Lino Tagliapietra Celebration Week
Hot Shop Residencies with Lino's Team | Artist Panels | Special Programming
January 20-24
Lino Tagliapietra with team members Jen Elek, Nancy Callan, and David Walters. Photo by Pavel Verbovski.
Museum of Glass invites you to a special week of programming honoring Lino Tagliapietra and the new Lino Tagliapietra Legacy Gallery!
The Museum Hot Shop will feature a different artist from Lino’s glassblowing team every day, demonstrating the techniques and inspirations they have gained from years of working with Lino. Additionally, the Museum’s regularly scheduled Third Thursday evening with free admission will feature artist Dante Marioni. A special artist panel with the artists and Lino Tagliapietra Legacy Gallery curator Susan Warner will be held on Saturday, January 23 at 1pm, where they will discuss Lino’s career and his unparalleled impact on glassmaking in the Pacific Northwest. See below for the full lineup of events.
Lino Tagliapietra Celebration Week Hot Shop Schedule
Wednesday, January 20, 10am-5pm
Visiting Artist Nancy Callan
Nancy Callan’s artistic voice as a glass sculptor reflects her high-level training and talents. Callan attended the Massachusetts College of Art (BFA 1996) and lives in Seattle, WA, where she is part of the vibrant Northwest glass community. Callan’s numerous awards include the Creative Glass Center of America Fellowship and residencies at Museum of Glass, The Toledo Museum of Art (Toledo, OH), the Pittsburgh Glass Center (Pittsburgh, PA), and The Chrysler Museum (Norfolk, VA). She began her glass career in the Pacific Northwest in 1996 as a team member for Maestro Lino Tagliapietra, rising to become his main assistant.
Callan has been exhibiting her work since 2001, at galleries including Traver Gallery (Seattle, WA), Schantz Gallery (Stockbridge, MA), Hawk Gallery (Columbus, OH), Blue Rain Gallery (Santa Fe, NM), and Holsten Galleries (Santa Fe, NM). In addition to exhibiting and creating her own work, Callan enjoys the challenges of teaching and sharing her skills with students. She has offered advanced glassblowing workshops at Pilchuck Glass School (Stanwood, WA), The Pittsburgh Glass Center (Pittsburgh, PA), Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (Deer Isle, ME), and Penland School of Craft (Penland, NC). Callan also enjoys collaboration, working with New York City lighting designer Lindsey Adelman and Los Angeles artist Katherine Gray on recent special projects.
Thursday, January 21, 10am-5pm
Visiting Artist John Kiley
One of the most exciting glass sculptors working today, John Kiley often appears to defy gravity and transcend boundaries with his masterful use of color and transparency — refracting light through spherical forms, towering structures, and shattered blocks.
His exploration of relationships between chaos and order and strength and fragility imbue each piece with a delicate sense of balance. Kiley’s glassblowing career has included working closely with master artists like Dale Chihuly, Dante Marioni, and Benjamin Moore, in addition to serving as a principal team member with Lino Tagliapietra for 16 years.
His eagerness to experiment with scale, materials, and techniques has earned him widespread acclaim and recognition, with his work featured in galleries, museums, and public spaces worldwide.
Thursday, January 21, 5pm-8pm - Third Thursday Free Admission!
Visiting Artist Dante Marioni
Dante Marioni’s sophisticated glass objects evoke the rich tradition of classical Mediterranean pottery and bronzes, a result of his training in centuries-old Venetian glassblowing techniques with some of the greatest masters in contemporary glass, including maestro Lino Tagliapietra.
The son of studio glass pioneer Paul Marioni, Dante learned traditional Venetian glassblowing techniques from some of the greatest masters in contemporary glass. He began blowing glass at the age of 19, and presented his first solo gallery show, in Seattle, four years later. Since the strong start of his career, Marioni has garnered international recognition and acclaim for his elegant and inventive work in glass.
For Marioni, making objects is about the art of glassblowing rather than the creation of glass art, the process rather than the result. Marioni’s elegant works are the brilliant record of his on-going relationship with and exploration of this material.
Friday, January 22, 10am-5pm
Visiting Artist Jen Elek
Jen Elek is a studio artist and educator based in Seattle. Elek investigates interpersonal themes and the notion of community by creating objects and installations of colorful glass and neon light employed as a non-verbal form of communication. Jen has been a member of the Northwest artist community since moving from Bethlehem PA to Seattle in 1995. Elek has traveled to Canada, Japan, Australia, and throughout the U.S teaching glassblowing workshops. Jen has worked for many notable artists including, Dale Chihuly, Ginny Ruffner, Nancy Callan and was a key member of Lino Tagliapietra’s glassblowing team for 15 years.
Jen involvement in Northwest Art organizations include; Pilchuck glass school, The Museum of Glass -Tacoma, Hilltop Artists and guest lecturer at The University of Washington in Seattle. Her work has been exhibited at The Museum of Glass Tacoma, Tacoma Art Museum, Pittsburgh Glass Center.
Jen is represented by Traver gallery Seattle. Her work has been exhibited at Museum of Glass, Tacoma Art Museum, Pittsburgh Glass Center, and Traver Gallery Seattle. Jen maintains a studio in south Seattle with husband Jeremy Bert.
Saturday, January 23, 10am-1pm
Visiting Artist David Walters
David Walters’ work focuses on narrative storytelling, often referring to the fairy tales of our youth, weaving personal interpretation into these cautionary stories to give them a contemporary and intimate relevance.
Walters is interested in art’s ability to connect with current audiences and document the era in which it was created for future generations, holding up a mirror to reflect the world as the artist imagines it.
After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1993, Walters moved to Seattle to work for Dale Chihuly and the many prolific glass makers of the Pacific Northwest glass community, including Maestro Lino Tagliapietra, with whom he worked for 14 years. He has been internationally recognized for his work, which can be found in several distinguished private and museum collections.
Saturday, January 23, 1pm-2:30pm
Artist Panel with Lino’s Team
Join us for a very special panel and artist talk moderated by Susan Warner, curator of the Lino Tagliapietra Legacy Gallery and its first exhibition Lino Tagliapietra: Maestro. Artists from Lino Tagliapietra Celebration Week, including Nancy Callan, John Kiley, Dante Marioni, David Walters, Jen Elek, and DH McNabb, will discuss Lino’s career, the years they spent on his hot shop team, and his unparalleled impact on glassmaking in the Pacific Northwest.
This event is open to the public and included with regular Museum admission. Seats in the Hot Shop are first come, first served, so please plan to arrive promptly!
The Museum will close to the public following the artist panel to prepare for a private event.
Sunday, January 24, 10am-5pm
Visiting Artist DH McNabb
Encouraged by his parents who were seasoned travelers, DH McNabb often found himself spinning the globe in his father’s office, delighting where they had been and dreaming about the places he longed to visit. For McNabb, glass has been an educational journey both from academic and practical standpoints. He embarked on a path of formal study at Centre College in 1999 and continued his education, earning his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2012.
Glassmaking has taken McNabb around the world: Seattle, Prague, Lybster, Weil am Rhein, Murano, Nuutajärvi, Istanbul, Toyama, Saint-Louis lès Bitche, and Bergen. Along the way, he’s assisted and collaborated with many artists, including Lino Tagliapietra, and these experiences have expanded his material understanding of glass and enriched his journey through life. In his own ideology, it’s not a matter of what you can make with glass, but what you can expose, always seeing, looking, searching for the new.
