Today: Susan Longini at the Oakland Museum of California

Caithness Neighbors. 2011. Kilncast pâte de verre, metal frame, 35 x 41 x 1.5 in. Collection of the artist.
Photo credit: Keay Edwards

Susan Longini (b. 1947). BFA University of Michigan, 1969. California College of the Arts, 1982. San Jose State University, 1991. Studied under Marvin Lipofsky at California College of the Arts, 1982.

Susan J. Longini initiated and becamed head of the glass program at Ohlone College in Fremont, California from 1987 to 2003, and served on the City of Fremont’s Art Review Board from 2000 to 2010.

From 2002 to 2004, Longini was Executive Director of the Bay Area Glass Institute, San Jose, California. She is currently president of the Glass Alliance of Northern California. Since 2000, Longini’s concentration is focused on pâte de verre and large scale installations in glass. Her work is represented in galleries in the United States and in collections around the world. —Susan Longini

Artists we love showing at the Oakland Museum

It has been, shamefully, quite some time since our last post here. Our only explanation is that our work surprisingly took over to such an extent that we inexplicably shifted away from our love of this blog. To our readers, we offer humble apologies with the promise to amend and forge ahead.

Our news today is that some of our favorite glass artists will be featured at the Oakland Museum of California's celebration of the 50th Anniversary of American Studio Glass. They are: Marvin Lipofsky, Mark Abildgaard, Oben Abright, Latchezar Boyadjiev, Kathleen Elliot, Bella Feldman, Robert Fritz, Jaime Guerrero, Taliaferro Jones, Michelle Knox, John Lewis, Susan Longini, Richard Marquis, William Morris, Jay Musler, Danny Perkins, Clifford Rainey, Therman Statom, Cassandra Straubing, Randy Strong, Pamina Traylor and Mary White.

Marvin Lipofsky. California Loop Series #55 (1970). Blown glass, flocking.  8 x 36 x 27 in.

We are extremely honored to have been invited to share our thoughts on these artists with collectors, curators and museum professionals, and continue to support the beautiful work they make that we believe in so passionately.

To the artists and professionals involved in presenting this upcoming exhibition, thank you for your collaboration.

We are at the Affordable Art Fair!

Los Angelenos welcomed the inauguration of the Affordable Art Fair with exhibitions by many of us, including Micaela  Gallery + Project's Project 1:2012.

Our exhibition included work by Donata Benker, Philip Alden Benn, Sidnea d'Amico, Marilou Desmeules, Kathleen Elliot, Peter Foucault, Michelle Knox, Mark Leibowitz, Susan Longini, Lorraine Peltz, Kevin J. Pocock, and Lucky Rapp.

Exhibition, Installation images

When we closed our gallery doors, it was with some trepidation that we wouldn't be able to honor the beautiful work of our colleagues in the same way.

I think, with Amorphous Dreams, we've put that fear to rest, and thank all the wonderful people who were instrumental in making this exhibition happen so beautifully. They are in chronological order: Susan Longini and Prema Murthy, Silvia Levenson, Warren Poole, Cynthia Plevin, Marvin Lipofsky, Jay Musler, Bella Feldman and JP Long, Dorothy Saxe, Clifford Rainey, John Green, John LaPrade, Michael Damm and Francesca Ginocchio.



Amorphous Dreams is on exhibition at Bekris Gallery from March 3 through March 29. The opening reception for the artists is Saturday, March 5 from 2 to 4.30. We hope you can stop by and spend a moment with us.

AMORPHOUS DREAMS (Project 2:2011)

Please join us at the opening reception for

AMORPHOUS DREAMS: Prema Murthy, Susan Longini, Marvin Lipofsky, Jay Musler, Bella Feldman, Silvia Levenson, Clifford Rainey.

Saturday, March 5 from 2 to 4.30 pm

Micaëla Gallery + Projects in collaboration with

Bekris Gallery

49 Geary Street (2d Floor)

San Francisco, CA 94108

925.457.5645 http://micaela.com

Exhibition runs March 3 through March 29

Preview works from the exhibition online at http://micaela.com/home/Project_2_2011.html

"Some men see things as they are and say 'why'? Others dream things that never were and say 'why not'?" -George Bernard Shaw

Micaëla Gallery + Projects, in collaboration with Bekris Gallery, is pleased to present AMORPHOUS DREAMS (Project 2:2011) an exhibition of artwork by seven contemporary artists whose mediums of expression are glass and new media.

