Glass Blown Items Draw Much Attention at Art Auctions Across the Country

Inside and Out is the perfect name for the Dale Chihuly sculpture at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. The enormous blown glass sculpture, which is almost 30-feet-tall and 25-feet-wide, is a transparent vision, backlit at night. It’s the first thing Josyln visitors see as they enter the museum. Once inside, they can’t help but look again as they make their way into the three story the lobby. Created to look like hundreds of plantlike pods, blooms and vines of transparent colored glass, the large structure is attached to a steel trellis that grows in width as it climbs to the ceiling. Installed in front of an even larger glass window, visitors can see the sky both behind and above.

Acquired in the year 2000, the installation of the glass blown piece of art coincided with months of “hot shop” demonstration in the Joslyn Art Museum parking lot as well as other locations throughout the city. Perhaps fueled by the city’s love of the enormous piece of contemporary glass art, less than two miles away, a permanent hot shop is the featured gallery and workshop of an artist’s coop building that is also a host location of the the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder’s meeting once a year.

Although created by the notoriously famous Chihuly, a Washington state native, the triangular glass sculpture at the Joslyn is the perfect setting for amateur and child artists alike. A favorite activity of the youth Art Cart, which is sometimes parked in front of the Chilhuly, is a paper sculpture activity that allows young artists to recreate their own version of Inside and Out.

Hot Shops Open to the Public Draw Large Crowds

Thanks to hot shops across the country, many professional and novice artists can create their own glass blown objects. Purchased as a single weekend or month long package, glass blowing classes allow students to work with professional glass blowers and create modern glass art themselves. Heated by the large open ovens, the classes are fun for participants and spectators alike. The ovens are hot, of course, because transforming raw materials into glass requires a fire that is 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Although glass blown items are often popular art auction items today, the process actually began hundreds of years ago. The actual invention of glassblowing is recorded as having coincided with the establishment of the Roman Empire in the 1st century BC. The growth and expansion of the Roman Empire helped to spread both the knowledge and popularity of this new artistic skill.

Many years later, the “studio glass movement” began in 1962. Harvey Littleton, a ceramics professor, and Dominick Labino, a chemist and engineer, held two glass blowing workshops at the Toledo Museum of Art. During those demonstrations, the two men started experimenting with melting glass in a small furnace and creating blown glass art. These unique creations have been a popular art auction collector’s item ever since.

Art auction items tend to rise and fall in popularity, but if the number of students who register for glass blowing shops across the nation is any indication, a glass blown art auction item will remain both popular and valuable. After a few hours or weekends at the ovens themselves, many amateur glass blowers understand the value and the quality of professionally created glass sculptures.

Many regional glass artists are known for their specific types of creations:

• Karen LaMonte is a 47-year-old American artist known for life-size sculptures in ceramic, bronze and cast glass. She also creates large scale monotype prints.
• Albert Paley has been an active artist for over 40 years at his studio in Rochester, New York. He is the first metal sculptor to receive the Institute Honors awarded by the American Institute of Architects, the group’s highest award presented to a non-architect.
• Martin Janecky, a glass blower since the age of 13, now explores clowns and mimes from the 1930s.
• Michael Glancy from Detroit is know for his glass, copper, and gold sculptures.

Many art auctions across the country will provide both new and long time collectors an opportunity to purchase a unique piece of their own. A “clear” way to into the world of art auctions and collecting.