glass there use a variety of warm and cold processes
(slumping, fusing, assemblage, and mixed media) that are not found on Murano.
Yet, in spite of the American artistic vocabulary and diversity of processes characteristic of glass in the Pacific
Northwest, the influence of Venice can be discerned.
Art Glass and the American Studio Movement
At the vernissage of the 1996 Venezia Aperto Vetro, Mr. Sadao Ukai, president of the Ukai Art Museum in Japan and a major underwriter of this important exhibition of international contemporary
glass, acknowledged Venice as the true "Mecca of glass." While indisputably famous glassmaking regions dot the globe, with his statement Mr. Ukai clarified the widely felt understanding of Venice and Murano as the place where the heart and soul of glass
reside. Why Venice? The extraordinary influence of Venice over the glass world, which has remained constant in spite of the ebb and flow of its long glassmaking
history, might be due to the fact that in the Venetian lagoon, glassmaking has always been practiced as an art as well as a
craft.
The supremacy of Venetian luxury glass and the dominant position achieved by the Murano glass industry throughout Europe and the Near East by the 16th century is still one of the most remarkable facets of the Italian Renaissance. For the first time since classical
antiquity, glass vessels were made in the West not only for utilitarian use but as sumptuous objets d'art, conforming to the highest standards of quality and displaying the most advanced technical knowledge of the day. It is not until the 20th century that
glass, once again, undergoes such a dramatic transformation from utilitarian object to
artwork, perhaps best exemplified by the extraordinary creations of Emile Gallé in
France, and best popularized by Louis Comfort Tiffany in the United
States. In Italy, the pioneering designs of Paolo Venini and the Baroviers laid the artistic groundwork for that golden age of art glass in Murano, the period just before and after the Second World War. Echoing the international ascendancy of Italian design in
general, the decade of the 1950s was an intensely creative one. Not since the Renaissance had Murano commanded as much attention for the innovative and popular designs of its
glass, or the outstanding quality of its production.
The American studio glass movement is perhaps a natural extension of the art glass movements that have occurred throughout the 20th
century. Yet it is also a unique hybrid that references American studio
ceramics, art nouveau production glass, contemporary sculpture, traditional European craft
processes, and performance art. Prior to the 1960s, blown glass was not available to American artists to use outside a factory
setting; in commercial and even art glass manufacture, most blown glass was
machine-made. In the studio, the only methods of glassworking artists could practice were stained glass and fused or flameworked
glass. Attempts by American artists to blow glass by themselves were nearly
non-existent, and while slumping and fusing methods were more common, they were by no means in widespread
use.
The American artist most devoted to bringing glassblowing back into the studio was the ceramist Harvey K.
Littleton, whose interest in glass as an artistic medium grew as a result of his own experimentation with the material. Visiting the
small, intimately-sized art glass factories of Murano in the 1950s, Littleton realized a furnace could be successfully developed for studio
use, and during a series of two workshops organized at the Toledo Museum of Art in 1962, he and glass research scientist Dominick Labino introduced a
small, simply built furnace that operated with a special, low-melting-temperature
glass. This technology enabled American artists for the first time to use blown glass in the studio, and the resulting burst of artistic activity in glass throughout the United States was soon termed the American studio glass
movement.
In general, the new studio glassblowers did not distinguish themselves from the
movement's stained-glass makers or artists experimenting with kiln techniques such as slumping and
fusing. But glassblowing was the new movement's raison d'être. Unlike most artistic
movements, the studio glass movement defined itself not by philosophy or style, but by medium and
technique. It was not ideologically dominated by a specific personality or centered at any one
place, but consisted instead of an open, geographically-shifting
populace. Most artists were not interested in industry but in discovering the artistic capabilities of the new medium for their own
uses. Similarly, American glass industry was not impressed by the new studio movement and ignored it for its first decade, although manufacturers often donated supplies to fledgling
glassmakers.
Americans in Venice and Venetians in the Pacific Northwest
While some artists successfully took glassblowing in experimental and innovative
directions, most were hampered by their lack of technical
knowledge. Free-form, expressionistic, and technically very
limited, early studio glassblowing attempts were often primitive at best. It soon became evident that knowledge of how to work the material had to be obtained and American studio glass artists shifted their focus to
Europe, looking to Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and especially Venice where glass had thrived for
centuries. The glasshouses of Murano, however, were not inclined to invite foreigners to
watch, learn, and possibly appropriate their centuries-old
techniques. In the beginning, only one individual -- Ludovico Diaz de
Santillana, the director of Venini -- was willing to open the doors of his factory to American
artists.
