Glass Evolving Glistens

As you enter the >VisArts at Rockville gallery, you are drawn into the oceans and cosmos of Martin Rosol’s Bird of Paradise ($24,000). To say that it is “Laminated, Cut, Ground and Polished Glass”, doesn’t describe how it is many artworks in one, all reflecting, repeating, fascinating.

This piece and the exhibit Glass Evolving take the glass art form to a new frontier. In the gallery brochure F. Lennox Campello expertly affirms that this glass is “dragged away from the crafts world and into the rarified upper atmosphere of the “high art” world.”

Sometimes organic like Richard Ritter’s fused-bead Floral Core Series and at other times true sculpture like Rick Becks stone-like solid limbs, these are most assuredly not bowls or vases. John Publick snakes glass around a found wooden object (Duality $1,800) and Nancy Weissner layers drawings and photos on glass (In Her Dreams).

The Gudelsky/Silverman Portfolio Gallery holds several pieces that stretch our perceptions of glass, just as the outstretched arms in Allegra Marquart’s Rapunzel ($2,800) reach upward in anticipation of new beginnings. Three video screens display original images while enclosed in blown glass in Tim Tate’s Surreal Dream Box ($21,000). A book is printed on glass so that you can read Elizabeth Mears Standing Book: In A Breath.

Children, along with their parents, can learn all about glass in the Discovery Gallery. The basics of sand, fire, and glass are explained. Here you learn about stained and fused glass techniques and can create a translucent craft with markers. Then you can test your knowledge by putting events in the proper sequence in a glass studio.

Since I create stained glass and love how it colors our world, this exhibit mesmerized me. If you share an interest in this solid medium that blends with light, you will be too.

The Evolving Glass exhibit is on display until November 15, 2008 at VisArts, 155 Gibbs Street. Gallery hours are Monday – Saturday 10 AM – 5 PM, Sunday Noon – 5 PM.

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