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“Phoenix Wing” by Elodie Holmes - From the New Mexico Glass Alliance Website
Glass is an ancient and stunning medium of visual art. Used by artisans since 250 B.C. to express cultural beliefs, ideas or imagination; it is beautiful, delicate and unforgiving. The roots of art glass can be traced to Murano, Italy, but examples can be seen worldwide.
50 Years of American Art Glass
The history of American Art Glass and the Studio Glass Movement is a much more recent phenomenon. The contemporary glass blowing movement started in 1962 at the Toledo Museum of Art, where ceramics professor Harvey Littleton and chemist Dominick Labino experimented with melting glass in a small furnace. It was these early experiments which allowed the art of glass blowing to flourish, giving artisans the ability to work in private studios.
2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the American Art Glass Movement. From the humble beginnings the practice of creating stunning works of glass art spread through teaching and college curricula. University programs were available to students as early as 1964 and spread quickly throughout the United States and abroad.
In New Mexico small studios opened as early as 1968. Always a source of art and inspiration, one of the first New Mexico studios opened on Canyon Road. Not only did the local studios produce glass, they also became places where glass artists could gather and learn from each other.
Mill Fine Art and the New Mexico Contemporary Glass Invitational
Mill Fine Art is proud to host this special summer event. We have teamed up with the New Mexico Glass Alliance to bring you the 2012 New Mexico Contemporary Glass Invitational. Held August 3rd through September 24th 2012, this show will allow you to view the best in New Mexico Art Glass.
This show will display the works of fourteen selected artists and will range from pedestal pieces to wall mount and outdoor installations. The exhibit opening reception will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. The featured speaker for the evening will be Marvin Lipofsky, one of the pioneers of the Art Glass Movement in the United States.
Marvin Lipofsky
Marvin Lipofsky
Marvin Lipofsky has long been an influential figure in the Studio Glass Movement. He was one of only a handful of students to study under Harvey Littleton in 1962 and 1963, and he soon moved to teaching the form. He tenured as a design instructor at the University of California, Berkeley, and he taught there until 1972. Since that time he has instructed workshops and lead seminars around the world
Mr. Lipofsky is also the founder of the glass program at the California College of Arts and Crafts as well as the Glass Arts Society. He is also the recipient of multiple awards including two National Endowment for the Arts Grants, Lifetime Achievement Award from the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass and a Masters of the Medium Award from the James Renwick Alliance.
We look forward to listening to Mr. Lipofsky speak, and are honored to be welcoming such a notable guest here at Mill Fine Art. Marvin will deliver brief remarks at the gallery Friday evening, and you are cordially invited to attend.
For more information about the New Mexico Contemporary Glass Invitational please visit http://glassnm.org/new-mexico-contemporary-glass-invitational-aug-3rd-2012/.
This Mother’s Day Weekend promises to be an exciting one all along Canyon Road. In addition to the forecast of pleasant weather we forecast fun as the summer art season kicks off. Mingle with art lovers, history buffs, local musicians, community members and merchants of Canyon Road as they open the summer events schedule.
Join us here at Mill Fine Art on Saturday May 12th as part of a full day of music, art and celebration during Passport to the Arts. Then make sure to come back in Sunday the 13th for the Historic Homes Tour of downtown Santa Fe.
Passport to the Arts
Passport to the Arts is the first major Canyon Road event this year. Benefiting the Santa Fe Public Schools Music Education Department, this event features such exciting events as silent auctions lining The Road, a Quick Draw creation event and auction along with live music from students and local artists.
Grab your ‘passport’ or schedule of the events Saturday morning so that you don’t miss any of the fun as you wander Canyon Road. Don’t forget to come in and place your bids in the silent auction, and make sure to come back so you are not outbid on that must-have piece.
Historic Homes Tour
On Sunday May 13th, come back downtown and explore Canyon Road and downtown Santa Fe on the Historic Homes Tour. Between 1-4 pm you can follow the trail of the 1912 King’s Map, and imagine how much the area has changed in the past hundred years.
The Historic Homes Tour benefits architectural conservation efforts of the Historic Santa Fe Foundation. So whether you just want to take a stroll in the lovely weather or want to experience the rich history of the route you will be supporting a great cause. For more information, including where to purchase tickets, please visit the Historic Santa Fe Foundation website, www.historicsantafe.org, or call 505-983-2567.
