Arriving late at a recent Rik Allen and Shelley Muzylowski Allen demonstration at Pratt Fine Arts Center, I found Rik and Shelley already at work at their respective benches. Rik was putting the front window on a spaceship, and Shelley was adding the second ear to what could only be described as an a-freaking-dorable bunny rabbit. As they worked side-by-side, creating work in their signature styles, it wasn’t immediately clear how it would all come together.

Later, as the bunnies were applied to the top of the spaceship, one of them sitting comfortably, while the other held on for dear life having apparently slipped off the rounded edge of the ship, I thought about collaboration, and about partnership. It never ceases to amaze me, how successful teams bring together the individual talents and sensibilities of the participants and through some alchemical magic, create something richer and more satisfying than either might achieve on their own. Feeling curious about the how Rik and Shelley manage to make it all come together, in their life as well as their work, I decided to ask them a few questions. I interviewed the two separately, and as it turns out, they have their stories straight.

How did these two love-birds meet?

Rik and Shelley met at Pilchuck Glass School when both were there for the first time in 1994. Rik was a TA for a kilncasting class taught by James Watkins  and Shelley, who is a talented painter, was a student in Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend’s class. The two became instant friends, but “romance didn’t ensue,” in Rik’s words, until a few years later when Shelley began coming down to Seattle from Vancouver, BC regularly to assist Rik and Randy Walker with their work. The two were married in 1998.

They worked on William Morris’ team at the same time, but didn’t work together closely. Shelley was an assistant at Karen Willenbrink, Ross Richmond and Bill Morris’s bench, while Rik was busy cutting, polishing and engraving in the Coldworking studio. “We drove in together in the morning, but didn’t see much of each other much during the day,” Shelley says. “The only time I saw him was when he came down to the hotshop to warm up.” It’s pretty chilly up there in the winter.

Do they work together often these days?

Rik and Shelley’s artistic voices are distinct, and the two rarely work directly together in the hotshop, except for when they are teaching or doing a demonstration. This is partly a decision made to “preserve their domestic space,” and partly due to practical considerations. Both are in demand, and quite busy with their own work, so their attention needs to be focused on meeting their own individual deadlines.

The two do work together, however, in a variety of other capacities. They team up to maintain the beautiful studio they share in Sedro Woolly, and share many of the same team members, which allows them to provide a bit of much-needed continuity for the artists who work with them. And, each brings their own unique skills to the table where some other aspects of work are concerned. Rik does Shelley’s coldworking and Shelley maintains their website and takes care of much of the office work for both.

Though the two only work on collaborative pieces when teaching or doing a demonstration, they both say they have a lot of fun doing it. There have been quite a few combinations of bunnies and frogs and airplanes and spaceships throughout the years, but the possibilities are nowhere near exhausted. They’ve talked, “though not super seriously,” about doing an exhibition of the collaborative work; there are quite a few collectors who I think would be thrilled to see that happen.

What are the benefits and drawbacks to having a partner who is also a successful artist, working in the same medium?

Rik and Shelley show their work at many of the same galleries, which is helpful because they are able to work together on building relationships with gallery owners and clients, and moving those relationships forward. It is also quite useful to have a second person at openings to help talk about the work.

Both mentioned that they really value having someone who understands what they are trying to achieve, who can help with problem-solving when they are stuck on an issue. They can sit down at the end of the day, and over a glass of wine, work through whatever technical problem has come up for them. They also respect each others’ opinions, and value having an ongoing critical dialogue as they develop new work.

The only drawbacks either could come up with were that they sometimes compete over the attentions of their brilliant stand maker Jeremy Bosworth – and sometimes it is difficult to stop talking about work.

What’s next for these two crazy kids?

Both Rik and Shelley will be exhibiting in Habatat’s 40th International Invitational Exhibition in Michigan, and also at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft’s 50 years of Studio Glass this April. They are teaching a class together at Pilchuck this summer, third session, and Rik, who is on the board of the Glass Art Society, will be working hard at presenting the conference in Toledo in June. Rik has been doing a lot to increase the organization’s presence in the glass community, outside the conference itself.