Invoking ideas of beauty and mythology, while commenting on contemporary culture, these artists simultaneously challenge our intellect as well as our sensory experience with their sculpture. Meticulously, and expertly, crafting artwork with color, material and, in some cases, sound, each artist presents vibrant compositions. The artworks address personal cultural references of contemporary community, life, metaphysics and politics by Prema Murthy, Susan Longini, Marvin Lipofsky, Jay Musler, Bella Feldman, Silvia Levenson, and Clifford Rainey.

With a resume that includes exhibitions at PS1/MoMA Contemporary Art Center, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, among others, Prema Murthy introduces the Merkaba, known as the star tetrahedron, a portal into higher dimensions. Comprised of video, drawings and an installation, Murthy’s work is an extension of the artist’s ongoing exploration into the ever-shifting boundaries of embodiment, cognition and Mind. She references math and science to locate and map our interconnections to the universe on micro and macro, inner and outer, physical and spiritual planes.

Susan Longini’s work references the lost community of Caithness, Scotland, where windswept landscapes and crumbling buildings bear witness to abandoned homesteads. Using pâte-de-verre to create variegated landscapes, Longini devised a unique and convincing way to unify realism with traditional landscape abstractions, and address her social comments in so doing.

Marvin Lipofsky, collaborator, educator, inveterate traveler, multi-awarded artist, respected sculptor, and passionate supporter of the arts, is credited with bridging international communities of artists, overcoming ideological barriers and continents, to form an international glass community. His career as a working artist is a story of artistic depth and broad recognition over a five-decade journey. A master colorist, Lipofsky’s work deliberately pays homage to the communities he works with, classically addressing sculptural concerns of light and space. He established respected glass programs at the University of California at Berkeley and the California College of Arts and Crafts.

Jay Musler is a visual person. He states, “Wherever I go and whatever I do is reflected in my work.” His inspiration begins with reverie-like assemblages of shapes, forms, and colors. Working with glass to reconstruct patterns he finds in nature, landscapes, and architecture, he cuts, shapes, and paints the glass of his sculpture until satisfied. An abstractionist, Musler’s work incorporates humor with playful thoughtfulness.

Since 1992, Bella Feldman has been occupied with two series of work involving movement and interaction. The first, inspired by the Gulf War and her own concerns, is "War Toys," a flock of comic, ferocious, fantastic machines with wheels and clumsy movement. Made small, ankle to knee high, they impart on the viewer an opportunity for Olympian detachment. Alternatively, they are pet-size, seductively interesting, and inviting to play with. A new series, “War Toys Redux,” continues the concerns of the original "War Toys." These toys in glass and metal reference bio-terror. Feldman states, “As in the earlier series, these sculptures intend to please and provoke and to address war itself as an ongoing preoccupation.”

Silvia Levenson addresses life and femininity with wry wit and beautiful work. Addressing concerns of daily life and the veiled ambience of home, her work offers viewers a darkly comic window of “bliss.” Modern self medication, “happy-ness,” the home, as cocoon and battlefield: a place of love, hate, and tension, are playfully displayed with dualities of fragility and imperviousness - effectively conveyed via her chosen mediums of glass and video. Much of her work is an attempt to resolve the difficulties of living with threats of violence, political and domestic, that are out of our control.

Classical icons, contemporary society, and diverse cultural symbols collide in clever, allegorical sculptures. Clifford Rainey’s first issued edition work, Amphictyonis: Greek Goddess of Wine and Friendship Between Nations is nothing less.

Born in Northern Ireland and now a San Francisco Bay Area resident, Rainey chairs the Glass Program at the California College of the Arts. His work is exhibited in collections that include the Victoria and Albert Museum, the MH de Young Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others. Rainey’s work pushes the veristic boundaries of figurative glass sculpture, finding opulent visions in muscle, bone and sinew to create dense and exquisite allusions. Always working with glass, introducing techniques of polychromy married with ideas of personal expression, Rainey’s sculpture and its seemingly abstract manipulation of the human figure reveal alarming depths in the loveliest of forms.

AMORPHOUS DREAMS is about visual expression - the ideals, interpretation, materials and hope - articulated by these artists and used in a contemporary and classic vernacular. We are honored to present this exhibition of magnificent artwork.

