The Artist in Residence Program is one of the pillars of the Pilchuck Glass School educational experience. Paired with expert glass fabricators and artist assistants, Pilchuck Artists in Residence experiment with bringing glass into their practice adding it to their vocabulary of work.
The Artist in Residence Program is one of the pillars of the Pilchuck Glass School educational experience. From the beginning, Dale Chihuly’s vision of artists teaching artists inspired an international exchange of ideas that brought in perspectives beyond the glass community.
The Artist in Residence program was born from this vision, and every session since 1980, when the Artist in Residence program officially began, Pilchuck invites noted artists to experiment with glass on campus. Paired with expert glass fabricators and artist assistants, residents can experiment with glass in their practice and add it to their vocabulary of work. For the Pilchuck student, the Artists in Residence bring much to the campus learning experience, including different approaches and unique interrogations of the material.
The Artists in Residence program has brought many established artists of other mediums to learn about glass including alumni like Judy Chicago, Magdalene Odundo, Kiki Smith, and Maya Lin – sculptors who have continued using glass in their work.
Candice Lin lives and works in Altadena, California. Her practice utilizes installation, drawing, video, and living materials and processes, such as bacteria, fermentation, and stains. Lin has had recent solo exhibitions at MUMA, Melbourne, Australia (2024), Canal Projects, New York (2023), Spike Island, Bristol, United Kingdom (2022).
Sonya Clark crafts installations and objects to celebrate Blackness and interrogate historical imbalances. She’s a full professor at Amherst College. Along with four honorary doctorates, Clark has received awards from United States Artists, Pollock-Krasner, Anonymous Was a Woman among others. Her work has been exhibited in over 500 venues worldwide.
David Altmejd lives and works in Los Angeles. His sculptures come from an interest in magic and the energy of materials. In 2007, he represented Canada at the Venice Biennale with his installation ‘The Index’. In May 2024, he opened a show of new bust sculptures at David Kordansky Gallery.
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Kelly Akashi, a Los Angeles-based artist, explores material tactility and impermanence through glass-blowing, casting, and stone carving. Her work has been showcased in solo exhibitions across prestigious institutions and collections worldwide. Akashi is a recent recipient of the MOCA Distinguished Women in the Arts Award and the LACMA Art+Technology Grant.
Narcissus Quagliata, is considered one of the most significant artists in glass, he has redefined glass art over the past 50 years. Renowned for public works across three continents, his recent video courses explore fused glass's painterly potential. His works are featured in museums and private collections worldwide.
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Mark Thomas Gibson lives in Philadelphia. He is an Associate Professor of Painting at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University. Recent solo exhibitions include Whirlygig!, Sikkema & Jenkins, New York; and A Retelling, MOCAD, Detroit. In 2022, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Drawing on conceptual art strategies, and Crow traditions within which she was raised, Red Star pushes the conversation surrounding history in new directions. Red Star’s second monograph, Bíilukaa, was published by Radius Books in April 2023. Red Star lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
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Collaborating brothers, Einar and Jamex De La Torre, have been collaborating in earnest since the 1990’s. Over the years they have developed their signature style featuring mix media work with blown glass sculpture and installation art. Their pieces represent a multifaceted view of life that reflects a complex and humorous aesthetic that could be seen as multi-layered baroque. Their approach is additive, constantly combining material and meaning. Influences range from religious iconography to German expressionism while also paying homage to Mexican vernacular arts and pre-Columbian art. In the last 15 years they have been creating photomural installations and using Lenticular printing as a major part of their repertoire. They have won The USA Artists Fellowship award, The Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, The Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, and The San Diego Art Prize,. They have had 18 solo museum exhibitions, completed 8 major public art projects and have participated in 4 biennales.
Combining sculpture, performance, and installation, Guadalupe Maravilla (b. 1976) grounds his transdisciplinary practice in healing. Maravilla’s work references his unaccompanied, undocumented migration to the United States due to the Salvadoran Civil War. Maravilla explores how the systemic abuse of immigrants physically manifests in the body, reflecting on his battle with cancer.
Tom Otterness is one of the most prolific sculptors living in the US today; his work is in major international museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney and MONA and has created over fifty private and public commissions internationally, including Germany, Holland, Qatar, South Korea, Canada and the US. Tom Otterness was born in Wichita, Kansas and moved to New York City in the early ‘70’s. He studied at the Arts Students League and Whitney Independent Study Program and was a founding member of artist movement Collaborative Projects with a leading role in organizing Colab’s ground-changing 1980 Times Square Show. He subsequently joined Brooke Alexander Gallery in 1983, during which the Museum of Modern Art acquired several sculptures, including his large bronze Head. In 1992 New York opened Battery Park with the Otterness sculpture playground “The Real World” and in 2005 the MTA opened Otterness’ Life Underground sculpture installation on the A line at 14th Street subway, near the Whitney Museum and designed the “Humpty Dumpty” balloon for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Tom has designed several sculpture parks for US Federal Plazas as well as creating new sculpture parks for private clients internationally.
With spare gestures and skilled execution, Hannah Levy (b. 1991, New York, NY) creates sculptures that are uncannily familiar, transforming ubiquitous elements of interior design into unnamable objects that appear to merge the organic and the industrial. Her work draws attention to the relationship between our bodies and the built environment, considering how we are impacted by the design choices around us.
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Looking for an opportunity to surround yourself with the creative energy of glass artists from around the world while also gaining valuable teaching and studio experience? Teaching Assistants and Artist Assistants are a vital part of the Pilchuck community. They support the vision and goals of Instructors and Artists in Residence while helping to create a safe and inclusive learning environment.
New and experienced artists alike often make tremendous conceptual and artistic progress in their short time at Pilchuck. Combining a deep focus on glass, access to a variety of resources, a picturesque Pacific Northwest setting and an ever-expanding international community of artists, Pilchuck has become the most comprehensive educational center in the world for glass artists.