BIENNIAL EXHIBITION OF NORTH AMERICAN GLASS
MAY 12 - JUNE 25, 2006

Four prize winners are among the artists featured in the Guilford Art Center's 2006 Biennial of North American Glass. The winners are: First Prize: Karen Reid, of Dalton, Pennsylvania, for her work Creek Study #1, cast optic crystal. Second Prize: Lisa Koch, of Madison, Wisconsin, for her work Device for Walking on the Ceiling, wood, mirror, foam pad. Third Prize: Richard Glenn, of Portland, Oregon, for his work 6 Mood Swings, kiln-formed glass. Honorable Mention: Darlene Durrwachter Rushing of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for her work Celadon and Duck Egg, flame-worked glass.

Works by 14 additional artists from across the country will also be featured in the Biennial of North American Glass, on view May 12 through June 25 This nationally juried show highlights fine glass art being created in North America today. Guilford Art Center's Mill Gallery will be filled with works representing an overview of contemporary glass in its many forms: blown, fused, drawn, stained, etc. Exhibition juror James Mongrain has selected works to represent a wide range of contemporary and traditional techniques that reinforce the unique properties of glass, such as its fragility, translucence, its color and clarity.

Biennial Prize Winners:

Karen Reid creates cast glass sculptures that are inspired by the simple, often overlooked elements that surround her life. Natural forms, like "a branch, whose surface has been patterned by insect activity, a broken pottery shard unearthed while gardening or the determined journey of a caterpillar as it works its way across my porch, can easily become my muse," the artist says. As Reid creates her works, she attempts, she says to "manipulate less and observe more...I take special delight in unexpected results and continually struggle to remain truthful to those discoveries." Reid's work has been exhibited in one-person and group shows.

Lisa Koch's work is influenced by her background as a scientist, as it explores relationships between art and science through the physical properties of glass. Koch earned degrees in biochemistry and molecular biology and worked in a research lab before fully pursuing her interests in the arts. "I use the idea of rearrangement of dateline my work. Data gets flipped and changed and duplicated through both space and/or time. I use glass as a medium to speak of these changes because glass is inextricably connected with light, and light is at the foundation of our visual perception of reality," the artist says. Koch's work is exhibited in galleries across the country.

Richard Glenn works primarily in kilnformed glass and is known for fused glass "photo-collages" resembling Pop Art screen prints by Andy Warhol. Using a commercial product called a "photoresist," he sandblasts images into glass then fuses it together. His images and themes span antiquity to contemporary pop culture. Glenn spent more than 15 years in advertising before he began at Seattle's Pilchuck Glass School. "As an artist, I reinterpret debases and stories through images, shapes, words, texture and color. My background in the commercial world makes me hyper-aware of the images and messages that we receive, as well as send," says Glenn.

Darlene Durrwachter Rushing has studied at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Corning Museum of Glass, Touchstone Center for Crafts, and the Pittsburgh Glass Center. She designed and built her own fully-equipped studio in 2001 and focuses on creating jewelry made of flame-worked glass beads. Rushing is a former public school teacher who has been an arts administrator for Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Sweetwater Art Center and Pittsburgh Opera, and most recently retired as the Artistic Director and Conductor of the Renaissance City Men's Choir. She teaches at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts as well as the Pittsburgh Glass Center, and in 2005 was named by the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts as an Artist in their Residency Program.

Juror James Mongrain owns and operates Mongrain Glass Studio in Mukilteo, Washington. He studied at Moorhead State University, Massachusetts College of Art and Appalachian Center for Crafts. Through his work at Pilchuck Glass School, Mongrain met famed glass artist Dale Chihuly, and has since collaborated with him on numerous projects, including the "Fiore Di Como" in the Belliago Hotel in Las Vegas and the "Jerusalem Cylinders" in Israel, for which he received the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award. Mongrain designs and crafts Venetian goblets, Veronese vases, and custom works, including sculptural chandeliers.

Opening Reception for the 2006 Biennial of North American Glass is Friday, May 12, 5-7 p.m. For more information call 203.453.5947 or email gallery@guilfordartcenter.org.

2006 Biennial of North American Glass
Participating Artists
John Bassett, Brookline, MA
Scott Benefield, Camano Island, WA
Linda Cardell, Holliston, MA
Joshua R. Cole, Kalamazoo, MI
Sally Eyring, Watertown, MA
Lisa Feldman, Croton-on-Hudson, NY
Richard Glenn, Portland, OR
Margot Gotoff, Cincinnati, OH
Timothy Hochstetter, Washington Depot, CT
Abrea Johnson, Stow, OH
Lisa Koch, Madison, WI
Stephanie Maddalena, Haverstraw, NY
Barbara J. Matteson, Langley, WA
Carol Milne, Seattle, WA
Karen Reid, Dalton, PA
Darlene Durrwachter Rushing, Pittsburgh, PA
Brian F. Russell, Arlington, TN
David A. Schnuckel, Kokomo, IN

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