Rik’s work is currently on display as part of the exhibition, Yesterdays’ Tomorrow, at the Museum of Northwest Art in LaConner, WA (see Lisa’s GlassTown post on the panel discussion at the museum earlier this year). And, the two will be flying off this week to attend the opening of Shelley’s exhibition, Midas, at Blue Rain’s new Scottsdale Gallery on February 16.

Scholarships for Scholars XII
12th Annual Celebration
Tuesday, 07 February 2012

In the silent auction: Jacques Frank's Aloha Dog Ewer.

We hope that you will be able to visit us at the UW School of Art 3D4M Studios at CMA on Tuesday, 07 February 2012, from 6:00-8:30pm for the opening of the 1st Year Graduate Student Exhibition, Undergraduate Exhibition, studio tours, silent auction, and the Scholarships for Scholars XII raffle drawing.

This year’s grand raffle prize is a suite of five heads made by Professors Doug Jeck, Amie McNeel, Akio Takamori, Jamie Walker, and Mark Zirpel.

Silent auction items will be posted for bidding as they arrive and will include creations by the 3D4M faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends.

Tickets for the event and/or raffle are available online. Please go to the silent auction link above for information on bidding.

Reblogged from The GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet:

The executive director for the nonprofit Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle, Washington, Michelle Bufano is taking up a new position as the executive director at the for-profit Chihuly Garden and Glass. (Her last day at Pratt will be February 3rd.) The new tourist-friendly arts center project is a collaboration between the Wright Family, owners of the Seattle Space Needle, and glass artist Dale Chihuly. A contentious approval-process was resolved in December 2010, when Seattle’s mayor negotiated a …

Congratulations Michelle!

Mark Zirpel's Life Support installed at the Traver Gallery in 2005. Photo: Mark Zirpel.

Mark Zirpel’s installation piece Life Support made me cry twice – once when it was on display at the Traver Gallery in 2005, and then again when I watched a video documentation of the piece during an artist talk he gave at Pilchuck the next summer. All the work in the show that year was about the body as a mechanism and how it wears down over time. All the pieces had a feeling of poetry about them – some amusing, some bittersweet – but Life Support broke my heart.

Mark Zirpel's Life Support at rest. Photo: Mark Zirpel.

A simple rubber casting of the artist’s body, a big Zirpel-shaped balloon minus the head, was strapped down to a hospital gurney and attached to machines at the neck by a giant hose. Harsh light from cheap-looking metal lamps illuminated the bed, causing the translucent white “body” to glow eerily. The piece was motion activated, and when a viewer moved toward it, air began to pump aggressively into the rubber body, which inflated gradually to the point of grotesqueness, writhing and fighting against the straps that held it down. An awful, high-pitched whirring noise came out of the machines creating a sense of urgency and panic. This writhing, whirring, and stretching went on for an uncomfortably long time before the whole apparatus shut off completely. No more noise and no more effort. The struggling body became still and sunk in silence to rest.

In the wake of all the motion and confusing noise, I felt a tangle of feelings that could only be sorted out in retrospect: a sense of peacefulness and gratitude, relief that the struggle was over, sadness that that the body couldn’t win its fight, recognition of the vulnerability of life, an acknowledgment that fighting was futile and a nagging reminder that someday it will be me, or someone I love, on that gurney.

Mark Zirpel's Rain Organ will be on display at the Traver Gallery starting February 16.

I’ve heard Mark Zirpel described many times as a sort of nutty-professor-mad-scientist-genius, so it is fitting that he has taken on running the glass component of the University of Washington’s 3d4m program. (Some people might call it the sculpture department, but they wouldn’t be as cool.) Scott Benefield wrote an informative description of the program in a recent issue of GAS News.

Mark’s new piece, Rain Organ, will be included in a 3d4m Department faculty group show at the Traver Gallery opening February 16th. Also, the 3d4m Department usually has a scholarship fundraiser around this time of year. It is always a great party, where you can find good deals on interesting work… I’ll find out when that is and post the date here in an update.

Expect to see more work from Jessi Li, Glass Town! She has been bitten by the glass bug and is doing great things with the medium.

