Lake Fong, Post-Gazette
With assistance from two local glass artists, Stephen Prothero, left, and Drew Hine, James Mongrain of Seattle, center, shapes a component of a glass chandelier in the Hot Shop of the Pittsburgh Glass Center, East End. At right is Nick Frey, Mongrain's assistant from Seattle.
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The Pittsburgh Glass Center, which opened in 2001, continues to thrive.

Last year, the Casting Studio was outfitted, completing the state-of-the-art studios planned for when the building was renovated. On a recent afternoon, nationally known Pittsburgh artists Kathleen Mulcahy and Ron Desmett were blowing glass at one end of the Hot Shop while a Seattle team worked on a project at the other and seminal studio glass artist Henry Halem roamed through on one of his frequent visits from Ohio.

Seattle artist James Mongrain is the first of a half-dozen glass artists from across the country who will be in residence at the center, creating work for a September exhibition to be held there titled "Well Hung: Chandeliers Revealed." Mongrain, who worked with Dale Chihuly for several years, recently made a glass chandelier for the television show "Extreme Makeover Home Edition." He and assistant Nick Frey, also of Seattle, had only good things to say about Pittsburgh, praising its architecture and art scene.

Others in the upcoming show are Katherine Gray, Daniel Spitzer, Jill Reynolds (center artist in residence in 2003), Ginny Ruffner and Dante Marioni.

Courses continue to draw, with attendees ranging from a father and his two sons who now share the vocabulary of glass making, to employees of Kopp Glass, a Swissvale firm that specializes in hand-casting glass for airport lights, who are experiencing modes beyond assembly-line production.

The center's influence reaches beyond its own building, though. Earlier this year, artist Sean Salstrom arrived from Rhode Island with a carload of diversely shaped clear glass forms for his component of the AAP exhibition "light & glass" at 707 Penn Ave., Downtown. When a couple of them broke during installation, the center provided him with material and a furnace so he could make replacements. Another artist, Matt Eskuche, came from North Carolina to teach a center course last summer and, a month after leaving, moved permanently with his dog to Pittsburgh.

Eskuche is one of 44 glass artists exhibiting in the center's third annual "Glass Birthday Suit" exhibition in The Hodge Gallery, which features work by students and instructors made using a variety of techniques.

Eskuche, for example, does flamework, more typically expressed in a humorous trio of small, anthropomorphic dog busts but surprisingly used to create large vessels one would expect to have been blown.

This spirited show also includes blown, fused, slumped, cast, engraved and otherwise coldworked functional and/or sculptural work.

Among other highlights are sculptures by Chris Clarke which envelop flowing glass forms with forged steel to emphasize the alien quality of the works. Based on functional form are well-executed vessels by Jeffrey Phelps and fused and slumped bowls by Scott Aiken. Jewelry that will turn heads is shown by Leslie Kaplan and by Ashley Brickman, who also displays playful "Experiments in the Tradition of the Female Figure."

The center is pushing for a Glass Festival in 2007 spread throughout the city. Let's hope everyone gets on board.

"Suit" continues through March 25 at 5472 Penn Ave., East End. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Admission is free. For information, call 412-365-2145 or visit www.pittsburghglasscenter.org.

International today

Carnegie International 2004-05 artist Jeremy Deller will give a free illustrated talk on his work at 3 p.m. today in Carnegie Lecture Hall. A highlight will be the first presentation in America of selections from "Acid Brass" -- classic acid house dance tracks arranged by Deller for brass band -- performed by CAPA students.

Last year, Deller was chosen for the prestigious Turner Prize by Tate Britain, including a hefty 25,000 pound ($48,634) cash award, for "Memory Bucket" -- a video diary of a 2002 Texas trip that included visits to Waco, the Alamo and George W. Bush's Crawford.

Deller gained international recognition for "The Battle of Orgreave," a 2001 re-staging by 1,000 participants of an 1984 clash between British police and striking miners. At the Carnegie, one of his works, "Breaking News (Dedicated to Peter Watkins)," comprises small screens playing battle re-enactments set within the museum's miniature rooms. They're "what CNN would have show in people's parlors if they had TV [at the time]," Deller says.

Although there is a socio-political component to much of his work, Deller says that he's "very pessimistic about what art can change. If [it had influence] there wouldn't have been war after [Picasso's] "Guernica." But, he adds, "maybe art is the voice of dissent in America ... the only one that has any teeth."

Deller says that two weeks at Andy Warhol's Factory changed his life. He was 19 or 20 and steeped in traditional art historic practice when he met Warhol in London and Warhol invited him to New York. "I learned that [as an artist] I could do anything I wanted."

For information, call 412-622-3131 or visit www.cmoa.org.

Cuban films, lecture

Part II of The Cuban Film Showcase, a complement to the Mattress Factory exhibition "New Installations, Artists in Residence: Cuba," continues through Thursday at Pittsburgh Filmmakers theaters. The theme of Part II is architecture, and at 1:30 p.m. tomorrow John Loomis, architect, author and professor at Stanford and the University of San Francisco, will give an illustrated talk on "Las Ecuelas Nacionales de Arte, Cuba's Forgotten Art Schools" at the Regent Square Theater. Admission is $7, $5 for members and $3 for Pitt students. For information, visit www.pghfilmmakers.org or www.mattress.org or call 412-231-3169.

"Salmo," a glass and forged steel sculpture by Chris Clarke.
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First Published: February 12, 2005, 5:00 a.m.