Summer of Glass
For Immediate Release
May 15, 2009
Contact: Beth Manwaring 607.974.4254 or manwaringb@rockwellmuseum.org
CORNING, NY - The Rockwell Museum of Western Art will present a Summer of Glass - contemporary monumental glass sculpture and 200 years of traditional Iroquois beadwork. Appropriately enough, the Rockwell Museum of Western Art is nestled in Corning's historic downtown, named appropriately the "Gaffer District" because of the city's rich history of glass-making. Corning, NY is coined the "Crystal City" and has a long history of glass and glass-making.
Visions Beyond Clay: The Artwork of Tammy Garcia will be the most comprehensive public exhibit of Garcia's monumental glass sculpture to date. The exhibition will feature 20-25 of Garcia's groundbreaking glass sculptures, which blend Native American symbolism and iconography with cutting-edge, contemporary forms and designs. Award-winning Santa Clara Pueblo artist, Tammy Garcia, is best known for her visionary pottery that unites her clan's famous pottery making skill with a sophisticated, contemporary aesthetic.
Sewing the Seeds: 200 Years of Iroquois Glass Beadwork will feature more than 100 pieces of traditional raised Iroquois beadwork. For over two centuries, Haudenosaunee beadworkers have sewn sparkling glass seed beads into intricate pincushions, purses, whimsies, and picture frames. Created for tourists, they nonetheless reflect the love of natural imagery and color inherent in the Haudenosaunee culture. The Rockwell Museum is pleased to welcome the exhibit collector, Dolores Elliot, as the guest curator of the exhibition.
"Visions Beyond Clay: The Artwork of Tammy Garcia" opens May 23, 2009, and runs through October 4, 2009. The one-woman show will feature 20 to 25 of Garcia's groundbreaking glass sculptures, which blend Native American symbolism and iconography with cutting-edge, contemporary forms and designs. The exhibition will showcase a number of Garcia's monumental bronze works as well, illustrating the broad range of her talent in a variety of media and her ability to translate the ancient images of her Pueblo Indian heritage and other Native cultures into a contemporary artistic idiom.
There are a number of reasons that makes this show extraordinary. Below are just a few highlights:
• Never before has any single exhibition of Garcia's artwork showcased an impressive 10- piece collection of monumental sculpture. This is the most comprehensive public exhibit of her sculpture to date.
• Especially for this show, Garcia will introduce her newest vision: wall-mounted fused panels incorporating a variety of colors. The panels, ranging from 5' x 5' to 4'' x 12' to 2' x 8', are combined in groups of four, eight and nine to form large wall installations that glow with color and cast intricate shadows, adding an intriguing dimensional quality to the work.
Among the sculptures will be Garcia's acclaimed blown-glass vessels-luminous, color-filled pieces that are at once fragile and powerful. Also on display will be her sandblasted clear-glass panels, another innovation in glass art that marries Native American symbolism with a contemporary aesthetic.
"The museum became familiar with Garcia's work last year when we exhibited a private collection of Pueblo pottery," says Sheila K. Hoffman, Rockwell's curator of collections. "The crowning jewels of that show were the pots by Tammy Garcia, and we were impressed to discover her work in bronze and glass as well. We wanted to highlight her modern take on Western glass in conjunction with the 39th Annual Conference of the Glass Art Society, which takes place June 11-13 in Corning. She's gone beyond merely translating the elements of Pueblo pottery into new media-she's creating a whole new means of expression."
"I love working in glass because of the inherent challenges and risks of such a fragile medium," says Garcia. "The color choices are limitless, and I'm always looking for new ways to express my artistic vision."
Blue Rain Gallery is committed to promoting work of the finest contemporary and regional artists. The gallery features an extraordinary collection of pottery, paintings, sculpture and bronze, glass art, kachinas, and jewelry. Blue Rain Gallery is located at 130 Lincoln Avenue, Suite D, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501. Phone 505-954-9902. For more information, visit the Blue Rain Gallery website at www.blueraingallery.com.
Sewing the Seeds: 200 Years of Iroquois Glass Beadwork, beginning May 23 and will be on display through October 4. The summer glass exhibition will feature over 300 of the finest pieces of Iroquois beadwork ever created by Haudenosaunee bead workers.
The exhibition will exhibit imaginative images of flora and fauna on pieces of beadwork adorned with variety of a purses, moccasins, frames vast array of colors will feature beadwork in the shape of strawberries, beaded animals, as well as Indian-made dolls with beaded clothing. The flowers, plants, animals, and birds adorn pincushions, picture frames, and many other of the eighty types of Iroquois beadwork. A highlight of the exhibit will be a 21st century recreation of a traditional woman's outfit such as those worn by Haudenosaunee women in ceremonies, pow wows, and festivals for over three hundred years
The beadwork comes from the 2000-piece collection of Iroquois beadwork assembled by Dolores Elliott of Binghamton, NY. Elliott's collection is one of the largest collections in the world. She has authored several books concerning the history and identification of Iroquois beadwork including Flights of Fancy and Iroquois Beadwork Vol 1: A Short History. Her articles have appeared in BEADS: The Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers and in three journals of the Bead Society of Great Britain along with dozens of newspapers and historical society newsletters. She has presented dozens of presentations on Iroquois beadwork at colleges, museums, and meetings of social groups, historical societies, and archaeology clubs.
Pieces from the collection have been shown at the New York State Museum in Albany, the Mashantucket Pequot Museum in Connecticut, the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, the Bruce Museum in Connecticut, the Woolaroc Museum in Oklahoma, the Seneca Iroquois Museum in Salamanca, the Woodland Cultural Centre in Brantford, Ontario, and closer to home in Binghamton, Ithaca, Elmira, Vestal, Oneonta, and Syracuse.
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