Micaëla Gallery + Projects is a project-oriented program and art advisory, independent of traditional gallery confines, retaining presence through curated exhibitions, international art fair participation, collaborations with private art consultants and gallery colleagues, publications, gatherings (where select artists, critics and friends come together to enhance our visual art community), and of course, through new and traditional social networks.

Micaëla Gallery + Projects presents AMORPHOUS DREAMS in collaboration with Bekris Gallery at 49 Geary Street (2d Floor), San Francisco, California. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 to 6, and by appointment. Contact info@micaela.com with any questions or to set up an appointment.

Images, top to bottom, left to right: Susan Longini. Caithness Coast #8, 2010. Kiln cast pâte-de-verre, 35 x 41 x 1.5 in. Prema Murthy. Merkaba II, 2010. Wool yarn. Installation. Dimensions variable. Marvin Lipofsky. Pilchuck Summer Series 1988-1990 #12, 1988-1990, 15 x 18 x 16.5 in. Jay Musler. Enjoy the Silence, 2010. Lampworked glass, oil paint. Bella Feldman. Church. Steel, blown glass, 16 x 16 x 10 in. Silvia Levenson. Life Strategies, 2006. Video and kiln cast engraved glass, chair. Dimensions variable, approximately 6 x 6 ft. Clifford Rainey. Amphictyonis, 2010. Glass, wood, gesso, oil paint and gold pigment, 30 x 12 x 8 in. Edition of 7.

"Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity." -Khalil Gibran

Susan Longini COLD+HOT 2010

Susan Longini
Red Tinged Leaves #3, 2010
Pâte-de-verre glass
28 x 63 x 3 in.

COLD+HOT 2010

Opening Reception 1 July Exhibition through 28 August

MICAËLA GALLERY presents COLD+HOT 2010, an annual showcase of the work of selected national and international glass sculptors in a single exhibition. Featured artists are Peter Bremers, Kathleen Elliot, Michael Janis, Michelle Knox, Weston Lambert, Carol Lawton, Silvia Levenson, JP Long, Susan Longini, Thomas Scoon, Carmen Spera, and Kristiina Uslar, who collectively demonstrate the expansive versatility of glass as a sculpture medium in terms of material, color, and form, alongside the video work of Tim Tate and photography of Mark Leibowitz.

The exhibition title, "COLD+HOT 2010," derives from the distinct processes used by glass artists for millennia - sculpting its form, or cold-working it while cold (actually, at room temperature), very hard and brittle; and working hot glass, shaping it while molten, using blowing and/or kiln forming techniques at temperatures ranging from 1700 to over 3000 degrees.

Rich in visual vernacular, "COLD+HOT 2010" introduces the work of new artists to Micaëla Gallery, Kathleen Elliot, Michael Janis, Tim Tate, and Mark Leibowitz.

You are cordially invited to join us for a welcoming reception for the artists on Thursday, 1 July 2010, from 5 to 7.30 pm.

For inquiries or a preview of these works, please contact info@micaela.com.

A print exhibition catalog, PDF exhibition catalog, photographs and high resolution images are available upon request. To order print exhibition catalog, please contact the gallery at info@micaela.com

All images are courtesy of the artists and Micaëla Gallery, protected by all copyright/trademark laws everywhere. ©1997-2010 micaëla and micaëla gallery, its name, logo and all website content are copyright/trademarks of micaëla gallery llc.

COLD+HOT 2009

It is very exciting to open COLD+HOT 2009, a comprehensive sculpture exhibition celebrating the use of glass as a fine art medium. In San Francisco, there is a particular excitement about opening an exhibition where the focus is glass. The San Francisco Bay Area is the birthplace of the West Coast glass movement, and home to many fine artists who work almost exclusively with glass as their medium of expression (as one artist emphasized in his statement, to say they are ‘glass artists’ is as much a misnomer as saying Leonardo da Vinci was a draftsman because he knew how to draw, or that Michelangelo was a mere marble artist, and Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel were bronze artists just because they might, arguably, be known only for their sculpture). Prior to San Francisco’s M.H. de Young Museum opening of its Saxe Collection, the idea of glass as a sculptural medium wasn’t seriously entertained. In fact, many contemporary art critics and collectors continue to relegate the use of glass exclusively as a craft medium today. And so, the dialogue of glass as a fine art medium continues, with growing awareness that it is a fickle and demanding tool, evolving as a lyrical and sophisticated medium of artistic expression.

