Category: NEWS

VERSE/US: LANGUAGE AND POWER
Arts and Literature Laboratory | Madison, WI
Sept. 7 – Oct. 19, 2019
Verse / Us: Language and Power is an invitational group exhibition that explores how language shapes our identities and the world that we live in, featuring Julie Chen, Nina Ghanbarzadeh, Helen Lee, Tuesday Smillie, Chelsea Thompto, and Matthew Owen Wead. Language and discourse serve to construct and manipulate concepts of power in society. Institutions and individuals alike use language to strengthen their ideological interests, preserve authority over others, and lead the change in social practices, relationships, and values. In differing ways, these artists explore how art, text, and language affect our daily lives and the art that they create.

BURKE PRIZE 2019
Museum of Art and Design | New York, NY
Oct. 3 – April 12, 2020 
Opening Reception for MAD Members, Oct. 2, 6:00-8:00pm
Gallery Talks: Oct. 4, 2:00pm
I’m honored to join this year’s cohort of Burke Prize finalists, My work, 1/f, will be in the exhibition of finalists at the Museum of Art and Design. The Burke Prize is awarded to a contemporary artist under the age of forty-five working in glass, fiber, clay, metal, and/or wood. Selected by a jury of professionals in the fields of art, craft, and design, the finalists represent emerging voices expanding the disciplines at the core of American studio craft movement whose highly accomplished work demonstrates a strong use of materials, innovative processes, and conceptual rigor and relevance. Finalists include: Elizabeth Alexander, Indira Allegra, Bisa Butler, Amber Cowan, Tanda Francis, Bojana Ginn, Raven Halfmoon, Salvador Jiménez-Flores, Lauren Kalman, Helen Lee, Linda Lopez, Jaydan Moore, Sophia Narrett, Sara Rahbar, Julie Schenkelberg, and Sarah Zapata. Juried by Julia Bryan-Wilson, Valerie Cassel Oliver, and Cannupa Hanska Luger

ME WRITE PRETTY ONE DAY: WRITING AND GLASS CURRICULUM
2019 Robert M. Minkoff Foundation Academic Symposium at UrbanGlass
Urban Glass | Brooklyn, NY
October 24 – 26, 2019
I’ll be presenting a brief survey of recent (within the past five years) explorations of writing and glass curriculum. This presentation will touch on: sentences, artist statements, glass-specific vocabulary, written prompts, written critiques, writing as constraint, journaling, print ephemera and recent collaborations with professional writers in the glass studio. Open discussion will follow for educators to discuss: challenges they face, exercises/strategies they have tried, and the trajectory of writing as a tool in the shop, studio, and crit environments.

2019 PAGE HAZLEGROVE LECTURE IN GLASS ART
The MIT Glass Lab | Cambridge, MA 
November 12, 2019, 6:30pm, 10-250
In early 1997, Page Hazlegrove was my first glass instructor at MIT. It is an unspeakable honor for me to return to my alma mater and deliver this namesake lecture. I would never have imagined 20 years ago I would be delivering my artist talk in 10-250 of all places! I look forward to returning to my original glass family this November, with a residency to follow in Spring 2020.

2020 FACULTY EXHIBITION
Chazen Museum | Madison, WI
February 1 – May 20, 2020
In a new format for the quadrennial faculty exhibition at the Chazen Museum of Art, juror Gary Schneider has selected 50 projects that respond to specific art works in the museum’s collection or the museum’s public spaces. My work will be viewable from Library Mall in the glazed overpass connecting the two halves of the museum.

Here’s my crystal ball for 2019 thus far; it’s shaping up to be a fun year:

VISITING ARTIST AT CCA
California College of Art Glass Dept.  |  Oakland, CA
March 20, 2019, 4:00-7:00pm
OAKLAND!!!!! Lecture will run from 4-5pm, demo from 5-7pm.

REFLECTING PERSPECTIVES
Bergstrom Mahler Museum  |  Neenah, WI
April 18 – Sept. 22, 2019
Exhibiting artists include: Joyce Scott, Raven Skyriver, Pearl Dick, Helen Lee, John Moran, Tim Tate, Preston Singletary, Marcus Amerman, and Einar and Jamex De La Torre

NEW GLASS NOW
Corning Museum of Glass  |  Corning, NY
May 12, 2019 – January 5, 2020
New Glass Now will document the innovation and dexterity of artists, designers, and architects around the world working in the challenging material of glass. A global survey designed to show the breadth and depth of contemporary glassmaking, the exhibition will feature objects, installations, videos, and performances made in the last three years by 100 artists of 32 nationalities working in more than 25 countries.

