2023 Visiting Artist Lineup
October
Photo courtesy of the artist.
Romson Bustillo
October 6-8
Born in the Philippines, Bustillo has taught mixed media printmaking and interdisciplinary art throughout the Seattle area (including Pratt Fine Arts Center and University of Washington) for over 25 years. Carving his own path, Bustillo integrates an interdisciplinary practice with a mixed media printmaking foundation.
During his October residency, Bustillo will create a series of glass funerary jars and containers inspired by burial traditions of pre-colonial/pre-Abrahamic Philippines. While drawing on past traditions, these contemporary sculptures will include forms and embellishments that reflect the material culture and the conditions of our present times.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
Jay MacDonell
October 11-15
Jay Macdonell has worked globally for artists, designers, organizations, and architects as a project manager, design consultant, and gaffer. He served as Pilchuck's Educational Coordinator and is now the Director of Material Exploration and Development at Bocci, a design and architecture firm based in Vancouver, Milan, and Berlin. His work explores materiality and balance, his social practice strives for positive growth, and the breaking of barriers within the global glass community by being an ambassador and facilitator of the next generation of glass artists.
His October residency will be an exciting new experiment, inspired by interplay of color and opacity in the medium of glass. Macdonell will collaborate with local neon artists to create glass sculptures that combine traditional glassblowing techniques with electrifying elements.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
Walter Lieberman
October 18-20
Walter Lieberman has been working in glass for over 40 years, starting as a student at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. Lieberman is an internationally-known glass painter, and also a frequent highlight of the Hot Shop at MOG as an emcee and lecturer on the history of glass. He has been a staff member, Hauberg Fellow, and Artist-in-Residence at the Pilchuck Glass School, and has also taught painting at the Penland School of Craft and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. His work is in various prestigious museum collections such as the Corning Museum of Glass, Museum of Glass, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Lieberman’s residency will combine his passion for glass history with his technical expertise by deconstructing traditional Venetian vase designs, and reassembling them in a novel, and somewhat disconcerting manner.
November
Photo courtesy of the artist.
Kimberly Thomas
November 1-5
Kimberly Thomas is a biracial interdisciplinary sculptor and borosilicate flameworker currently residing in Denver, Colorado. She is known for her work’s intentionally flawed and unusual motifs as well as her intricate sculptural inventions. A self-taught glass artist, Thomas earned a BFA in Ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design and spent six years as a special effects make-up artist before she began flameworking in 2009.
Her residency will center on creating large-scale components for her signature invention: The Cloud Riding Contraption. These works will include a series of flameworked, kinetic, sculptural illustrations that tell a story about how to escape Earth, travel through time, or into other dimensions.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
Sarah Gilbert
November 15-19
Originally from Rochester, New York, Sarah Gilbert has been a member of the MOG Hot Shop Team since 2006, assisting artists from around the world. Gilbert creates imagery by using cameo engraving, a technique with a long history dating back to Roman times. Her constructed narratives begin with layers of glass color that are carved away, allowing her images to emerge. Gilbert’s work was recently featured at the Museum in the exhibition, Transparency: An LGBTQ+ Glass Art Exhibition organized by the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Gilbert was awarded her March 2023 residency after winning the Artist’s Choice Coney Award at the Museum’s 2022 Red Hot Auction and Gala. She hopes to use her time in the Hot Shop to investigate new avenues for her glassmaking and engraving practice.
December
Photos courtesy of the artist.
Layo Bright
December 13-17
Layo Bright is a Nigerian sculptor who explores migration, legacy, and identity through hybrid portraits, textiles, and mixed media works. She received her MFA with Honors from the Parsons School of Design, and has been awarded the International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award in support of her work.
Bright and her work will be featured in the Museum’s upcoming exhibition A Two-Way Mirror: Double Consciousness in Contemporary Glass by Black Artists, opening October 21, 2023.