In the late 1960s, American studio glass artists began their pilgrimages to Venini to learn techniques and share design
ideas. The first representative of the new movement was Dale
Chihuly, in 1968, who was followed by Richard Marquis in 1969. Although the Americans were aware of
Venini's progressive design policies and its influence in Murano during the 1940s and 1950s, they were most interested in the traditional glassblowing techniques practiced
there. Chihuly was impressed by the concept of the Venetian piazza, or glassblowing team, and the penchant for bright colors and plastic forms in
glass. Marquis focused on specific historic techniques, such as filigrana and murrine, later sowing his knowledge of them in workshops throughout the United
States.
As Anna Venini Diaz de Santillana, the daughter of Paolo Venini, has
observed, Venini was not just a factory, it was a school and a culture. While disseminating
technique, Venini's master glassblowers also disseminated
Venini's unique style. The sharing of ancient traditions by Muranese masters made a profound impact on the American studio glass
movement, a debt which Chihuly, Marquis, and other glass artists have always gratefully
acknowledged.
Dale Chihuly, Richard Marquis, and Benjamin Moore, who went to Venini in 1978, proved to be
Murano's most ardent promoters in the United States, and particularly in the Pacific Northwest where they all
reside. Upon his return from Europe in 1969, Dale Chihuly went to Providence to head the newly-instituted glass department at the Rhode Island School of Design, where his experiences at Venini were incorporated into his inimitable teaching style. He promoted teamwork -- which earned him the disdain of many American craftspeople -- and made a point of gathering artists from all media to work with him and his glassblowing students in the effort to introduce new points of view and infuse new energy into the process of
glassmaking. In 1971, Chihuly founded the Pilchuck Glass School with Seattle art patrons John and Anne Gould
Hauberg. There, glassworking techniques imported by American artists who had been to Murano gave young glassblowers options other than the prevailing
"dip and drip" and Tiffany-derived treatments for
glass.
With the help of Benjamin Moore, Dale Chihuly brought two Venetian glass masters from Murano to teach at Pilchuck
School: first, Checcho Ongaro, in 1978 -- who had worked with Moore and Richard
Marquis, among other Americans, at Venini -- and then Lino
Tagliapietra, in 1979, whose influence on American glass artists has been extraordinary. While the Muranese masters had no difficulty demonstrating their technical bravura, teaching was another
matter. Venetian glass techniques and methods traditionally had been closely guarded since glass was first made in
Venice, and penetrating that wall of silence was no easy feat.
The secretive nature of glassmaking and the strict hierarchy of the traditional glasshouse owe more,
perhaps, to their roots in medieval guilds than to the Venetian
government's protectionist policies; during the Middle Ages, glass and other
trades, like stonemasonry, had a strong esoteric side. Secrecy,
too, became a glassmaking tradition in Venice over the centuries. While a glassmaker is free to lead his life as he
wishes, so the tradition goes, the craft of glassmaking does not belong to him alone: it is part of the long history of a glassmaking community that continues to derive strength
from, and be defined by, its shared traditions.
At Pilchuck, Checco Ongaro realized that teaching was not for him, and he recommended his
brother-in-law, Lino Tagliapietra, to take his place. Tagliapietra had a more open outlook and he was as interested in the Americans and their unusual attitudes toward glass as they were in learning from
him. Tagliapietra taught the young glassblowers everything from how to gather glass at the furnace to how to knock a finished vessel off the
punty. His influence has been enormous, particularly in the Pacific Northwest where many glass artists came to live, work, and establish studios after their experiences at
Pilchuck.
Façon de Venise à Seattle
For centuries, one of Murano's most frustrating problems has been keeping their trade secrets to
themselves. The explosion of new glasses and techniques during the period from about 1450-1550 caused the first sweeping clampdowns on errant Renaissance
glassworkers, one of which was the placement of the glassmaker's guild under the jurisdiction of the Venetian
government's Council of Ten. This powerful Council addressed issues of national
security, both military and industrial, that in an age before copyrights was a particularly crucial function for
industry. In spite of this and other safeguards, the constant outflux of glassmakers from Murano resulted in
Venetian-style, or façon de Venise, products cropping up throughout glasshouses in northern and southern
Europe. Although the façon de Venise wares directly competed with genuine Venetian
glasses, they were not always slavish imitations. Foreign glassmakers often customized Venetian techniques for their local
markets.