EXPERIMENTAL GLASS WORKSHOP
Summer Arts Studio  |  Madison, WI
June 16 – 22, 2019
This course will explore experimental uses of hot glass as a mark making device, as a source of heat and incandescence, as a viscous material, and as an inherently performative craft. We will draw from the material properties of glass and seek to transition discoveries in the shop into our studio practice. A large component of this course will be collaborative and team-oriented as we move through this fast-paced, nontraditional approach to an otherwise traditional material.

A BODY IN MOTION SUMMER INTENSIVE
Ox-Bow  |  Saugatuck, MI
July 28 – August 3, 2019
This technical course will establish a firm foundation in glassblowing skills, emphasizing a detailed understanding of how to use one’s body to work with this changing state of matter. This course will bring to light common bad habits and poor physical practices common to glassblowing. Nontraditional methods of understanding movement and proprioception in the hot glass studio will be employed, including video analysis apps and audio-augmented tools. Reference will be made to Nicolás Salazar Sutil’s text Motion and Representation: The Language of Human Movement, movement models as illustrated by Oskar Schlemmer and The B-Team’s glass choreography. Through daily demonstrations, drills, and practice time, students can expect to move swiftly through a basic introduction or review of hot glass, with acute attention paid to the underpinnings of common pitfalls. Over the course of the week, students will produce basic blown forms with increasing proficiency and efficiency.

WASSAIC FAMILY RESIDENCY
The Wassaic Project  |  Wassaic, NY
August 17-31, 2019
I’ll be in residence exploring co-parenting and studio strategies with Sean Salstrom and Ayumi Ishii and our daughters!

EXPERIMENTAL HOT GLASS TYPE WORKSHOP
TypeCon | Minneapolis, MN
August 29, 2019
I’ll be sneaking in one last workshop in late August at TypeCon, to be co-taught with Ben Orozco. This will be my first hot glass workshop geared towards an audience of designers. We will explore typography and hot glass via: freeform hot pours, sandcasting, imprints, and bubble entrapments.

Summer is finally here! I’ve got three exhibitions this summer with some excellent company.

EM SPACE ENGRAM
James Watrous Gallery  |  Madison, WI
May 4 – June 24, 2018
I have the honor of exhibiting alongside Anne Kingsbury at the Watrous Gallery this summer. Em Space Engram uses glass to trace our memory of physical typography, connecting the material of the digital age to the QWERTY keyboard, antiquated typewriter mechanisms, and lead type. These works collapse the material histories of typography. They suspend us in the space between words and what they stand in for, in search of what now occupies the space of the things we once used to make language.

CARRIED ON BOTH SIDES; ENCOUNTER III
Knockdown Center  |  Maspeth, NY
August 30 – November 4, 2018
The Knockdown Center is pleased to present its first project with artists Caroline Woolard, Helen Lee, and Lika Volkova, entitled Carried on Both Sides: Encounter Three. The organizing insistence of Carried on Both Sides is that imperial forms long outlive the empire from which they were generated. Using this imperial legacy of the @ symbol as a provocation, the artists have crafted new imperial artifacts.

MIT GLASS LAB: SCIENCE, ENGINEERING AND ART
Sandwich Glass Museum  |  Sandwich, MA
August 15 – October 21, 2018
This exhibition will showcase work made by the MIT Glass Lab community, past and present.

2018 WISCONSIN ARTISTS BIENNIAL
Museum of Wisconsin Art  |  West Bend, WI
February 3 – April 8, 2018
I’m pleased to have received an honorable mention for Word Are Not Things at this stunning venue.

MATERIALS HARD + SOFT
Paterson-Appleton Arts Center  |  Denton, TX
February 3 – May 5, 2018
Kowtow travels to this contemporary craft exhibiton juried by Perry A. Price.

KINESTHETIC TYPOGRAPHY
Carlsten Gallery  |  Stevens Point, WI
February 15 – March 19, 2018
Solo exhibition of my work at UW-Stevens Point

MAKESHIFT
Olbrich Park  |  Madison, WI
August 20, 2017, 3-8pm
I made a camera obscura out of a shipping container for the Arts + Literature Laboratory’s mobile gallery at Makeshift.

MOMENTUM
The Secor Building  |  Toledo, OH
September 9 – October 14, 2017
The Momentum juried exhibition showcases artworks from regional and national artists working in glass, glass related materials, and materials referencing glass to celebrate this unique narrative and the work that evolves from it.

MINKOFF SYMPOSIUM
Urban Glass  |  Brooklyn, NY
October 13, 2017
I will lecture at the Minkoff Symposium on my preliminary findings from the Glass | Cash Survey on compensation and debt amongst glass professionals.

