Lino Tagliapietra is an influential Italian glass artist and master glassmaker. Born on the island of Murano, neighbouring Venice in the Venetian Lagoon, the artist started from a very young age working at the island’s glass furnaces and factories. Lino was soon regarded as a Maestro (master glass blower) in his early 20’s and granted with that title in the 1950’s, at a time when he worked for some of the most prestigious glassworks companies in Murano. During the 1960’s Lino started expressing his own forms of creativity through the design and execution of models with high technical and aesthetic quality, which earned him significant commercial success. Through his continued creative experimentation and mastered skills, Lino has developed a very personal style that is unmistakable and easily recognized, thus his exemplary practice is followed by many as a great source of inspiration.

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Large-scale clay sculpture and printmaking has become the focus of her work. The clay works are hand-built of earthenware paper clay and multi-fired to achieve a complex patina of surfaces. The monoprints are printed from plates made of stitched industrial grade roofing copper.

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Toots Zynsky is known internationally as one of the most innovative voices in the American Studio Glass Movement. Born in Boston, and raised in Massachusetts she earned her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1973. In 1971, she assisted Chihuly and others in the founding and early development of Pilchuck Glass School.

From 1980- 83, she was a key participant in the re-building and development of the second New York Experimental Glass Workshop, now UrbanGlass. While living in Europe from 1983-1999, she developed her renowned and unique “filet-de-verre” technique.

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Twenty five years living in a rainforest environment has impacted strong, and this is reflected in every aspect of his artwork today.  Being direct witness to the behaviours of the birds, animals, reptiles and insects that live there, has given an increased understanding  of the wonder and fragility of the natural world.

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Her unique works explore the expressive and narrative potential of linking glass with other materials, opening up a richly textured dialogue within each piece.  Her pieces are sculptural metaphors underlining the fragility, diversity and complexity of existence.  Recently her work explores ideas light and shadow through unity and multiplicity, individual and community, by creating large scale wall installations using multiple cast and most recently flameworked glass elements.

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It is important to me that the objects I make not only have a strong conceptual base but that they also build upon the qualities inherent to the material. Strength, fragility, transparency, opacity, fluidity, and stasis; these are all elements that I attempt to instill or refute in my work. People often comment on how the pieces seem like sea creatures or sea forms. Having been raised in Saskatchewan, I try to draw on the grand sweeping gestures and vast subtle movement of the prairies more than on the qualities of the sea, with which I am quite unfamiliar.

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Sandra Ainsley Gallery continues to celebrate our 30th anniversary with an exhibition of new work by Toots Zynsky, who is known internationally as one of the pioneering and most innovative voices in the contemporary art glass movement. Born in Boston, and raised in Massachusetts she earned her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1973. In 1971, she assisted Chihuly and others in the founding and early development of Pilchuck Glass School.

From 1980- 83, she was a key participant in the re-building and development of the second New York Experimental Glass Workshop, now UrbanGlass. While living in Europe from 1983-1999, she developed her renowned and unique “filet-de-verre” technique. To make her vessels, Zynsky first layers thousands of multicolored Murano glass threads onto a round heat-resistant fiberboard plate. For her, this part of the process is like drawing or painting. This mass of glass threads is then fused inside a kiln. While hot, the fused thread disk is allowed to slowly slump into a series of consecutively deeper and rounder preheated bowl-shaped metal forms. To make taller vessels, the piece is turned upside down and slumped over a cone-shaped mold. Finally, Zynsky reaches into the kiln, wearing special heat-resistant gloves, and she squeezes the glass into a unique undulating form. “When I was working with slump glass in 1971 to ’72, there was very little in the literature about it,” she says. “I wasn’t interested in just letting it happen.” She experimented and developed new techniques. “There are very few accidents in my work,” she explains. “I had to solve the technical part in order to make what I wanted to make.” Today she uses her knowledge and her skill and also allows her fingertips and her unconscious mind to form work of seemingly effortless beauty. Zynsky’s first solo exhibition in Canada will take place at Sandra Ainsley Gallery in Toronto, March 28 through May 12.

Toots Zynsky has been the recipient of many awards, including two National Endowment for the Arts Grants, as well as The Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts, and recently elected to the prestigious American Craft Council College of Fellows. Her work is represented in over 70 museum collections around the world.

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While Baldwin and Guggisberg do not exclusively make vessels, any survey of their work will show them as amongst those contemporary sculptors in glass who regularly explore glass’ long relationship with functionality, who work as heirs to the great tradition of the creation of objects for everyday use. If they are heirs, and if they are interested in acknowledging the forms – especially the vase – that have intrigued artists who work in glass for the last several thousand years, they are heirs who seem driven both to echo and extend.

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Latchezar Boyadjiev is known for large-scale cast glass sculpture in dramatic shapes and vibrant colour. His inspired creations are cast in the Czech Republic where he is able to select the most precise glass colour and desired consistency. Thomas Scoon‘s work focuses exclusively on the human form. Although abstracting the form, he is able to emphasize the essence of gesture, gender, and other human characteristics.The new works in this show will be comprised mostly of figurative cast pieces.
Bertina Mitchell of the Napa Valley Symphony will be performing live harp music selected for the opening reception.

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Jon Kuhn is regarded as one of the leading glass artists in the world. With works featured in over 40 international museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Vatican Museums, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the White House Permanent Collection, the National Museum of American Art and hundreds of private residences and public spaces, millions have enjoyed his beautiful works.

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Linda MacNeil began her prodigious career as a metalsmith while she was still a teenager.

Crafting wire jewelry in a basement studio set up by her father, she successfully sold the pieces on the street to passersby. MacNeil grew up in Hanover, New Hampshire, in a family filled with creative individuals, from her father who designed machinery to her clothing designer mother to relatives who were architects. Committed to art at an early age, MacNeil studied at the Philadelphia College of Art and the Massachusetts College of Art, where she was introduced to glass and her future husband, Dan Dailey. She received her B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1976.

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Dan Dailey works primarily in his Kensington, New Hampshire studio with the help of his staff of assistants. He is also Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts College of Art where he founded the Glass Department in 1973. He has taught at numerous glass programs including Rhode Island School of Design, Pilchuck Glass School and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and he has given lectures and workshops throughout the United States, Europe and Japan.

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An Exhibition featuring RED:
Martin Blank, Dale Chihuly, Laura Donefer, Susan Edgerley, Greg Fidler, Irene Frolic, Jeff Holmwood, Tanya Lyons, Jeff Mack, Markian Olynyk, Marlene Rose, Thomas Scoon, and Toots Zynsky.

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A chance meeting with Dale Chihuly in November 1988, crystallized into him opening my gallery in the Exchange Tower in May 1989. From the beginning, it was meant to be; initiating a 23-year professional collaboration and friendship that has enriched the Canadian art landscape. It has been my honour to present Chihuly’s work and to mark every gallery milestone with him.

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Philip Baldwin and Monica Guggisberg are vessel-makers, and it is vessels, in all the permutations and possibilities, that are at the core of the Boats series. While Baldwin and Guggisberg do not exclusively make vessels, any survey of their work will show them as amongst those contemporary sculptors in glass who regularly explore glass’s long relationship with functionality, who work as heirs to the great tradition of the creation of objects for everyday use. If they are heirs, and if they are interested in acknowledging the forms – especially the vase – that have intrigued artists who work in glass for the last several thousand years, they are heirs who seem driven both to echo and extend.

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