Poor, neglected blog! I have been kept busy these days with other things, and I really need to post something new!
Fortunately, I have just the thing. I was recently invited to attend a field trip with The Midwest Contemporary Glass Art Group (MCGAG) to the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum in Neenah, Wisconsin. The museum had a wonderful exhibit on the legacy of Harvey Littleton and his students. Harvey was a ceramic artist and professor who is known as the “Father of the American Studio Glass Movement”.
Historic Bergstrom mansion, now home to the Glass Museum
The Museum is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Contemporary Studio Glass Movement. This is particularly fascinating to me as an art-lover and glass artist. Harvey Littleton paved the way for artists like myself to create art in their own home studios by developing a small, relatively inexpensive furnace that allowed artists to bring glass from factory production into home experimentation.
Harvey Littleton (American, b. 1922), Blue Crown
pulled and cased glass, 1988
-from http://www.kornbluthphoto.com/TwentiethCentury3.html
Littleton’s students are some of the most world-renowned glass artists of our time, including Dale Chihuly and Marvin Lipofsky.
Dale Chihuly, Wild Poppy Persian
from http://www.vetriglass.com/category/38167306101/1/Dale-Chihuly.htm
Marvin Lipofsky, Group Taiwan #4
from http://www.duanereedgallery.com/Artists%20Pages/lipofsky/lipofskytaiwan4.html
It was hard to narrow the blog material down for this post. I could go on about the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum, the history of art glass, Littleton, Chihuly and Lipofsky, and all their contemporaries. This blog post could go on for weeks, and I like to keep my posts short and graphic. If you are interested in more, visit the links listed, and stay tuned for the next blog post to read about the rest of our field trip and a thrilling glass adventure in the farmlands of Wisconsin…
The Bergstrom-Mahler Museum: Wisconsin’s Glass Museum http://bergstrom-mahlermuseum.com/
Harvey Littleton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Littleton
Dale Chihuly http://www.chihuly.com/
Marvin Lipofsky http://www.marvinlipofsky.com/
Use these navigation links to get to inside blog pages, where you can comment.
