Ormond Memorial Art Museum and Gardens

Glass Houses: Living with Art

September 24, 2004 through October 31, 2004

Curator's Statement

Glass is abundant in America, and has been for more than a century.  New England households prized the pressed glass made in Sandwich, and Victorian hostesses reveled in their richly colored glassware.

It was only with the 1893 World’s Colombian Exposition that a wider audience found the luxurious art glass pioneered by Louis Comfort Tiffany, and developed an enduring taste for luminous forms in glass.  “Glass Houses: Living with Art” traces the allure of American glass, with an eye to both its decorative and its functional applications -- and its collectibility.

The exhibit’s works range from fragile Art Nouveau pieces to the rainbow of utilitarian glassware that became available during the Great Depression.  It considers the way technological advances put glass into American kitchens, and even into the oven and onto the table.  Its displays show how the emerging Studio Glass movement, part of the Craftsman revolution, put art glass on a level equal to that of the traditional fine arts.

Most of all, this unusual exhibit incorporates elements of everyday life that link the glass styles to a larger framework: the home, and increasingly since the 1980’s, the art gallery.

Graceful Blenko vessels in fashionable chartreuse were made to be admired as art, but also to be part of the sort of mid-century modern interior that is evoked by a vignette at the museum.  Similarly groundbreaking advances in the ability of glass to withstand heat are illustrated in a tableau that features furnishings of the 1930’s.

Unlike the usual museum exhibit, pieces made of glass are more than specimens in “Glass Houses.”  From contemporary works by Duncan McClellan, Dale Chihuly and others, to prized glass pieces of the past, the examples in “Glass Houses” show how natural it is to live with well designed glass, and how rewarding.

Contemporary artists participating in this exhibition include the following:

• Marilyn Catlow
• Robert Levin
• Duncan McClellan
• Will Grant
• Catherine Rahn
• Jim and Susan Pelish
• William Slade

Also, there are numerous glass pieces from the collections of the Daytona Beach Museum of Arts & Science, the Maitland Art Center, the Ormond Beach Historical Trust and local anonymous collectors.

The opening reception is Friday, September 24, 2004, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm, at the Museum.  Museum members, artists and their guests are invited to attend.

OMAM is hosting a day-trip to Jacksonville on Friday, October 1, 2004, to experience glassmaking firsthand with Artist and Associate Professor Jonathan Christie at Jacksonville University.  A boxed lunch and docent-guided tour of the current exhibition at the Cummer Museum of Art will follow.

The Museum staff is happy to accommodate media outlets by arranging artist/curator interviews or photo, film, and video shoot schedules with advance notice. Contact Museum Director, Ann Burt,  at (386) 676-3347 for more information.

Museum hours are Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m.- 4:00 p.m. and Saturday-Sunday 12:00 p.m.- 4:00 p.m. Seniors (60+), students and children are admitted to the Museum free of charge every day; a $2 donation is suggested for adult visitors.

The Ormond Memorial Art Museum and Gardens is located at 78 E. Granada Boulevard (SR 40), Ormond Beach, beachside, on the southeast corner of Granada Boulevard and Halifax Avenue. Phone (386) 676-3347 for details and information.

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This web page was updated on 05-Nov-2004 07:18 PM -0600