MUTUAL INTELLIGIBILITY
Bullseye Projects  |  Portland, OR
November 1, 2017 – February 3, 2018
Bullseye Projects presents a group exhibition exploring language and translation. Mutual Intelligibility features work by Helen Lee, Anna Mlasowsky, and Jeffrey Stenbom.

CARRIED ON BOTH SIDES: ENCOUNTER I
Lesley Heller Workspace  |  New York, NY
November 4 – December 16, 2017
This show is the first of a three-part immersive exhibition and collaboration between Caroline Woolard, Helen Lee, Alexander Rosenberg and Lika Volkova that uncovers the history of the @ symbol. The installation presented at Lesley Heller directs attention specifically to our contemporary digital world and the imperial residues that exist in it; chiefly the ubiquitous @ symbol.

My mini OMG did not make it into Hyperallergic’s Review of Tongue Tide, but I am pleased to make an appearance in the Art21 New York Close Up video on my collaborator, Caroline Woolard, featuring our project Carried on Both Sides with Alex Rosenberg and Lika Volkova. We’ll be speaking about this project at the Met this Friday!

I’m thrilled to be speaking with my collaborators Caroline Woolard, Alex Rosenberg, and Lika Volkova this month at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for their MetFridays Beyond Boundaries Program.

METFRIDAYS: BEYOND BOUNDARIES
ARTISTS ON ARTWORKS
Metropolitan Museum of Art  |  New York, NY
July 28, 6:30–7:30 pm
Floor 1, Gallery 534, Vélez Blanco Patio
Reflect on the future of communication with artists Caroline Woolard, Alexander Rosenberg, Helen Lee, and Lika Volkova, through a discussion of their collaborative project Carried on Both Sides. Limited space; registration suggested.

I’ve got the following exhibitions lined up for summer, near and far!

MOTHERLANDS
100 State  |  Madison, WI
May 5 – September 1, 2017
Motherlands, an exhibition comprised of artworks created by immigrants and individuals of immigrant descent, celebrates the many narratives that weave together to make up our community.

EMERGE/EVOLVE 2016 
Bellevue Arts Museum  |  Bellevue, WA
May 26 – October 1, 2017
Last stop on the tour, featuring some new work, too!

FORGE
Madison Brass Works  |  Madison, WI
June 10 – 17, 2017
Forge is an art exhibition featuring the work of over a dozen Madison-area artists, who will create installations inspired by the history of the Madison Brass Works building (214 Waubesa. Madison WI), its workers, and the elements involved in the transfigurations that took place on this site.

CS ART MADISON
Arts and Literature Laboratory  |  Madison, WI
July 7 – July 29, 2017
Much like Community Supported Agriculture programs, in which shareholders invest in a local farm and receive shares of fruits and vegetables, CSArt Madison asks shareholders to invest directly in the arts community with a ‘buy local’ mentality. Buy your share now! Check out my profile page to learn more about my contribution to CS Art.

TONGUE TIDE
Flux Factory  |  Queens, NY
July 3 – August 2, 2017
Tongue Tide explores the dual nature of language as simultaneously expressive and limiting. The title references the phrase, “Mother Tongue,” meaning one’s native language, as well as the colloquialism “Tongue Tied”, or speechless, expressing the limits of that language. Replacing “Tied” with the word “Tide”, references the ocean tide, and the organic, fluid aspect of language.

The Bullseye Emerge/Evolve 2016 exhibition has left the Emeryville Bullseye Resource Center and is headed to the Pittsburgh Glass Center for the Spring!

Scott Gordon from Tone Madison was kind enough to invite me over for an interview about my work in the Wisconsin Triennial. I was sad for this work to be de-installed, but pleased the loan was extended long enough to be a part of the urban landscape when 75,000-100,000 people marched down State Street for the Women’s March in January!

https://soundcloud.com/tonemsn/podcast-a-personal-version-of-a-dead-language

I will be making a few public appearances this week:

A Word is a Thing in Motion
Madison Museum of Contemporary Art
Thursday, December 1, 1:00pm

Glass and the Wisconsin Idea: From Littleton to Lee
Jewish Museum Milwaukee
Thursday, December 1, 7:00pm

Wisconsin Triennial Studio Tour
Madison Museum of Contemporary Art
Friday, December 2, 6:00pm

I had the great pleasure of speaking on a panel with Jamie Carpenter, Toots Zinsky, and Alexander Rosenberg for the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the RISD Glass Department. Our.risd.edu wrote up a blog entry on our discussion.

http://our.risd.edu/post/151714133479/50-years-of-amazing-exploration