Visiting Artists - Melissa Stern

NY- based artist Melissa Stern has been working recently in the glass school. Best know for her mixed media sculptures and drawings, Melissa has expanded her repertoire to include glass.

Melissa's artwork is deceptive in its playful, childlike quality. Her highly imaginative (and frequently amusing) ceramic sculptures and drawings usually featuring human figures which call to mind sophisticated illustrations for children's stories. Melissa sees her work removed from specific narrative and functioning instead in terms of psychology and metaphor. As much as we would like a ceramic standing figure--feet nailed to the floor, arms holding aloft a branch upon which large birds perch--to introduce a fascinating if disturbing fable, there is no story to explain it.

Summer in the South, collage, oil paint, pencil, 12 x 9

World View , clay, acrylic, paper, graphite, encaustic, 23" x 5" x 5"

Translating her drawn imagery with the use of glass frit powder, Melissa has really taken to the process, making it her own.

Melissa Stern's fused glass frit components are assembled onto the glass panels she is creating.

Melissa and Tim Tate discuss the development of her panels.

Carving holes, tack-fusing texture, layering images - Melissa will ultimately add other non-glass elements to the glass panels she is creating.

We look forward to seeing the finished works by Melissa! And congratulations, Melissa, on becoming an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College!

Glass and Steel Sculpture Development Class Working Flat Out

The sculpture development class held at both the Washington Glass School and DC Glass Works is working hard at completing their mixed-media sculptures.

Erin Antognoli sizes and fits her fused elements into her steel framework.

Lee Ann Taylor's artwork.

Raya Koren marks the spacing for her glass & cast aluminum elements.

Tracy Benson's cast ants cut around her cast glass leaves.

Brenda Dean shaping small elements.

Matthew Graham's sculpture will feature delicate glass insect wings.

Joanna Viudiz assembles her cast glass elements into her steel framework.

Faz Besharatian working on the chop saw so fast, he becomes a blur.

The class is finishing up the works for a grand unveiling - stay tuned for photos of the finished works! The finished works will be part of the Washington Glass Studio's Holiday Open House, Saturday, December 11, from 2-6 pm.

Petrovic & Tate Are At It Again

Marc Petrovic and Tim Tate

Fresh from their collaborative work that is now on exhibit in the Dead or Alive show at the Museum of Arts and Design, artists Tim Tate and Marc Petrovic are working on another set of works.
Marc & Tim's M.A.D. installation: Apothecarium Moderne, resembles a 19th century apothecary. Take a closer look though and you’ll see that the contents of these glass sculptures represent cures for modern day ills such as Loss Of Faith, Financial Insecurity, Identity Theft and Erectile Dysfunction, The show has garnered a lot of reviews and attention, including the NY Times inclusion of an image of their work in the Time's Science section.

Apothecarium Moderne: Glass, mixed media, video.
photography by AnythingPhotographic

This collaboration is one of many such projects that the Connecticut-based Petrovic and DC-based Tate have worked on over the years, since they first met at Penland School of Crafts in 1992.

Word is that the new series is based on the seven deadly sins & they have been busy trying out each and every sin to gain insight.

Marc Petrovic and Tim Tate

Flux Studios welcomes Jessica Beels

If you have ever come out to the Gateway Arts District Open Studio Tours, you would know that adjacent to the Washington Glass School are some amazing artist studios.

Flux Studios, headed by celebrated ceramic artist Novie Trump, has announced that mixed media artist Jessica Beels will be joining the studio as their newest resident artist.


Jessica works in a number of materials, sculptural beads, paper, and ungalvanized steel armatures. Her work was featured at the Smithsonian Craft Show and at the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria.

Jessica has talked of using the change in studio space to allow her to take her work to a larger scale. Ms Beels said that she should be all settled in by the end of the next month or so.

We welcome Jessica to the 'hood - and look forward to seeing alot of great new work from her!