From the Accola Griefen Gallery:
Between Seeing and Knowing is a large-scale installation initiated through the Instructor Collaborative Residency Program at the Corning Museum of Glass in 2012. For this innovative work, Boothe and Cohen used an astounding range of glass processes including kiln-casting, slumping, fusing, blowing, hot-sculpting and sand-casting.
Conceptually the piece takes as a starting point the artists’ long-standing interest in 14th-19thC. Tibetan Buddhist Thangka paintings, integrating their otherwise separate studio practices. The artists reinterpreted the symbolism in the paintings to create a work that reflects the organizational structure and palette of paintings as well as the sense of expansiveness and lack of hard resolution characteristic of Buddhist ideology.
Anna Boothe studied sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design. She holds a MFA from the Tyler School of Art, and was a member of the Glass Program faculty for 16 years. From 2003-2007, she coordinated and instituted the Glass Art Degree Program at Salem Community College in southern New Jersey. Boothe was the President of the Glass Art Society’s Board of Directors from 2004 to 2006. The artist has taught at The Studio many times and lectured at venues including the Corning Museum of Glass, Urban Glass, the Pittsburgh Glass Center, Pilchuck Glass School as well at numerous glass schools in the United States, Belgium, Switzerland, Turkey, and Japan. Boothe’s work is in the collection of the Corning Museum of Glass, the Tacoma Museum of Art and in numerous private collections. Recently, she accepted the position of Director of Glass at the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia.
Nancy Cohen has an MFA from Columbia University. Recent projects include installations in Karmiel, Israel; the CODA Museum in Holland; the Katonah Museum of Art in NY and a collaboration with environmentalists based on the Mullica River for the Noyes Museum of Art in NJ. Cohen has been awarded a Pollack Krasner Grant and Fellowships in Sculpture and Works on Paper from the NJ State Council on the Arts. In 2011 Cohen was awarded the Pilchuck Glass School Residency. Her work is in the permanent collections of the NJ State Museum, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Museum, Montclair Art Museum, & Yale University Art Museum among others. Recent exhibits include a solo show at the Hunterdon Art Museum, NJ; a permanent installation at the Health Sciences Library, Howard University, Washington DC and inclusion in Shattered: Contemporary Sculpture in Glass at Frederik Meijer Sculpture Garden, Grand Rapids, MI which opens in September 2013.
Each year, The Studio invites selected instructors who have taught intensive courses over the past five years to apply for the Instructor Collaborative Residency, a seven- to ten-day residency held in September. The chosen artists have access to The Studio facilities to create a collaborative body of work.
The Instructor Collaborative Residency serves as a thank you to instructors for being a part of The Studio community, according to Studio director Amy Schwartz. In addition to this program, The Studio aims to be an advocate for glass artists by providing classes, scholarships, and month-long residency programs, which host one or two individual artists in March, April, May, October, and November of every year.
Interested in a residency at The Studio? The deadline for proposals is October 31, 2013. Visit http://www.cmog.org/glassmaking/studio/residencies for more information. And see Anna and Nancy’s work at Accola Griefen Gallery through October 12.