The inner circle of glass collectors is a small and surprisingly organized cognoscenti who followed the studio glass movement from the early1960s through its vision of contemporary art today. In the United States, they study the work of artists such as Marvin Lipofsky, Harvey Littleton, William Morris, Lino Tagliapietra, Mary White, and who hasn’t heard of Dale Chihuly? The inner circle includes curator Tina Oldnow, critics James Yood and (the late) Dan Klein, gallerists William Traver and Douglas Heller (and their eponymous galleries), as well as San Francisco’s own collectors and philanthropists, Dorothy and Gordon Saxe.

The focus of COLD+HOT 2009 is the material, glass. It is about glass as a medium of artistic expression, as sculpture. Most of the artists presented possess enviable academic credentials (BFA or MFA) with emphasis in glass, painting or sculpture. They studied form, light and space, and are masters of their medium whether it is blown, cast, engraved or laminated. Some of the artists focus on the form captured by the exterior planes of their sculpture, or the optics created by sculpting the exterior as well as uses of material to develop their artistic vision. Some of the artists are ‘outsider’ artists, who mastered their craft indirectly while working with the medium, and developed conceptual ideas iterated via glass. And, to mix it up, yes, we included two painters, who have no material relationship to the medium of glass. All the artists in this exhibition are fine artists.

Peter Bremers sailed away to the Antarctic a few years ago. His series, “Icebergs and Paraphernalia” is in direct relationship to the landscape and light he studied during his adventure. Eric Franklin’s anatomical forms don’t leave much to the imagination – here is a pair of hands, this is a rib cage, and these are a pair of feet. Skeletal, formed with borosilicate glass (commonly known as Pyrex), his combined use of lamp worked glass with neon and krypton gases is electrifying. Grant Garmezy grew up on a farm in Tennessee, and his childhood memories of long lost animal life continue to be a source for his award-winning sculpture. Phillip Hua’s expressive series “De/Construction” studies his recent experience in Beijing as light was obscured by atmospheric industrial waste. Michelle Knox continues to build her year of awards and scholarship with “Chorten Stones,” an imposing abstracted temple of blown glass and oil painted forms. Weston Lambert sculpts the interior of his works, laminates them, and sculpts the exterior in his preservation of fleeting memories. Susan Longini addresses the fragility of the passage of time; Greg Nangle celebrates the perfection of the imperfect; Nancy Otto shows us that some things, such as desire, can be larger than life; Lorraine Peltz addresses the feminine ideal and identity; Stig Persson studies the tension of interior and exterior spatial relationships, along with Chantal Royant; while Thomas Scoon turns to companionship and community with juxtapositions of glass and stone. Carmen Spera, deliberately shuns the title of ‘glass artist’ yet puns the term and material with laminated weaponry that lampoons the ongoing parallel fascinations of high fashion with violence. Jennifer Umphress celebrates the use of borosilicate glass with an ongoing dialogue of the natural world; Kristiina Uslar contrasts the extreme delicacy of pâte-de-verre with her sculptures of industrial shapes; and Sasha Zhitneva employs light to emphasize the painted forms of her kiln worked glass planes.

COLD+HOT 2009 celebrates the work of these artists with their presentations of cold worked (carved, engraved, polished) glass and hot worked (blown, cast, kiln fired) glass and painting (acrylic, mixed media, and oil). The premised material for this exhibition is glass presented within three basic ranges: borosilicate (the most heat resistant), soda glass (the most common), and lead glass (also known as crystal). The artworks employ all the classic and formal methods knows to sculpture, such as carving and lost wax casting, and in some cases, develop new methods to feature the lyrical and poetic qualities of light captured by glass. Many of the artists in COLD+HOT 2009 are prestigious academics and graduates, elite within their respective programs, some are gifted with continuous awards recognizing their work, while others enjoy the prestige of commissions at venues like the Waldorf Astoria and abroad. They are all, without question, fine artists with relevant ideas in step with today’s dialogue and social commentary, whose practice is presented with mastery and well-developed skill, and whose work is not only engaging, but beautiful and visually pleasurable.