We look forward to seeing you and your Mom this Mother’s Day weekend!
Mist Over the Flatirons - Gordon Mansell
Mill Fine Art Presents the Collected Works of Gordon Mansell
With the sweep of his brush and a palette of color, Gordon Mansell evokes a landscape in its most fundamental form. His work captures not just the look of the land but its very essence. The warmth of sunlight is brilliantly conveyed with a dapple of yellow, the feel of a dewy morning in the English countryside articulated with a wisp of blue.
We are thrilled to present the fruits of a lifetime of artistic production by Gordon Mansell at the gallery. Pulling from 64 years of drawings, paintings, and watercolors, Culmination reveals Gordon’s artistic career in full, highlighting the depth and range and of his work.
Black Canyon - Gordon Mansell
The Evolution of the Artist
Gordon’s fondness for nature and the outdoors, formed early on in life while exploring the English countryside, has always informed his work. Every painting is an ode to the beauty of the natural world.
After studying art for several years, he left the university setting in the 1950s to instruct mountaineering at the National Climbing School in Wales. He later moved to the United States, where he held positions at several schools, including Denver University and the University of New Mexico.
Most well known for his large abstract canvases, Gordon also works in printmaking, drawing and watercolor, lending each medium his own distinctive style. He paints in the style of Bolton Coit Brown, George Bellows, Frank Mechau, and Rockwell Kent. It is with the touch of a true technical master that he presents the drama of his own world.
Many of Gordon’s watercolors and paintings were never intended for exhibition. Rather they served as opportunities for him to explore spontaneous scenes and ideas he came across in his travels.
“With a small box of watercolors, sketchbook, and prepared paper carried in a rucksack, it was possible to document the places of special interest to me,” he says. “These small paintings have been made in all kinds of conditions—broiling heat, icy rain, sometimes using the roof of a car as a work table or sitting on a comfortable boulder.”
Grand Teton Color Study - Gordon Mansell
The Culmination of a Career
Today Gordon’s work is in private, corporate, and public collections across the country, including the Brooklyn Museum of Fine Arts and the Denver Art Museum.
His paintings will be on display at the gallery throughout the spring and summer seasons. We invite you to stop in and experience the full breadth of this master painter’s lifetime of work.
For many people the current “Art” system is beginning to not work, and it’s not just in Santa Fe. Often it’s not working for the patron, who can be overwhelmed with mediocre production work that lacks both virtuosity and authenticity. And often now it’s not working for galleries. They are going out of business right and left due to clients’ diminished disposable income or increased apprehension about their own financial safety. And for many galleries their own increased operating overhead has become simply too much to bear.
And I hear now that often the current system is not working for the artist. Artists are too often asked to respond to particular niche, to produce a related and consistent body of work so there is time to build and market a reputation. This so that the market can respond. The market pushes the gallery to build a product identity instead of a process identity. In reality the artist must grow and change somehow or the work eventually founders. It might be a change in direction, a change in content, or even change in disciplines. But a living thing is either growing and changing, or it’s dying.
And perhaps content is too often driven by the markets’ idea of fashion. Thumb through the last five issues of Art Forum and then thumb through five issues from 10 years ago and you get the idea. The marketing people are telling us what colors are going to be “in” this year and too many of us fall for it.
So what’s up?
Well, my observation is that there are several things going on. Everything, not just art, is becoming too com-modified. Water, and Christmas, are in the same boat. Perhaps this is a function of a capitalist society where advertising drives values more than intrinsics. Perhaps art is fundamentally and uniquely at odds with this kind of valuing.
Or perhaps it’s a function of being told by arts institutions for decades now that everyone is an artist. And while this may be true technically, certainly not everyone is a good artist, or even a real artist. But we do wake up now and find an over-abundance of work, art-work, curatorial-work, and collected-work that is simply weak. It is far too often done by people who have had a great deal of encouragement but have not yet brought together the marriage of passion and virtuosity necessary to be “good”, they have not invested in the very discipled effort required to speak fluently and beautifully in the language they’ve chosen. And not enough people can tell the difference.
So perhaps some of this perceived failure of the art-system rests with the system and some with the three participating parties, not enough of whom have paid the genuine dues required for participation.
How do you see it?