Looking at the Pacific Northwest / Venice glass connection from a historical
perspective, it seems that the façon de Venise tradition (via Venini and
Tagliapietra) has continued, but with an important distinction. Instead of a fashionable marketing
tool, façon de Venise working methods in Seattle and elsewhere in the United States have acted as a catalyst for artists to explore additional paths in
glass, contributing to the growth of the medium as a whole. Venetian decorative techniques such as vetro a filigrana (or
zanfirico) and murrine have assumed new identities in the work of established Pacific Northwest artists like Richard
Marquis, Flora Mace and Joey Kirkpatrick, and Fritz Dreisbach, as well as younger artists like Kait
Rhoads. While filigrana was first developed during the Renaissance -- in 1527 by Filippo and Bernardo Catani of the Siren Glasshouse -- murrine is far
older, dating back to ancient Roman times and earlier. Murrine was first revived in Murano in 1496, again around 1860 -- when the fashion for reproductions of ancient glass peaked -- and yet again in the 1920s. Carlo Scarpa and his
son, Tobia Scarpa, further developed the technique for Venini beginning in the 1940s. Richard
Marquis, who began working with murrine at Venini, single-handedly revived the technique in the United
States. Other transplanted Venetian techniques, such as incalmo, have been transformed in the work of Seattle artists such as Sonja Blomdahl and Dante
Marioni.
The influence of Venetian glassmaking in the Pacific Northwest extends beyond techniques to the less-defined area of style. The sense of Venice is discernible in the flowing forms and filigrana striping of Dale
Chihuly's pastelled Seaforms, which reference Venini's famous fazzoletto
vases, and in the exuberantly loud colors of his Venetians, bursting with
applied, furnace-worked decorations. Benjamin Moore's minimal
vessels, while uniquely Moore's in interpretation, display the modernist classical proportions and sleek lines characteristic of certain Venini
designs. Color -- used not just as a decorative feature but as a point of departure -- has always been important for Murano, whether during the Renaissance or the 1950s. Dante
Marioni, who creates all of his own brilliant and saturated colors for the
giant, neoclassical urns he blows, follows in the footsteps of great Muranese designers such as Napoleone Martinuzzi at
Venini, who excelled at color and refined form.
Other Venetian masters to have an influence in the Pacific Northwest are Pino Signoretto and Loredano and Dino
Rosin, masters of the a massiccio technique of sculpting glass at the
furnace. Learning this technique gave Pacific Northwest artists like William Morris the ability to take their art in new
directions, and while Morris's sculpture could never, ever be mistaken for anything
Venetian, the Venetian technique is an integral part of it. A similar expansion of the range of Venetian influence is seen in the artwork of Seattle artist Josiah
McElheny, who manipulates the history of glass in conceptual installations that reinterpret and recreate historical
ideas, objects, and fictional events.
A Murano Legacy
While Swedish and Czech glassworking methods have had a tremendous influence on American studio
glass, an interest in Venice predominates in the Pacific
Northwest. As America's premier school for glass, Pilchuck Glass School has been a central source of transmission for the Venetian style. The
region's many studios -- particularly Dale Chihuly's studio and the Glass Eye in Seattle, founded by Rob Adamson -- have given young glassblowers the opportunity to find employment in their field and to network with the
region's growing community of art dealers, collectors, museum
curators, writers, and art critics who are interested in glass. This kind of intensely focused community is not found anywhere else in the country with the exception of Corning in New York, where the community is united by glass industry rather than art.
While the Venetian aesthetic in glass from the Pacific Northwest is the topic of this
article, Murano's glass legacy is not confined to the Pacific Northwest nor to the very few artists I have
mentioned. Making everything from production art glass vessels to large-scale glass
sculpture, artists throughout the United States are incorporating and expanding upon Venetian techniques and
elements. From a larger, historical perspective, this widespread revival of Venetian glassworking methods constitutes yet another Venetian glass renaissance, but one taking place in America instead of Murano.
Tina Oldknow
(From
"Vetro", inaugural issue, Centro Studio Vetro, Murano)
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