Each year, the Glass Art Society conducts a rigorous and competitive jury process to select the latest emerging artists who have displayed excellence in glass. Along with the opportunity to share their work with a large audience of established artists, educators, peers, collectors, art historians, and critics, recipients of the GAS Emerging Artist Award will receive a cash prize, a special lecture slot at the next GAS Conference, a digital catalog and media coverage in our social media channels, and more.
WHO TO NOMINATE
The GAS Board invites you to nominate ONE emerging artist who you believe meets the criteria for this award (see below). Thank you for your assistance in helping us to select and showcase new and important glass talent!
Nominees for the GAS Emerging Artist Award must:
- Be an artist whose work displays originality and creativity while expanding the field of glass
- Be an artist whose work displays skill and innovation, conceptually and/or technically.
- Be an artist dedicated to using glass in their creative practice and uses glass as their primary medium.
- This includes performance, video, or installations with glass.
- Have been working in glass for 12 years or less.
- This includes time spent enrolled in a degree-granting program and/or learning at a public access studio.
- Not currently enrolled in a degree-granting education program.
- Be a current GAS Member OR willing to become a GAS Member.
- Must be available to present in-person at the 2025 Glass Art Society Conference in Texas.
HOW TO NOMINATE
Nominate an artist for the GAS Emerging Artist Award via this form by midnight PDT on September 27.
OUR SELECTION PROCESS
Nominated artists will be notified via email and asked to apply online through Submittable.com. Our jury will then review applications and select three candidates to present their work in a joint, in-person session at the 2025 Glass Art Society Conference in Texas. This year’s jurors are Sachi Fujikake, Joshua Kerley, and Cydney Pickens.
Sachi Fujikake is a Japanese contemporary glass artist. Born in Aichi Prefecture in 1985, she studied glass at various educational institutions in Japan and abroad to explore new possibilities for glass. Since 2015, she has been creating works in her own studio. Fascinated by the soft and free form of molten glass, she primarily creates blown glass works.
Her representative work, “Vestige,” is characterized by its unique technique that combines traditional glass methods with modern design to highlight the charm of soft glass. In particular, the “Vestige” series features regular dots that are irregularly distorted, expressing gentle distortion, bending, and shrinking.
Fujikake has participated in numerous exhibitions both in Japan and internationally, and has presented her works at art fairs such as TEFAF and the
Armory Show. Her works are held in renowned institutions such as the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung Foundation in Germany, the Corning Museum of Glass in the United States, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in the United
Kingdom. She has also received several awards, including the Gold Award at the 2016 International Glass Exhibition in Kanazawa and the Gold Award at the 2018 Toyama International Glass Exhibition.
Joshua Kerley is an award-winning artist, designer, and educator specialising in kiln glass. He graduated from the Royal College of Art’s MA Ceramics & Glass programme in 2019, and studied BA Contemporary Crafts at Falmouth University, graduating in 2011. He exhibits regularly at an international level and is represented by Bullseye Projects, USA. Recent shows have included Heart of Glass at Galerie Handwerk, Munich and Channelling: Outset Studiomakers Corridor at Frieze London. Since the completion of his MA, Kerley has been awarded the Tiffany & Co. Studiomakers Prize and the Bullseye Glass Living Edge Award at the British Glass Biennale. Examples of Kerley’s work are held in the permanent collection of the Special Collections Museum at Manchester Metropolitan University and the Ernsting Foundation’s Glass Museum in Coesfeld, Germany. His work has been featured in publications including Crafts Magazine and New Glass Review. Kerley
currently works from a studio in rural Wiltshire and holds the position of senior lecturer (glass) at theUniversity of the Creative Arts, Farnham.
Cydney Elaine Pickens (she/her) is a curator, appraiser, and avid supporter of the arts currently based in Houston, Texas. While attending the University of Houston, she successfully completed a dissertation investigating the relationship between traditional and modern performance art in Africa and Europe as vehicles for metaphysical understanding. This research continues to inform her craft-centered and community-engaged curatorial practice celebrating the interconnectivity of society through creative expression in raw and synthetic materials such as wood, glass, fiber, and metal. Through her personal art collection, relationships with artists, collectors, and institutions, she displays her devotion to sharing the influence of heritage and cultural identity on contemporary art. Cydney currently serves as Assistant Curator and Programming Manager for Project Row Houses, a non-profits arts organization located in Houston’s historic Third Ward.
ABOUT THIS AWARD
The GAS Emerging Artist Award was initially funded by a generous investment from Dorothy and George Saxe. This award, presented annually, recognizes emerging talent in the glass community and provides a critical platform for artists to share their work with the broader community.