Works by Jessi Li on display at Pottery Northwest through February 3rd. Click on the image for more information.

work by Rik Allen currently on display at the Museum of Northwest Art

The New Year is off to a great start with the opening of Yesterday’s Tomorrow at the Museum of Northwest Art in La Conner, WA. This afternoon, I attended a panel discussion that kicked-off the opening of the exhibition. Nine artists from the show spoke at the panel: Fred Birchman, Nathan DiPietro, Blake Haygood, David C. Kane, Douglas Loewen, Joseph Park, Jonah Samson, Evelyn Woods, and Mark Zirpel. The artists spent the hour sharing their inspiration, studio practices, and their relationship to the Northwest. Many of them drew from science fiction, or “speculative fiction” as phrased by Blake Haygood.  Upon entering the museum, visitors are introduced to a large mechanical installation built by Douglas Loewen. With the help of the museum, Doug received a grant to construct Maneuverings, a machine designed to drag branches fixed with lead weights back and forth, creating drawings on sheets of paper.

Wizard by Joseph Park

During the panel discussion, Joseph Park surprised me with his description of his painting Wizard. The work is based on Velázquez’s painting Las Meninas; Park explained how he uitlized Google Earth to study even the smallest details of the painting. By using the Internet he could examine the canvas more closely than if he’d traveled to Madrid. Wizard closely resembles the original Las Meninas with two clear abstractions: first, the artist slices the image with geometrical “prisms” creating an almost cubist representation Park called Prismism. The second alteration of the image is the addition of lightening bolts emanating from a figure in the doorway (maybe the Wizard?) creating electric halos around the other characters. A glass crystal hanging in front of the painting casts slivers of light onto the canvas. Park said he thinks of the painting as backdrop for the prism effects achieved with glass and light.

Another piece that caught my attention was Mark Zirpel’s Weather Station. Using a glass piece as a starting block, Zirpel explained how he attaches one piece to another with functional intent. Weather Station combines glass toilet parts to create a device that detects earthquakes, wind direction, and barometric pressure. Zirpel is fascinated by the way glass has served to advance technology as lenses for microscopes, semi-conductors in computers, even eyeglasses.

The panelists discussed how their work developed in reaction to their environment, specifically “the Northwest’s rich history of embracing the traditions of industry and the innovations of technology. From timber, fishing, agriculture, and aerospace manufacture to internet startups, grunge music, coffee, and tourism, our region has supported both ends of the spectrum of creativity, looking back and forward.” Yesterday’s Tomorrow runs through March 14^th, 2012.

For more information visit the Museum of Northwest Art online.

Raven Skyriver's new home page, visit by clicking the image

Stanwood artist and Northwest-native Raven Skyriver would like your feedback on a new website he’s putting together.  Raven has been working in glass for twelve years, and he is ready to develop a virtual presence to share his art with the world. He’s been working with a web designer to create a website that will introduce his work cohesively and comprehensively. It’s important that the site be dynamic, engaging, and easy for a viewer to navigate.

You can find the first version of his site at: www.ravenskyriver.com. If you have any advice, opinions, or comments to help our friend develop his website, please share them by leaving a comment on this post, sending him a message, or finding him on Facebook.

Keke Cribbs, Elixer of Immortality.

Kéké Cribbs’ exhibition Where She Sleeps: the Artifacts of Dreams is on display at the Traver Gallery through December 31st. The show brings together nearly 30 pieces created using a wide range of techniques and media, with imagery and symbols drawn from a variety of myths, both personal and universal. Mined from experiences and times throughout the past four years, the objects presented in Where She Sleeps read like a museum exhibition showing the same culture over a few different millenia. The culture of Kéké evolves quickly, but is instantly recognizable.

There are some months when it is more difficult to walk past the art work in the exhibitions in favor of doing work at my desk, and this is certainly one of those months. Between Kéké’s show and Paul Marioni’s work, which is being exhibited alongside it, I’ve found myself spending much more time than usual just looking at the pieces in the gallery, both allowing individual pieces to affect me and trying to figure out how they all fit together. Both Paul and Kéké have a special talent for translating personal experience and symbolism into something that feels much more universal. Both artists make me think of the Joseph Campbell quote from The Power of Myth:

Keke Cribbs, Deer Shaman (A ROSSKIKI collaboration with Ross Richmond)

“A dream is a personal experience of that deep, dark ground that is the support of our conscious lives, and a myth is the society’s dream. The myth is the public dream and the dream is the private myth.”

