Art Department reflects on UW’s contributions to American Studio Glass Movement
The University of Wisconsin’s Glass Lab is celebrating its sixth decade of operations this year, according to the UW School of Education website.
UW associate professor of glassworking Helen Lee discussed the Glass Lab’s celebration of this milestone throughout the 2023-24 academic year. Events will include open houses where the Glass Lab will provide demonstrations, as well as interactive events where individuals can create their own glass artworks with assistance from the lab’s staff.
“The [UW] Art Department usually has — in the fall — rotating exhibitions of all the different areas,” Lee said. “The Glass Lab typically exhibits their work publicly at that time. But, this year that’s being done through six different exhibitions of alumni and current student works, so this year, it’s kind of like [typical years] on steroids. Graduate students have individual solo shows in the spring semester.”
The UW Glass Lab is the first collegiate glass program in the nation, founded in 1962 by Former UW Ceramics professor Harvey Littleton, Lee said.
According to the Corning Museum of Glass, the American Studio Glass movement started during the 1950s. Littleton participated in this growing movement with the establishment of the UW Glass Lab. Littleon’s early students such as Dale Chihuly and Marvin Lipofsky contributed innovation to the glass-blowing field, according to the Corning Museum of Glass.
Glass-blowing artists can work with warm or cold glass, Lee said. Warm glass is made into art through kilns and molds and cold glass is made into art by cutting, grinding, polishing and etching the glass.
“In order to have a Glass Lab, typically you have a furnace that holds — in our case, 700 pounds of glass at 2,150 degrees Fahrenheit,” Lee said. “And then there are some reheating chambers that simply help you keep the glass hot while you’re working with it. Those are kind of the main infrastructural things and then they’re also kilns that you put the work in when you’re done making it.”
The Glass Lab is a division of UW’s Art Program, where students within the Art Department can obtain a Bachelor’s of Science or Bachelor’s in Fine Arts. Prospective undergraduate students interested in the Glass Lab can apply through the School of Education’s Art Department.
