Telephone is a sculpture made from a re-purposed phone booth filled with blown glass, aluminum, silver and LEDS. Anyone familiar with local artist Randy Polumbo from Previous Posts here on The Gig will recognize his work immediately.
Telephone Interior Detail
Photographed at the Portal Art Fair, held at Federal Hall National Memorial in NYC, May 2016.
Update: Randy informs me that this piece is on exhibit at The Hollows, located at 151 Bedford Ave. (between N8 and N9) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for most of the Summer, too!
If you happen to pay a visit to the Museum of Arts and Design, be sure to take the stairs to travel between floors, because it is in the stairwell that you will find the museum’s stunning goblet collection.
MAD’s collection of goblets reveals the diversity of approaches taken by artists and designers to create this common vessel. The goblets range from those inspired by historic Venetian masterworks to mass produced pieces, to non-functional works by artists who make reference to the basic form.
There are advantages and disadvantages to having the goblets right up against the glass window, in that the natural light and transparency create favorable display conditions, but it’s challenging to get photos that don’t have, say, a crosstown bus, or the facade of the CVS Drug Store across the street in the background. First World Problems.
Open 24 Hours!
The center goblet, above, appears to pay homage to Bee Keeping. Nice.
The orange, spiny goblet reminds me of some of the pieces in This Post.
I love that this one has a collection of tiny goblets inside the cup!
The Museum of Arts and Design is Located at 2 Columbus Circle in NYC.
No matter how confident I ever am that I know most of the street level galleries in Chelsea, today I stopped it to the Heller Gallery on Tenth Avenue and asked how long they’d been open, since this was the first time I’d noticed them. The answer, which was quite unexpected, is that they’ve been at that location almost two years! How have I missed that? I have a few ideas. Continue reading Katherine Gray’s A Rainbow Like You→
When I was invited to an exhibit of “Functional Art Glass,” my first reaction was, WTF is Functional Art Glass? Then I read a little bit further into the press release and realized that, back in the day, a piece of Functional Art Glass was referred to as a Water Pipe, or a Bong. And now, it is functional art! I can’t tell you how much I love knowing this. As Andy Warhol once said, “Art is What You Can Get Away With.”
Celebrating Twenty Years in business, lifestyle accessories brand 1Percent, one of the leading online retailers for smoking accessories, is currently hosting a gallery showcase, pop-up shop, and a series of events in New York City for the month of January. The gallery features over 75 unique glass sculptures in the Nor’Easter Collection, and you can see why these pieces have risen the status of collectable art. Nor’Easter is a celebration of pipe culture from respected glass artists spanning across the east coast, including MTP, JOP!, Coyle and Slinger.
Artist Coyle (AKA Dan Coyle) Works on a Pipe
For fans and collectors alike, 1Percentwill provide a one-on-one exclusive experience with Brandon Long, the gallery curator, as he explains the basics of functional glass, the innovators, and the outlook for high-end glass collectors with the current glass renaissance. I was lucky enough to get a VIP guided tour of the glass with Brandon, and his knowledge is not only impressive but his stories are fun and engaging.
Slinger + EF Norris, Grateful to Be American, Price: $10,800
Brandon knows many of these artists personally and is familiar with their education, techniques and methods of creating these pipes. He had a fascinating anecdote about every piece in the gallery! I will attempt to recall some of what he said in my captions for the photos to follow.
Dale Chihuly is one of the greatest American glass artists. His Lime Green Icicle Tower (2011) measures more that 40 feet high, weighs approximately 10,000 pounds and is made up of 2,342 individual glass pieces mounted on a steel armature.
