Long-time GAS member Frederick Birkill passed away this summer. As a photographer of early GAS Conferences, he was instrumental in creating a record of GAS and the Studio Glass Movement. His friend, Shane Fero, remembers Fred in this blog post.
I met Fred in 1988 at the Penland School of Craft, when he taught there for the first time. I asked to be his studio assistant, and he agreed. Thus began our long, close friendship of 35 years. I had seen his work previously at Jean Boutz’s home in Clermont, FL. Fred and I went on to collaborate as colleagues and co-instructors and shared many interests.
Fred was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1951. He took his first class in glassblowing in 1972 with Richard Ritter, and in the same year took a class with Dr. Bruce Graves in scientific glassblowing. From the onset of his career, Fred was interested in hot glass and flameworking. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Eastern Michigan University in 1974 and made his first trip to Murano in the same year due to his burgeoning interest in glass. Taking various glass workshops furthered his quest for knowledge. Fred traveled to England to study stained glass with Patrick Reyntiens and Ludwig Schaffrath for a year and traveled around Europe. He received his BFA from Penny W. Stamps School of Arts & Design, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1986. Over the course of his career, Fred studied with Herb Babcock, Dale Chihuly, Henry Halem, Livio Seguso, Walt Lieberman, Pavel Molnar, Kurt Wallstab, Dante Marioni, Dick Marquis, Ben Moore, Fritz Driesbach, and Bill Gudenrath, among others.
Fred married Jeannie in 1992. This union was a romantically and professionally fortuitous event for him, as Jeannie not only became his wife but also his archivist.
In addition to mastering various techniques in glass, Fred painted, constructed mixed media works, made furniture fabricated from welded steel and glass, continued his life-long interests in photography, and other mediums. We shared an enthusiasm for Joseph Cornell, the Surrealists, Trompe-l’oeil, and iterations of modern art, all of which influenced his work. He built several glass furnaces over the years. Fred and Jeannie’s home was like a small museum and research center as their glass art collection and glass/art library were extensive.
As a contributor to the education of flameworking, Fred was a pioneer in promoting the artistic expression of the technique. He wrote “A Concise History of Flameworking” which was published in The 1985 GAS Journal. Fred and I co-taught at many institutions: multiple times at Penland School of Craft, The Studio at the Corning Museum, and the University of Michigan-Dearborn, as well as workshops in various other venues in the US when flameworking had little recognition as a technique in the glass art community. He and I, with the help of Alison Sheafor-Joy, wrote a booklet, “The Art of Flameworking,” one of the few materials on flameworking at the time which included sections on the use of soft glass as a material for flameworking. He also connected with glass communities in the UK, Germany, and Murano, especially to further promote education and exposure to the flameworking and glass communities.
Fred joined The Glass Art Society in 1977. He encouraged me and my wife, Sallie, to attend our first conference in Seattle in 1990. He attended most GAS conferences, his last being the Murano conference in 2018. He demonstrated as well as presented lectures periodically throughout those years. Fred and Jeannie have been generous donors over the years to GAS. Fred was also part of the History Project Committee, which records interviews with individuals in the glass community worldwide who have contributed extensively to GAS or education with their art.
Fred exhibited in the US and Europe with nine solo exhibitions and years and years of group exhibitions. His work is in many museums worldwide and many private collections. In 2020, an artist’s monograph GLASSWORKS: The Art of Frederick Birkhill was published by The Artist Book Foundation. The Frederick Birkhill Papers have been gifted to The Rakow Library at The Corning Museum of Glass. I know that for Jeannie, his friends, students, colleagues, and myself, his passing is very sad. Fred’s infectious laughter is now missing from our lives, and he will be missed. His legacies will live on.