During a studio visit a few months ago, Kéké showed us some of the first of her new paintings, rich with color, imagination and symbolism. She excitedly explained that it is the Year of the Rabbit, and beyond that, a “metal year,” which makes it the year of the “Armored Rabbit,” something that has not occurred since the year she was born. She pointed out several characters in the new paintings, borrowed from obscure myths and placed in unfamiliar environments. You might say, Kéké is inspired by mythology, but not limited by it. She uses characters, both her own and mythological, like colors on her palette. At times I feel tempted to ask for more information about the pieces, for clues that would help me crack the code of the work, once and for all. At others, I feel content to enjoy them for their beautiful, detailed surfaces and for their pure expressiveness, without being sure I understand them completely; to allow the imagery to communicate on a more direct level, unencumbered by my left brain’s need to pin things down like so many unfortunate butterflies.

The Traver Gallery is open until 8 pm tonight for First Thursday.

You can read more about Kéké and her work in this GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet 3 Questions post and watch a recap of Kéké and Ross Richmond’s Glass Art Society Demo at the Corning Museum of Glass Roadshow.

Ben Sharp, Hex Top, 2011.

There’s a new gallery on the Ballard scene: The Robert Madsen Gallery has sprung up on Shilshole Avenue near Market Street. Their show schedule includes local Northwest artists, with monthly shows curated
by Jonathon Paden. Jon is a Pilchuck Glass School summer staffer and artist who currently lives in Newport, OR. “We are looking to do one-off shows with varying focus, as well as experimental media shows,” Jon told me.

Robert Madsen's son Axel gives Glass Town writer Lisa Piaskowy a tour of Ben Sharp's exhibition, Vitrarius Age.

I visited the gallery for the closing party of Ben Sharp‘s show, Vitrarius Age. Axel, the 11-year-old son of the owner, guided me through the show, pointed out his favorite pieces, and of course, showed me some of his own drawings. Axel told me that his father, Robert Madsen, renovated the gallery spacevwith the help of his former employee, Jon Paden. Hanging walls organize the gallery’s beautiful wooden interior into two rows of pedestal and hanging work. Sharp’s show featured large glass and metal work, and showed off his talent for cold-working the finely blown glass components. Many of the pieces are interactive, and Axel demonstrated how Hex Top ($1500), actually spins.

Visit the gallery this month to see glass, metal, and assemblage work by Laurie Kain, featuring collaborative work with Steve Ward and sound art by Cathartech. The show, Apis Mellifera, runs now through November 24th. Be sure to look out for drawings by Axel Madsen too!

Robert Madsen Gallery (Facebook Page)
5448 Shilshole Ave. N
Seattle, WA 98107
(206) 343-1449 (call for hours of operation)

- post by Seattle writer and artist Lisa Piaskowy

Rachel Rader's new Lava series necklace, inspired by her recent artist residency in Iceland

Her Majesty, the Mermaid Queen has recently returned from a temporary exile to Laugarvatn, Iceland. If I know her, she made the most of her time away, using the time to lay the groundwork for the expansion of her watery empire. World domination is the only option.

Rachel Rader, the queen’s creator, is a mover and a shaker. She’s the perfect poster child for organizations like Pratt, Pilchuck, and now the Gullkistan artist residency program:  she works hard and makes the most of every opportunity to develop her art work and move her career forward. I got to know Rachel through our mutual involvement with Pratt Fine Arts Center, where over the course of just a few years, Rachel was a staff member, a popular flameworking instructor, a scholarship recipient, a youth program coordinator, a studio renter, a volunteer, and one of the first artists to be given a solo show at the Pratt Gallery in the Tashiro Kaplan building.

Rachel’s show at the Pratt Gallery was this past March, and to give you some idea of how long I’ve been toying with the idea of starting this blog, I wrote a post about it while it was still on display. The show was great, and deserves as much recognition as possible, so I’ll share some of what I wrote then, now:

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Rachel Rader's Crown Jewels, installed in the exhibition, Her Majesty, at the Pratt Gallery

Rachel Rader’s exhibition, Her Majesty, is presented as an imaginary museum exhibition showcasing relics from a long-lost, underwater society ruled by an all-powerful queen with a proclivity for decadence that would have rivaled that of Marie Antoinette.

