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I found this to be a very inspiring story, and hope you enjoy it...<br>
<br>
Tony Patti<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.glassblower.info">www.glassblower.info</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gaffer@glassblower.info">gaffer@glassblower.info</a><br>
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Museum retrospective features works of a glass master</a><br>
<font size="-1"><font color="#666666">The Virginian-Pilot -
Norfolk,VA,USA</font><br>
Lino Tagliapietra broke the <b>glassblowing</b> mold by sharing
Murano's industry secrets with aspiring American artists. Above is
his''Mandara. <b>...</b><br>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"
style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Museum
retrospective features works of a glass master<br>
<br>
</span>By<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a
href="/2007/10/teresa-annas"
style="border-width: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 114, 172); text-decoration: underline;">Teresa
Annas</a><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
The Virginian-Pilot<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
© April 8, 2009</div>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">THE
BEST GLASSBLOWER in the world began his career as a little boy
assisting a glass-working team in Murano, Italy. It was a modest start
fueled by his red-hot passion to learn.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">Lino
Tagliapietra blew through his studies and by 22 had reached the level
of glass master in his hometown, a high achievement on an island long
renowned for its glass.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">Tagliapietra,
whose work is the subject of a show opening today at the Chrysler
Museum of Art as part of the region's "Art of Glass 2" festival,
labored in several glass factories, acquiring skills and opening up
possibilities at each one, from Renaissance-style goblets with dragon
stems to his invention of a modern sculpture that looks like the planet
Saturn.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">A
turning point came in 1979, at age 45, when he ventured to Seattle. As
he taught and befriended aspiring glassartists, a free-wheeling
American crew that craved his expertise, Tagliapietra's world got much
larger and more colorful.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">Now
he is 74 and has been an independent artist - not designing or blowing
for other artists, such as Dale Chihuly, or for Venetian glass
factories - since the mid-1990s. Many in the glass world speak his name
with reverence and affection.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">His
career path has mirrored one of his highly complex glass vessels.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">Imagine
a piece that began with a modest bubble. More glass was added, the form
further blown out, the shape paddled and altered, threads of colored
glass wrapped around it. And somewhere along the line, symbolizing his
shift to America, he changed the axis of his piece by moving the
blowpipe to the side of the vessel, one of his signature, mind-boggling
techniques.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">Tagliapietra,
speaking from his home in Murano, said he liked the analogy for his
life's work. "It became bigger and bigger and better and better," said
the man everyone calls Lino (pronounced Lee-no). "I like it very much."</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">With
one caveat.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">"Probably,
I still to grow."</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;"><strong
style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Actually, Tagliapietra's first stop<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></strong>in
America was a tree farm in Stanwood, Wash., site of Pilchuck Glass
School, 50 miles north of Seattle. In the summer of 1979, he took his
first-ever flight to get there, to teach aspiring glass artists. He
barely spoke a word of English.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">Why
go? "Mainly curiosity," he said last week. "Not only curiosity. I love
United States forever. I read about Mayflower people. I know about
Thanksgiving. I like the movie 'Easy Rider.' I like these kinds of
things."</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">When
he got there, he soon discovered the level of his pupils.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">"I
think at the time they are terrible!"</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">Even
the glass they worked with was poor quality and was "totally difficult
to work.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">"They
try to do some 'filigrana,' " blown glass incorporating slices of
"cane," which are long, slender sticks of fused, multicolored glass.
"Almost impossible."</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">Mostly
he demonstrated, and they made a stab at it.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">The
Americans had a different take. "God had come to Pilchuck," pronounced
one glassblower in the catalog essay by Susanne Frantz, a glass curator
who organized the touring exhibition that is bringing Tagliapietra's
work to the Chrysler.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">When
he arrived in Washington, Tagliapietra "was at the height of his skills
and cognizant of a new moment in glass in which he could share his
culture and build upon it," Frantz wrote.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">Murano
had been in a slump since the 1960s, and he had been trying to
revitalize its artistic heritage by helping to organize glass workshops
at home. He was excited about exploring new forms and ideas. That
attitude was not shared by most Muranese glass workers.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">He
came to like the young Americans. "They no care if the glass is the
worst material in the world. They are totally free. They try everything.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">"This
is why I like it so much."</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">He
returned to Pilchuck to teach 13 times between 1980 and 2003. Those
neophyte glass artists of the Pacific Northwest, now a who's who list
in American glass, absorbed much technical and aesthetic knowledge from
him. In return, he got respect.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">"I
feel important for them. And everything I say, they follow. I like it.
