NATURAL FLOW

Natural Flow was initiated as a way of gathering together recent work by a wide range of Alberta-based glass artists. The theme highlights the unique ability of hot glass to embody organic and biomorphic ideas, forms and forces. The natural flow of hot glass, both as a medium and a creative making process makes it arguably one of the most mind-body connected of the craft arts. Much of the process and final form are a direct result of this: rhythm, dance, energy, movement, are typical words in the hot glass vocabulary. The liquidity and viscosity of hot glass are inextricably linked to the mind and muscle grace of the makers. This is distinct from drawing, modeling, cutting, assembling and finishing common with furniture making, for example. None of these glass pieces would have the same visual flow had they been drawn by hand or CAD and then prototyped and produced somewhere other than these craft artists’ studios. While the very nature of glass as an ‘amorphous solid’ – neither liquid nor solid - can lend it these qualities physically, the works in hot glass featured here take it a step beyond, evoking natural forces of change visually and also metaphorically, through a variety of strategies from imagery to humour and spiritual contemplation.

Jennifer Salahub has ably invoked the spirit of social historian John Ruskin, the British Arts & Crafts Movement and the development of American studio glass in creating a context for the work in this exhibition, and we may add to that scholarship the wealth of global influences upon these artists:  from LC Tiffany, FL Wright and Stickleys in the USA, Lalique and Galle in France and others in eastern Europe; from the ancient, Renaissance, French, Scandinavian, central European, Italian, and American, to contemporary Mexico and India. Indeed Coca-cola and other famous brand glass, as well as space-race developments and contemporary art can be seen as having made an eclectic impression upon these artists.

Although the idea of ‘natural flow’ is traced through the works gathered here, it is not exemplary of all Alberta glass artists’ practices; and so this project, while comprehensive in scope, is certainly not exhaustive of the richness of Alberta glass artists and artisans. 

We thank writer Jennifer Salahub for her informed and graceful positioning of this work in a history of glass, and editor Mary-Beth Laviolette for her astute preparation of the artist pages and text editing. We would also like to recognise the photographers, catalogue and website designers Annette Aslund and Laura O’Connor of the Alberta Craft Council and Prority Printers, for their fine work in bringing the publication and website to fruition; and the staff of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for their assistance with this project.

Finally, we thank our members and donors for sustaining our exhibitions, programs and publications; likewise the cities of Medicine Hat, Calgary and Edmonton, for their support, as well as the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

Joanne Marion
Curator of Art, Esplanade Arts & Heritage Centre

Tom McFall
Executive Director, Alberta Craft Council

Kai Georg Scholefield
President, Calgary Glass Initiative