One of my pet peeves about the Web is that whenever creative organizations launch a new website, all-too-often, navigation is difficult and those fancy-schmancy flash animations render the download times interminably long. Ugh. Thankfully, this is not the case with the Tacoma Art Museum site. Easy to surf, yet pretty to behold, this site is, in my opinion, a model of Web design. (Such good design doesn’t come cheap, I’m sure.) Here’s an opportunity for you to help the museum pay for its facelift: October 18, TAM will be holding its annual gala benefit. Show up and pitch in!

–Dale

The Inuit supposedly have over 100 synonyms for ice. Add Peter Bremers to the mix and that vocabulary gets exploded exponentially. Bremers, who deals in kilned-formed glass, makes pretty much one thing: icebergs. But the variety of colors, shapes and moods of these pieces makes those silent giants a world unto itself. If you step off the elevator on the 24th floor, you will be able to get a taste of his talents. As Rosemary Ponnekanti wrote in a recent Tribune article, “Bremers’ cast glass “Iceberg,” a teardrop hole carved into a huge, ice-blue hunk, is flanked by stunning images of the Greenland icebergs that inspired his work.”

–Dale

In the seafaring Japanese culture, fish occupy a central place as cultural markers, symbols and sources of inspiration. Blown glass artist Hiroshi Yamano takes all of that a step further, appropriating the fish as an alter ego. Says the artist, “My works come from all my experiences. The memories I have from my experiences are my most important treasures. To keep finding my treasures, I have to keep swimming the world like a fish swimming in the waters.” He adds, poetically, “I am a fish who is always looking for something. I am a fish who cannot stop swimming until my body stops moving. Maybe I will swim forever, like the universe.” See his work on Floor 22.

–Dale

All too often, artists who work with historical models or with “antiquing” techniques, such as faux-distressed finishes, veer into pastiche and inauthenticity. It is as if they become mesmerized by the content of their artwork, be it 1950’s kitsch or Greek classicism, and lose their authorial control. Peter Powning does not have that problem. Take a look at this vase. Here’s how Peter describes his work with his kilned-glass pieces. “My work is meant to have the feel of the artifact. An emotional artifact made solid. A cultural artifact from some future/past, reconstructed or guessed at. Some parts original, some new, others assumed.” What makes such work legitimate? The clear-headed purposefulness behind it all. He suggests that ideas that characterize might include, “falling apart, pulling myself together, the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, cultural fragmentation, the beauty of the spirit that has been tried and survived.” A lot of feeling goes into his work, and it is that emotional clarity that makes his worth both credible and incredible. You’ll find him on the 22nd floor.

–Dale

“I am creating compositions to make people aware once more of these inchoate things we have in common.” So says Masayo Odahashi. This Japanese artist’s kilned-glass works often feature delicate figurines whose inner luster is cloaked in a rice paper-like fragility. In one exhibit, Odahashi says that “you will find glass that fills a vessel or body and faintly shines some light through cracks and peeled away portions on the surface of that body, as if to indicate what exists within.” Want to see what Odahashi means? Take a detour (or book a room!) On the 21st floor.

– Dale

You might recall that last September, we caught the Murano glass show at the Travers gallery and had some nice things to say about local hero Lino Tagliapietra. Well, if you didn’t get enough of his work then, you should stop in at the Museum of Glass. On March 29, they opened a new exhibit honoring Tagliapietra called “Living Legacies: Homage to a Maestro.” Well deserved kudos to a true visionary.

– Dale

Native American glass artist Preston Singletary blurs the lines between the traditional and the contemporary; his heritage and his modern life. As a member of the Tlingit tribe, he creates works that depict his family’s animal symbols, such as the wolf. But these highly refined pieces use modern techniques to recontextualize these ancient symbols for the modern experience. As such, he is adding a new chapter to the Native American story – one that takes into account both its rich history and its current reality. Singletary does not lament; he accepts and celebrates. Watch an interview with the artist here. His work is in the collection of the Corning Museum of Glass, the Heard Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Seattle Art Museum and now, on the 20th floor of the Hotel Murano.

-Dale

“I use the vessel as a way to enter the work, a starting point if you like, but the vessel also acts as a metaphor for the container of ideas,” so says Bruno Romanelli. This glass artist has pared his work down to its bare essentials: cylinders, disks and cones and he infuses them just one simple color – or no color at all. The result is that his pieces are so easy to “get” that you could walk right by them. That would be a mistake, because, as he says, “Each piece is an exploration of the relationships between form, color and material.” Very true. If Piet Mondrian had been a glass sculptor, he would been Bruno Romanelli.

–Dale

The guys over at Exit 133 have done a very cool thing. They interviewed our very own Tessa Papas, curator of our hotel’s art, and Costas Varotsos, the man behind the 100-foot-tall sculpture in our front yard. They videotaped the interview. Check it out right here.

–James

Her name is Mary Ann, but you can call her Toots. I like this woman already. Toots Zynsky was one of the 16 original students to come out of the Pilchuck Glass School back in 1971. Known for her innovative technique for fusing glass called “Filet de Verre”, Zynsky’s bowl-shaped pieces utilize fine glass threads of ripe, luscious colors that look like spun glass. Her work is represented by more than thirty five museums world wide, including the White House Collection of American Craft. In 2005 she was one of the first artists to have artwork commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art. See her contribution to the Hotel Murano by stopping off on the 17th floor.

–Dale