Nearly 900 glass artists, collectors, and enthusiasts celebrated the best of our community in Detroit from June 7-10. From special events to one-of-a-kind presentations, there was so much to explore and be inspired by in Detroit. We were proud to showcase the thriving artist community in Detroit at the Russell Industrial Center (RIC), the College for Creative Studies (CCS), and the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA).
Before the official launch of the conference, Firestarter! at Atwater in the Park Brewery set the tone for the week. Detroit-based glassblower and fire spinner Eric Scott Baker demonstrated that glassmakers truly are multi-talented people! An auction of artworks made by Detroit-area artists raised more than $5,000 for GAS; these funds support GAS’ outreach efforts to make our conferences and programs more accessible to the worldwide glass community. We are so grateful for the generosity of Detroit’s local artists and our donors!
We kicked off the 2023 Conference at the Detroit Institute of Arts, where Eddie Bernard received the Lifetime Membership Award in recognition of his decades of dedication to the glass community and to GAS. In his acceptance speech, Eddie spoke about the importance mentorship had on his life and how he aspires to pay it forward to the generations of glassmakers coming after him. Virginia Commonwealth University Musicians led by Bohyun Yoon and Ross Walter wowed the audience with a light and laser spectacle before welcoming guests to move outside for the kickoff party. There, Detroit artist Tiff Massey and 2023 Saxe Emerging Artist recipient, Hoseok Youn, assembled a stunning sculpture of goblet parts on the Corning Museum of Glass Mobile Hot Shop stage.
Next followed three days of action-packed conference presentations! The international collaboration Iconic Yonic created a uterus filled with mold-blown glass grenades. Their demo piece and spare grenades were auctioned off to support female scholarships for next year’s GAS Conference. Maple Glass brought their incredible 3-D printing apparatus to CCS from Australia, and attendees were able to watch as hot glass was 3-D printed directly in the annealer. One lucky attendee even snagged a 3-D printed goblet in this year’s Goblet Grab!
One of the reasons Detroit was chosen for the 2023 Conference was for the opportunity of a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration with the Michigan Glass Project, providing a great opportunity to highlight flameworking at the GAS conference itself. Lucio Bubacco and Michigan Hot Glass owner Albert Young collaborated on a stunning silver veil piece. Bubacco created an outline of a face while Young ladled silver veiled glass into a sand mold to encase Lucio’s portrait. Charlene Foster chained us to our seats with her chain-making demo, and Sibelle Yuksek, our program book cover artist, displayed hollow-sculpted fantasy for a packed audience. Lucie Kovarova-Weir paid homage to a Detroit legend while demonstrating how she creates murrine portraits on the torch by making a portrait of Aretha Franklin.
This year, we had many incredible panels and lectures that spanned the gamut from fighting imposter syndrome, legal considerations for glass artists, the history of Laura Donefer’s Glass Fashion Show, and so much more. Our Saxe Emerging Artist Award winners Geoffrey Bowton, Hoseok Youn, and Scout Cartagena provided a deep dive into their work, and we are excited to see where their careers take them next. We celebrated the artists who contributed to our three exhibitions: Trace (our Green exhibition), Connections (GAS Member Exhibition), and Evolution (our student exhibition).
In an ongoing effort to increase the support of students and emerging artists, our Student Representatives, Leia Guo and Ibrahim Erdogan, organized a giveaway for students attending the conference. Prizes included gifts from Steinert, HIS Glassworks, Glass Axis, BCMetalworking, and Oceanside. Giveaways of this magnitude are transformational for students and give them an incredible opportunity to build their own toolkits; thank you to the businesses who donated to make this giveaway possible!
We closed the conference at Axiom Glass in the Russell Industrial Center on Saturday night, where attendees danced the night away. We want to extend a special thanks to the board and volunteers who kept the drinks (and the fun!) going all night long.
Our 2023 Conference was an incredible success, thanks to all the attendees, presenters, board members, volunteers, and sponsors who made it possible. A special thank you goes out to the Detroit Site Committee who welcomed GAS into their hometown and were incredibly generous with their time, their spaces, and their creativity: Brooke Beckner (CCS), Kim Harty (CCS), Allison Key (Michigan Glass Project), Drew Kups (Urban Pheasant and Michigan Glass Project), Andrew Madvin (Axiom Glass), Aaron Schey (Habatat), April Wagner (epiphany glass), Josh Wojick (The Henry Ford), and Albert Young (Michigan Hot Glass).
Thank you to our sponsors whose generosity made the conference possible: Strategic Staffing Solutions, Jay and Jean Hansen, Jim and Mary Beth Nicholson, FunChitecture, Chihuly Gardens and Glass, epiphany glass, Habatat, Paul Wissmach Glass Co., Olympic Color Rods, Hot Glass Color, Glasma, and The Glass Furnace.
Thank you to our board members who volunteered their time to be in Detroit: Nadania Idriss, Heather McElwee, Lisa Zerkowitz, Mike Saroka, Ben Cobb, Eric Goldschmidt, John Moran, Purnima Patel, Frederik Rombach, Debra Ruzinsky, Kimberly Thomas, Sunny Wang, Martha Zackin, and Student Reps Ibrahim Erdogan and Leia Guo.
All attendees will receive a digital copy of the annual Glass Art Society Journal later this year, which is a full recap of the 2023 Conference. You can order a printed copy of the 2023 Conference Journal until September 4, 2023. Check out our social media next week as we announce the location of the 2024 Conference. Where in the world do you think GAS is heading next?