Posted: Thursday, June 26, 2008 12:00 am
'Looking Through the Glass' exhibit backdrops da Vinci Days festival with explosion of colorful creations from around the world
When Alice in Wonderland makes her second trip to that crazy land, she does so by finding an enchanted portal through her mirror.
In The Arts Center's latest exhibit "Looking Through the Glass," visitors can use the gallery as their own magic portal, transporting them to a world full of color, form and sparkle. The exhibit, which runs in conjunction with da Vinci Days Festival in July, features the work of glass artists from around the world.
Bill Siebler is the guest curator of the show, and has been a collector and sometime glass artist, for decades. His first experience with glass was transformative.
"The first time I saw glass, I was walking down Connecticut Boulevard in Washington, D.C., and a flash of light caught my eye," he said. It was 1977, and renowned glass artist Harvey Littleton was having an exhibit of his work. Siebler found his way into the upstairs gallery and was astonished at Littleton's work.
"I saw something I had never seen before, and I fell in love," Siebler said.
Since then, he's helped curate art shows, has collected a small number of pieces himself, and has even taken glass classes to learn more about the art he fell in love with. He jumped at the chance to guest curate this new show.
Although there are a handful of prominent glass artists in the community, Siebler said he decided to emphasize artists who are not normally shown locally, to give viewers a taste of some of the many varied types and styles of glass work available nationally.
And because Siebler has many connections in the glass community, when he was asked to orchestra this show on short notice, he was able to pull together a number of artists who were willing to donate their work for the show.
"I started out wanting to represent different styles or techniques," from cast glass and fused glass to blown glass and flamework glass, he said. In addition to the larger pieces, smaller exhibits will feature famous paperweight artists and bead artists.
Wednesday morning, Hester Coucke, curator of The Arts Center, slit open a cardboard box and began unrolling long, pointy pieces of red and gold glass.
"It's like Christmas," she said, diving enthusiastically into the project, which involved 157 such pieces that morning. All of them had to be assembled on a giant chandelier made especially for the show by Ed Pennebaker of Green Forest, Ark. Assembling the 60-pound chandelier proved to be a mammoth project. Instructions for its reassembly were a little vague, and it needed to be put on display first because it was the centerpiece of the exhibit.
"We have to invent it as we go," Coucke said, lining up pieces on the floor. "Once that's done, we'll think about unpacking the rest."
Volunteer Walter Barkan was helping get things in place to hang the chandelier. He had invested a lot of time weight-testing the beams from which the glass would be suspended. A pulley system was installed especially for the piece, and the beam was tested to ensure it could hold three times the chandelier's weight.
The specially-made chandelier costs $10,350, which Siebler said was remarkably affordable, considering its size and complexity. It would be an impressive piece in a larger home. But if it doesn't find a buyer in Corvallis, the chandelier will make its way to another gallery after the show.
Some of the more affordable pieces on display will be the paperweight and bead collections, which Siebler suggested as a good way for new collectors to get into the field.
He's also excited that two artists who appeared in a glass show at The Arts Center in the 1990s will return for this show, Richard Royal and Richard La Londe.
Siebler hopes to share his love of glass with visitors who might be transformed like he was back in 1977.
"Glass is kind of magical."