The show is made up of two separate “museum installations.” To the right of the entrance, a block of vinyl wall text describes the ancient society, its ruler, and their mutual fate. Just beyond it, a formal display of the Mermaid Queen’s crown jewels, presented atop silk pillows and situated on imposing-looking pedestals, is accompanied by a portrait of the Queen in all her finery. To the left, a scene from the Queen’s lair is recreated, with a wildly extravagant feast of squishy looking sea-creature-cakes laid out before an empty, seashell-shaped throne. The individual pieces that make up Rader’s displays are made using a variety of glass working techniques: the platters on which the feast is laid out are sand cast, the delicacies are sculpted in the hotshop, and the crown jewels are flameworked and beaded, making it clear that Rachel is a real renaissance woman when it comes to glass.

The Queen's Feast by Rachel Rader

The exhibition overall feels like a fairy tale, a childhood fantasy made real, with more than a hint of creepiness. The work is cute, pink, and bubbly, yet at the same time grotesque. The Queen’s decadent cakes are ornately decorated, and piled high on their platters in such a way that they seem on the verge of collapsing under their own weight. I feel simultaneously drawn in by their intricate detail and delicacy, and repulsed by their slimy, bloated forms. Rachel is careful to avoid confirming or denying any specific interpretation of the work, especially where the Queen’s character is concerned, but admits that she did intend the decadence represented in the exhibition to parallel the excess and waste that surround us in our own society, and to suggest that our actions may be taking a toll on our planet in ways that we may not be aware of at this point.

Rachel Rader's Five Layer Starfish Creme Surprise Cake. Photo: Daniel Fox

They say that in a dream, every character represents some aspect of the dreamer. This exhibition is Rachel’s dream. She is the queen, she is the people, she is the creator of the land and the story, she is the archaeologist who has unearthed the artifacts, and the representative of the museum that presents them. Always creative and committed, Rachel played the role of a curator at the opening reception for the show. She rarely broke character, and all evening she could be overheard explaining the various objects to visitors with the characteristic reverence and fascination you might expect of a graduate student expounding on her thesis topic. The stories took on a life of their own, and at times, Rachel seemed just as fascinated by the telling of the tales as her audience.

Rachel at work in the Hot Shop. Photo: James Harnois.

Rachel moved to Seattle from Virginia almost 5 years ago after an especially magical experience at Pilchuck Glass School, and with her infections smile and generous spirit, she quickly became a fixture in Seattle’s glass community. Rader describes the process of preparing for Her Majesty as being an amazing journey, supported by the community and by her friends. Most of the work for the show was made at Pratt, the result of having received the organization’s coveted Jon and Mary Shirley Scholarship in Glass. In addition to volunteering their time to assist in making the work, Rachel’s friends helped with many of the details that made the show so special: creating beautiful letterpress invitations, painting the gallery walls late into the night, helping to write press materials and wall text, and making the delicious sea-inspired appetizers that were served at the opening.

You can read more about Rachel and the inspiration behind the work in a 3 Questions feature on Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet.

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Work from Rachel Rader's new Lava series, photographed on location in Iceland.

The Gulkistan Residency was a great opportunity for Rachel, since she has had a long fascination for Iceland and its culture, especially as expressed by their popular musicians. It started when she was in 7th grade and heard Bjork for the first time on her friend’s disc man. “Bjork lead me to Sigur Ros, Mum, Emiliana Torrini, and GusGus,” Rachel says. “As my obsession grew, I became more and more curious about what made Icelandic music so special. When I started looking into it I found images of volcanoes and stories of vikings. I had to go.  It turned out to be better than I could have ever imagined! I saw things in Iceland that will inspire me for the rest of my life.”

Rachel is now safely back in Seattle, but I highly recommend checking out the entries she made in her blog during her residency at Gullkistan. The images are beautiful, and you can really see the influence of the colorful, quiet landscapes in her new work. I can’t wait to see where she goes with it.