Reception: Friday, June 5, 5:30 - 7:30

The exciting technical advances and artistic inventiveness of a burgeoning studio glass movement are well represented in Fragile Domains, a show of recent work by six of LewAllen Galleries' renowned glass artists opening June 5th in the Galleries' downtown space and timed to be on view during and after SOFA West: Santa Fe, the International Sculpture Objects and Functional Arts (SOFA) Fair, scheduled for June 11-14 at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center. Each of the six artists, Sean Albert, Steve Klein, Lucy Lyon, Charles Miner, Ethan Stern and Hiroshi Yamano - creates sculptural glass art in a wholly unique way, demonstrating the tremendous versatility of the medium in the hands of an artist.

Sean Albert's innovations in glass sculpture have established him as a significant figure in the emerging generation of artists working in glass. Albert uses smooth surface texture along with interior light, shadow, space, color, line, transparency and pattern to create a minimalist visual language in which a basic rectilinear form is enlivened with an infinitely delicate and intricate composition composed of glass threads, thus creating "a sense of movement and illusory space within, quitely alluding to the presence of extraordinary phenomena," as explained by the artist. Albert has been featured in gallery exhibitions in locations throughout the United States and has been the recipient of several prestigious art scholarships and grants. He holds a BFA in Glass from the Massachusetts College of Art and has participated in workshops at the Pilchuck Glass School (Washington), Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (Maine), and the Penland School of Crafts (North Carolina).

Steve Klein has been producing distintive glass art since the mid-1990s. Aesthetically, his influences include painters Diebenkorn, Mondrian, Rothko, Newman, Miro and Pollack. Nearly 30 years after graduating from California State University at Long Beach with a degree in theater arts, he began his career as a glass artist at the Pilchuck Glass School and, later, at Bullseye in Oregon. His sculptural designs are an exquisite expression of balance. "In life," he explains, "there are moments that require compromise, resolution and action to create balance. I am challenged by that act of balancing and this is what my work addresses...Resolution is always a negotiation between idea, material, heat, gravity and me." Klein has taught both nationally and internationally, and his art is in numerous important collections.

Lucy Lylon has cited the painter Edward Hopper as a source of inspiration for the strong narrative impulse in her distinctive glass sculpture. Many of her well-known, evocative pieces include cast glass figures in urban settings, such as a library or bookstore. The figures themselves effectively express a state of mind through gesture. Lyon graduated in 1971 from Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio, with a degree in philosophy and was further educated at the Pilchuck Glass School in Washington. She has also taken workshops across the country from well-known glass artists. Lyon's work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions.

Charles Miner also was educated at the Pilchuck Glass School. He founded his own glassworks in New Mexico in 1975. Originally known for blown glass, the glassworks now also has a casting studio where Miner creates extraordinarily detailed, softly colored, jade-like vessels using lost-wax casting methods. His technical and artistic achievements have been extraordinary. The pate de vere (or fused casting) process is compolex and laborious. First an original is carved in wax. The wax model is then placed in a wooden form and covered with a soft plaster investment, being sure to leave steam holes (or air vents). When the investment has hardened, the wax is melted out by forcing steam through the vents. The investment is then placed in a large electric kiln and filled with variously colored glass chips that have been ground to a fine powder. The kiln is gradually heated up, reachign temperatures as high as 1600 degrees. Slowly the glass melts and fills the negative spaces in the investment. When the melting process is complete (from two to three weeks, depending on the piece), the temperature of the kiln is gradually taken down in an annealing cycle of one to two-and-a-half weeks. This allows the glass to cool slowly and evenly, thereby avoiding cracking. Finally, the plaster investment is carefully removed and the piece is polished to a soft patina. The result is an exquisite glass sculpture with a unique color and texture resembling stone but with all the attraction of glass.

Ethan Stern has established himself as a noteworthy emerging artist of glass sculpture. Formerly a student of ceramics, Stern became captivated by the malleability of glass and the diversity of art glass techniques. After studying ceramics at the TAFE Institute in Brisbane, Australia, Stern began his transition from ceramics to glass while enrolled at Alfred University in New York, then continued his studies at the Pilchuck Glass School. While at Pilchuck, he began examining the effects he could achieve through engraving and carving. Engraving and carving the surface to tranform the traditional glossy appearance of glass allows him to "pull together elements of color, form, pattern and texture to create a unique voice within the material." He explains, "The evidence of the hand, the subtleties of the surface and the creative process are vital to the creation of my work." Stern's work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions across the country.

Hiroshi Yamano creates sculptural glass art with his own unique fusion of craft traditions from the United States, Europe and Japan. To emulate the decorative surfaces of Japanese screen paintings, he fuses gold and silver leave onto hot glass and plates the glass with copper, using a process he adapted from ancient Japanese metal craft. Fish are recurring images in his sculpture that symbolize his constant search for the treasures of experience as a traveler across cultures. Born and raised in Japan, he began travelling in Europe and America as a young man. He received his earliest glass training at the California College of Arts and Crafts, then returned home to continue his training at the Tokyo Glass Art Institute. He later enrolled at the Rochester Institute of Technology where he received his MFA in 1989. The processes he developed while at RIT won him a postgraduate fellowship at the Creative Glass Center of America. Yamano continued his innovations after returning to Japan in 1990 and was awarded the Rakow Commission for the Corning Glass Museum in 1991. His work is in distinguished collections, both public and private. He has also taught and lectured in glass art programs around the world.