I like it very much.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">"I
feeling totally the opposite what I'm feeling in Murano. I feeling I am
something. I think it's possible to grow and do lots of beautiful
things.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">"I
feel freedom."</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">At
Pilchuck, Tagliapietra was sharing processes that Murano had long held
secret, because the island depended heavily on the glass industry.
"This make Murano probably a little bit uncomfortable," he said. Back
home, some glass workers expressed resentment and maybe some jealousy,
he said.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">"I
have lots of very good friends here, honest," he said of Murano. "But
if we go talking about work things or shows, I feel much more
comfortable in Seattle," where he and his wife, Lina, live for four or
five months each year.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">Most
Muranese (also called Venetian) glassblowers who leave the island stick
with what they know, even living elsewhere, he said. "They never grow
or change. Probably I am the first guy after going to States, I change.
I change a lot of things.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">"I
stay still a Venetian, but I do lots of new things."</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;"><strong
style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Tagliapietra's show covers<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></strong>his
career as a designer, artist and glassblower from the 1960s into the
2000s. The Museum of Glass in Tacoma organized the exhibition, but the
Chrysler's glass curator, Kelly Conway, is responsible for the Norfolk
stop.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">She's
been studying glassblowing at Tidewater Community College and can
really marvel at the virtuosity on display. But Tagliapietra's pieces
don't always betray his process.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">"You
get to stuff like this and how, how, how does he do this?" she said,
gazing at a 2006 vessel called "Medusa," with surface designs
suggesting jellyfish.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">She
knows he used the "incalmo" technique several times, which entails
adding on a separate blown form to an in-progress one. She also knows
he turned the axis more than once; that is, he transferred the piece
onto a new blowpipe to reorient the bubble. These are complex
procedures.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">But,
even if the technique was completely known: How does he do it?</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">The
answer lies in six decades of daily glassblowing, the influence of many
mentors, an awe-inspiring physical stamina and a passion for
experimentation.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">Those
things, plus his visionary "third eye." "We have two eyes, and then we
have the one eye inside our brain," he explained. "You see one piece
and then you see the transformation that could be the next one." One
work leads to another in a chain of inspiration.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">In
a documentary produced for the exhibition, Tagliapietra is shown
working. He looks calm, sometimes whistling as he undergoes complicated
procedures that would unnerve any other artist.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">When
he whistles, that means he's nervous. "It relaxes my stomach and mind,"
he said. No matter what goes wrong, he needs to keep his team of
assistants relaxed.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">Many
people quiz him about technique. But Tagliapietra quickly warmed to
discussing what inspired various works, and what they meant to him.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">His
exhibition's showstopper is "Endeavor," a flotilla of 35 blown-glass
"boats" floating in the air. Each is different, a gem of color and
shape and surface patterns.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">Tagliapietra
said he was inspired by a birdlike boat he saw in a painting in the
1950s, but he did not begin blowing his vision in glass until 1995. "My
boat is supposed to be like bird. For me, it's very poetic. Sometimes
like a big eagle. Sometimes like a pigeon. It's still boat."</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">Stand
before it and squint, and the piece looks like the rippling waters of
the lagoon off Murano, with colorful factory glass sparkling on the
surface.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">His
2004 piece "Stromboli" came from seeing the active volcano on the
island of Stromboli. He said he wanted to evoke the contrast between
flowing water, represented in a central stripe of turquoise, and the
red-hot lava and golden flame that flank it.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">"Mandara,"
made in 2006, means "forever young," he said. The teardrop-shaped
vessel, flattened somewhat into a disk, features curving stripes of
orange-red, marine blue and green-gold.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">Tagliapietra,
one of few glass artists who make their own colors rather than buying
them ready-made, saw the brilliant orange while watching a documentary
on India.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">He
created the piece after recovering from a 2002 operation for thyroid
cancer. "When they remove the thyroid, I start to feel much better. I
feel I must do something very important. I want something very bright,
very strong. Something make me up, then I go back to work."</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">The
bright colors lifted his spirit and made a statement.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;">"It
says, 'I want to stay life. I want to be forever young.' "</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 0.87em; line-height: 1.3em;"><em
style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Teresa Annas, (757) 446-2485,
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:teresa.annas@pilotonline.com">teresa.annas@pilotonline.com</a><br>
</em></p>
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